The Oslo Report was one of the most spectacular leaks in the history of military intelligence. Written by German mathematician and physicist
Hans Ferdinand Mayer
Hans Ferdinand Mayer (born 23 October 1895 in Pforzheim, Germany; died 18 October 1980 in Munich, West Germany) was a German mathematician and physicist. He was the author of the " Oslo Report", a major military intelligence leak which reveale ...
on 1 and 2 November 1939 during a business trip to
Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...
, Norway, it described several
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
weapons, some in service and others being developed. Mayer mailed the report anonymously in the form of two letters to the British Embassy in Oslo, where they were passed on to
MI6
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
in London for further analysis, providing an invaluable resource to the British in developing
counter-measures, especially to navigational and targeting
radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...
s and contributed to the British winning the
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...
.
Background
Hans Ferdinand Mayer received his doctorate in physics from the
University of Heidelberg
}
Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...
in 1920. After spending two years as a research associate there in his doctoral supervisor's (
Philipp Lenard
Philipp Eduard Anton von Lenard (; hu, Lénárd Fülöp Eduárd Antal; 7 June 1862 – 20 May 1947) was a Hungarian-born German physicist and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1905 for his work on cathode rays and the discovery of ...
) laboratory, he joined
Siemens AG
Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad.
The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', ''E ...
in 1922. He became interested in
telecommunications
Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
and joined Siemens' communication research laboratory, becoming its director in 1936. In this position, he had contacts all over Europe and the United States and had access to a wide range of information about electronics development in Germany, especially in the military sector.
Sending the report
After Hitler
invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, Mayer decided to divulge to the British as much as he could about military secrets to defeat the
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
regime. He arranged a business trip to
Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...
in late October 1939. He arrived at his first scheduled stop,
Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...
, Norway, on 30 October 1939 and checked into the
Hotel Bristol
The Hotel Bristol is the name of more than 200 hotels around the world. They range from grand European hotels, such as Hôtel Le Bristol Paris and the Hotel Bristol in Warsaw or Vienna to budget hotels, such as the SRO (single room occupancy) ...
.
Mayer borrowed a typewriter from the hotel, and typed the seven-page Oslo Report in the form of two letters over two days. He mailed the first on 1 November, asking the British military attaché to arrange for the
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...
to alter the introduction to its German-language programme if he wished to receive the Report. This was done, and he sent the Report along with a vacuum tube from a prototype
proximity fuze
A proximity fuze (or fuse) is a Fuze (munitions), fuze that detonates an Explosive material, explosive device automatically when the distance to the target becomes smaller than a predetermined value. Proximity fuzes are designed for targets such ...
. He also wrote a letter to his long-time British friend
Henry Cobden Turner, asking him to communicate with him via their Danish colleague Niels Holmblad. This indirect communication path was required since Britain and Germany were at war, but Denmark was at that time neutral. Mayer continued his travels to Denmark to visit Holmblad, asking if he could relay information between himself and Turner. Holmblad readily agreed, but once
Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...
invaded Denmark on 9 April 1940, this communication route was no longer feasible. Mayer then returned to Germany. Although Mayer was arrested for political offenses by the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
in 1943 and was imprisoned at
Dachau and
Nazi concentration camps
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...
until the war ended, the Nazis never knew of the Oslo Report.
British reaction
On 4 November 1939, Captain
Hector Boyes
Rear Admiral Hector George Boyes, (20 February 1881 – 23 October 1960) was an officer of the Royal Navy.
Background, early career, and World War I
Boyes was born in 1881 at Plymouth, the son of a naval officer, Sir George Boyes; he entered ...
, the Naval Attaché at the British Embassy in Oslo, received an anonymous letter offering him a secret report on the latest German technical developments. To receive the report, he was to arrange for the usual announcement of the
BBC World Service's German-language broadcast to be changed to "Hullo, hier ist London". This was done and resulted in the delivery of a parcel a week later, which contained a typewritten document and a type of
vacuum tube
A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric voltage, potential difference has been applied.
The type kn ...
, a sensor for a
proximity fuze
A proximity fuze (or fuse) is a Fuze (munitions), fuze that detonates an Explosive material, explosive device automatically when the distance to the target becomes smaller than a predetermined value. Proximity fuzes are designed for targets such ...
for shells or bombs. The document became famous after its existence was revealed in 1947, and would go down in history as the "Oslo Report". Boyes quickly appreciated the Report's potential importance and had a member of the embassy staff make a translation which he forwarded to
MI6
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
in London along with the original.
The Oslo Report was received with indifference or even disbelief by British Intelligence, with the notable exception of
Dr. R. V. Jones, a young Ph.D. physicist who had recently been put in charge of a new field called "Scientific Intelligence". Jones argued that despite the breadth of information and a few inaccuracies, the technical details were correct and argued that all the electronic systems divulged therein be further explored. In a 1940 report, Jones summarized his thoughts:
The contribution of this source to the present problem may be summarised in the statements that the Germans were bringing into use an R.D.F. system similar to our own,... A careful review of the whole report leaves only two possible conclusions: (1) that it was a "plant" to persuade us that the Germans were as well advanced as ourselves or (2) that the source was genuinely disaffected from Germany, and wished to tell us all he knew. The general accuracy of the information, the gratuitous presentation of the fuse, and the fact that the source made no effort, as far as it is known, to exploit the matter, together with the subsequent course of the war and our recent awakening with Knickebein
The Battle of the Beams was a period early in the Second World War when bombers of the German Air Force (''Luftwaffe'') used a number of increasingly accurate systems of radio navigation for night bombing in the United Kingdom. British scientific ...
, weigh heavily in favour of the second conclusion. It seems, then, that the source was reliable, and he was manifestly competent.
In his 1989 book, Jones summarized the importance of the Oslo Report:
It was probably the best single report received from any source during the war.... Overall, of course, the contributions from other sources such as the Enigma decrypts, aerial photographs
Aerial photography (or airborne imagery) is the taking of photographs from an aircraft or other airborne platforms. When taking motion pictures, it is also known as aerial videography.
Platforms for aerial photography include fixed-wing aircra ...
, and reports from the Resistance, outweighed the Oslo contribution, but these were all made from organizations involving many, sometimes thousands of individuals and operating throughout most of the war. The Oslo Report, we believed, had been written by a single individual who in one great flash had given us a synoptic glimpse of much of what was foreshadowed in German military electronics.
While Jones trusted the Oslo Report, the
Admiralty
Admiralty most often refers to:
*Admiralty, Hong Kong
*Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964
*The rank of admiral
*Admiralty law
Admiralty can also refer to:
Buildings
* Admiralty, Traf ...
thought that the Report was "too good to be true" and was deception by the
Abwehr, with its fantastic claims written by psychological warfare experts. An additional argument raised by the doubters was that no person could have such wide knowledge of weapons technology as discussed in the Report. This was mainly because of service rivalry in Britain and the US, and it was known that there was similar rivalry in Germany. The Oslo Report is concentrated on electronic technology; several big German companies were involved in such projects for all three armed forces; some scientists in these companies would have had knowledge of much of the research being conducted.
Report contents
The original typed report was seven pages long. It was retyped, with a number of carbon copies being made for distribution. No specimen of the original translation is known, and the German version held by the
Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military ...
is one of the carbon copies and lacks the sketches that were apparently included in Mayer's original. A typed copy in German can also be found in the
Public Record Office
The Public Record Office (abbreviated as PRO, pronounced as three letters and referred to as ''the'' PRO), Chancery Lane in the City of London, was the guardian of the national archives of the United Kingdom from 1838 until 2003, when it was m ...
, while the report has been published twice in English translation.
The section headings given here correspond to those in the report. Some of the information Mayer heard was second-hand and later proved to be incorrect.
Ju 88 programme
Junkers 88
The Junkers Ju 88 is a German World War II ''Luftwaffe'' twin-engined multirole combat aircraft. Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works (JFM) designed the plane in the mid-1930s as a so-called '' Schnellbomber'' ("fast bomber") that would be too fast ...
medium bomber production levels are stated to be probably 5,000 per month, with a total of over 25–30,000 predicted to be produced by April 1940. This turned out to be an exaggeration of production levels and total production.
The ''Franken''
The report states that the German navy's first aircraft carrier is at
Kiel
Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern Germany, German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021).
Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the J ...
, and was expected to be finished in April 1940. The carrier was referred to as ''Franken''.
It is sometimes suggested that Mayer was mistaken and that he was instead identifying the carrier ''
Graf Zeppelin''. However, the construction of ''Graf Zeppelin'' was well known to Allied navies. Following ''Kriegsmarine'' ship naming policy, she was known as "''Flugzeugträger A''" prior to her launch and naming on 8 December 1938. A second carrier known as "''
Flugzeugträger B
The ''Graf Zeppelin''-class aircraft carriers were four German ''Kriegsmarine'' aircraft carriers planned in the mid-1930s by Grand Admiral Erich Raeder as part of the Plan Z rearmament program after Germany and Great Britain signed the Anglo-Ger ...
''" was also laid down in Kiel in 1938 with a launch date planned for July 1940, possibly to be named as ''Peter Strasser''. Work on this second carrier was halted in September 1939 and she was broken up the following year. It is possible that Mayer misinterpreted the construction of the large naval tanker ''Franken'' for this second aircraft carrier and wanted to alert the Allies to this development. The naval tanker (launched on 8 March 1939) was in the process of being built right next to the ''Graf Zeppelin'', itself still under construction.
Remote-controlled gliders
This section of the report described remote-controlled gliders of wingspan and length, carrying an explosive charge, and fitted with an altimeter intended to maintain them at an altitude of above the water, the horizontal stage of their flight to be powered by a rocket engine. This description is similar to the ultimately unsuccessful
Blohm & Voss BV 143
The Blohm & Voss BV 143 was an early prototype rocket-assisted glide bomb developed by the German Luftwaffe during World War II.
Design
Blohm & Voss designers began to consider airborne missiles late in 1938, even before the outbreak of war. F ...
, or if the wingspan alone is considered, it could have referred to the
Henschel Hs 293 design, controlled with an FuG 203 ''Kehl'' transmitter in the deploying aircraft and an FuG 230 ''Straßburg'' receiver in the ordnance.
Autopilot
Here, Mayer briefly described another remote-controlled system, this time for an aircraft instead of for a rocket.
Remote-controlled projectiles
The German word ''Geschoss'' was used in the report, which can also be translated to mean
artillery shell, but the German text clearly states that a rocket was meant. This is also clear from the remark that the projectile is highly unstable when fired, while artillery shells would be spin-stabilized, or fin-stabilized in the case of
mortar projectiles.
The mentioned size of calibre was seen as a curious item at the time; even by 1943, British rocket developers were focused on solid fuels, and thinking in diameters of around ; a solid fuel rocket of more than ten times this diameter would have caused a
credibility gap, which did in fact happen when more information later became available to British intelligence. With hindsight, the description can be recognised as the
A8 rocket, which had a diameter of .
The one crucial item of information omitted by the author of the Oslo Report was the use of liquid fuels in the German ballistic rocket program.
Rechlin
Rechlin
Rechlin is a municipality in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany, around 100 km (60 mi) northwest of Berlin. The town's airport has a long history and was the Luftwaffe's main testing ground for new aircraft designs in Nazi Germany. ...
is a small town located on the southern shore of Lake
Müritz
The Müritz (; from Slavic "little sea") is a lake in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, northern Germany. Its area is , which makes it the second largest lake in Germany (after Lake Constance) and the largest lake located entirely within German territory ...
north of
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
, with the turf-covered airfield – some 4.5 km (2.5 miles) directly north of the 21st century
Rechlin–Lärz Airfield
Rechlin–Lärz Airfield (German: ''Flugplatz Rechlin-Lärz'') is an airfield in the village of Rechlin, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. The airport is not used for scheduled traffic but features general aviation and is home to other leis ...
– being the core of the
Luftwaffe
The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...
's central ''Erprobungstelle'' aviation test facility, first built as a military airfield by the
German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
in August 1918. The facility's main turf surface airfield, set up in the manner of a pre-WW II
aerodrome
An aerodrome (Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for publ ...
without clearly defined runways, was bounded by a roughly hexagonal-layout perimeter road that still exists. Mayer noted that the Luftwaffe's laboratories and research centers were there, and that it was a "worthwhile point of attack" for bombers.
Methods of attacks on bunkers
Mayer noted during the
invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...
in 1939, Polish bunkers were attacked using
smoke shell
A shell, in a military context, is a projectile whose payload contains an explosive, incendiary, or other chemical filling. Originally it was called a bombshell, but "shell" has come to be unambiguous in a military context. Modern usage ...
s which forced their crews to withdraw deeper into the bunkers, following which soldiers armed with
flamethrower
A flamethrower is a ranged incendiary device designed to project a controllable jet of fire. First deployed by the Byzantine Empire in the 7th century AD, flamethrowers saw use in modern times during World War I, and more widely in World ...
s attacked under cover of the smoke.
Air raid warning equipment
Mayer mentions that the British air raid on
Wilhelmshaven
Wilhelmshaven (, ''Wilhelm's Harbour''; Northern Low Saxon: ''Willemshaven'') is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of the Jade Bight, a bay of the North Sea, and has a population of 76,089. Wilhelmsha ...
in September 1939 was detected while the aircraft were from the German coast using
radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...
. He also gives the technical characteristics of the German early-warning radar systems:
power
Power most often refers to:
* Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work"
** Engine power, the power put out by an engine
** Electric power
* Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events
** Abusive power
Power may a ...
,
pulse duration
In signal processing and telecommunication, pulse duration is the interval between the time, during the first transition, that the amplitude of the pulse reaches a specified fraction (level) of its final amplitude, and the time the pulse amplitude ...
, and range were described in some detail, along with counter-measures that could exploit the radar system's vulnerabilities. Mayer did not know the last critical piece of information, the
wavelength
In physics, the wavelength is the spatial period of a periodic wave—the distance over which the wave's shape repeats.
It is the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same phase on the wave, such as two adjacent crests, tro ...
. Mayer mentioned April 1940 as the deadline for installation of this radar. He described a similar second system that was under development at the time, that operated at a 50 cm wavelength. The
FuG 200 ''Hohentwiel'' ASV airborne maritime search radar and the
FuG 202 ''Lichtenstein'' AI night fighter radar operated in the low-UHF band, 490 to 550 MHz frequencies of around 50 cm wavelength.
This section of the report revealed Mayer's depth of knowledge of radar technology. The operational radar principle he revealed – a short burst of transmitted energy, measuring the time-of-flight and calculating range from it – was known by the British and was already used in the
Chain Home early warning radar. Revealing the details of the system under development allowed the British to invent a simple countermeasure they called
Window
A window is an opening in a wall, door, roof, or vehicle that allows the exchange of light and may also allow the passage of sound and sometimes air. Modern windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent materia ...
, already known to the Germans as ''Düppel'', which consisted of long strips of aluminium foil of a length designed to optimally reflect the German 50 cm radar signals,
jamming them. It was learned that 50 cm was a standard wavelength of German defensive radars, which made Window an effective method of blinding all their defensive radar systems, following its introduction in the
Hamburg raid of 24 July 1943.
Aircraft rangefinder
Mayer described a system being developed at Rechlin for navigating German bombers to their targets, which used a single radio transmission to accurately locate a bomber's range from the transmitter. This was the
''Y-Gerät'' (Y-apparatus). Mayer gave the wavelength as 6m (50 MHz). Mayer's description was fairly accurate, though it actually operated at 45 MHz.
Torpedoes
Mayer described two new types of torpedoes in service with the German navy. The first was a type of
acoustic torpedo
An acoustic torpedo is a torpedo that aims itself by listening for characteristic sounds of its target or by searching for it using sonar ( acoustic homing). Acoustic torpedoes are usually designed for medium-range use, and often fired from a sub ...
designed to be used from distances of . It was intended to be steered close to a convoy using a long wave radio receiver, then two acoustic receivers in the head of the torpedo would take over when it came within a few hundred metres of a ship. The second type of torpedo (mentioned as the same type that was used to sink
HMS ''Royal Oak'' in 1939), was described as having a
magnetic fuze designed to detect the deviations in the
Earth's magnetic field
Earth's magnetic field, also known as the geomagnetic field, is the magnetic field that extends from Earth's interior out into space, where it interacts with the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emanating from the Sun. The magnetic f ...
caused by a ship's metal hull and explode beneath its keel. Mayer described the principle of the fuze and suggested that it could be defended against by generating a suitable magnetic field.
The second type was deployed by the Germans as a mine. The Allies defeated it by
degaussing
Degaussing is the process of decreasing or eliminating a remnant magnetic field. It is named after the gauss, a unit of magnetism, which in turn was named after Carl Friedrich Gauss. Due to magnetic hysteresis, it is generally not possible to red ...
their ships so that the mine could no longer detect them. The Allies were also able to sweep the mines by generating a suitable magnetic field to trip the mine.
Electric fuzes for bombs and shells
The final section of the report described how mechanical
fuze
In military munitions, a fuze (sometimes fuse) is the part of the device that initiates function. In some applications, such as torpedoes, a fuze may be identified by function as the exploder. The relative complexity of even the earliest fuze d ...
s for artillery shells were being discontinued in favour of electrical fuzes and mentioned that bombs already had electrical fuzes. Mayer described the working of bomb fuzes and described electrical time fuzes. He also mentioned an idea for a
proximity fuze
A proximity fuze (or fuse) is a Fuze (munitions), fuze that detonates an Explosive material, explosive device automatically when the distance to the target becomes smaller than a predetermined value. Proximity fuzes are designed for targets such ...
, i.e. a fuze that detonates a warhead at a set distance from a target. The fuze he described sensed its target by changes in partial capacitances, which in practice turned out to be impracticable. He mentioned its anti-aircraft applications and its use in anti-personnel artillery shells, an application which was later employed by the Allies. Mayer concluded by mentioning that the fuzes were manufactured by
Rheinmetall in
Sömmerda,
Thüringen
Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million.
Erfurt is the capital and larg ...
.
Revealing the report and the author
On 12 February 1947, Jones gave an invited talk to the
Royal United Services Institute
The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI, Rusi), registered as Royal United Service Institute for Defence and Security Studies and formerly the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, is a British defence and security think tank. ...
that publicly revealed for the first time the existence and importance of the Oslo Report.
This part of his talk caught the eye of the press and it was widely publicized. Jones revealed some of the Report's contents, holding back many details to test anyone claiming authorship, but neither Henry Cobden Turner nor Mayer heard of the talk at the time.
By chance Turner and Jones were on the same voyage of the in 1953 and one evening, they sat at the same dinner table. They found much in common and Jones invited Turner to a dinner at his London club. On 15 December 1953 the dinner was arranged, during which one of Jones' friends, Professor Frederick Norman of
King's College London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
, excitedly shouted "Oslo!!". Turner and Norman privately told Jones over after-dinner drinks that Turner had heard from his old German friend, Hans Ferdinand Mayer at the beginning of the war, in a letter written from Oslo. Upon learning of Mayer's background and position at
Siemens
Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad.
The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', '' ...
, Jones decided to open a correspondence with Mayer using Turner as a middleman. Jones and Mayer met at a 1955 radar conference in Munich and had dinner with Turner at Mayer's house. Jones quickly determined that Mayer had written the Oslo Report. They agreed that divulging who had written the Report would serve no purpose and agreed to silence. They continued to exchange letters, with Mayer providing more details about how he wrote it.
Jones decided to write a book about his wartime scientific intelligence work for
MI6
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
but it did not appear until 1978, when it was published as ''Most Secret War'' in the UK and ''The Wizard War'' in the United States. In the book, he discussed how he used the Oslo Report, but did not reveal the author.
[R. V. Jones (1978), p. 71.]
Inevitably, the question will be asked regarding my own ideas about the identity of the Oslo author.
I believe that I know, but the way in which the identity was revealed to me was so extraordinary that it may well not be credited.
In any event, it belongs to a later period, and the denouement must wait until then.
Mayer died in 1980 without being publicly acknowledged as the author. Jones' sequel, published in 1989, revealed the author's identity.
References
Notes
Bibliography
* Browm, Louis.(1999) ''A Radar History of World War II: Technical and Military Imperatives'', Bristol: Institute of Physics Publishing, .
* Johnson, Don H. ''Scanning Our Past - Origins of the Equivalent Circuit Concept: The Current-Source Equivalent'', Proc. IEEE, 91:817–821, May 2003.
*
Jones, Reginald V. (1978) ''Most Secret War: British Scientific Intelligence 1939–1945''. London: Hamish-Hamilton, . Published in the United States as ''The Wizard War: British Scientific Intelligence 1939–1945'', New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, .
*
Jones, Reginald V. (1989) ''Reflections on Intelligence''. London: Heinemann, .
*{{cite web , url= http://www.v2rocket.com/start/chapters/peene/oslo_report.html , title=The Oslo Report , first=Frithjof A.S. , last=Sterrenburg , work=v2rocket.com
External links
CIA Library - minimally edited version of Jones' 1947 talk to the Royal United Services Instituteaccessed 4 May 2010
accessed 4 May 2010
*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20141014090344/http://arcre.com/archive/wwii/oslo Text of the Oslo report including illustrations (Registration required for text beyond para 10)accessed 10 Oct 2014
History of Oslo
Intelligence reports
Military history of Germany during World War II
Telecommunications in World War II
World War II espionage
1939 in military history
1939 in Germany
1939 in Norway
1939 documents