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London Controlling Section
The London Controlling Section (LCS) was a British secret department established in September 1941, under Oliver Stanley, with a mandate to coordinate Allied strategic military deception during World War II. The LCS was formed within the Joint Planning Staff at the offices of the War Cabinet, which was presided over by Winston Churchill as Prime Minister. At first the department struggled to have any impact, and Stanley spent time away from the office due to his wife's terminal illness. In June his post of Controlling Officer was handed over to Colonel John Bevan (British Army officer), John Bevan, who managed the LCS until the end of the war. The organisation was publicly revealed by Sir Ronald Wingate in 1969. Early deception Following the onset of the Second World War, the Allied nations began to recognise deception as a useful strategy. In early 1941 Lieutenant-Colonel Dudley Clarke's 'A' Force department, based in Cairo, undertook deception operations for the North Africa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dennis Wheatley
Dennis Yates Wheatley (8 January 1897 – 10 November 1977) was an English writer whose prolific output of thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's best-selling authors from the 1930s through to the 1960s. Early life Wheatley was born at 10, Raleigh Gardens, Brixton Hill, London, the eldest of three children--and only son--of Albert David Wheatley (died 1927) and Florence Elizabeth Harriet (1874-1955), daughter of ironmaster William Yates Baker, of Aspen House, 219, Brixton Hill. Wheatley's father owned Wheatley & Son, a wine business in Mayfair, London. Dennis admitted to having little aptitude for schooling and was later expelled after a few "unhappy years" studying at Dulwich College for allegedly forming a "secret society", as he mentions in his introduction to '' The Devil Rides Out''. Soon after his expulsion, Wheatley became a British Merchant Navy officer cadet on the training ship HMS ''Worcester''. Military service Wheatley was commissioned as a 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Cecil Masterman
Sir John Cecil Masterman OBE (12 January 1891 – 6 June 1977) was a British academic, sportsman and author. His highest-profile role was as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, but he was also well known as chairman of the Twenty Committee, which during the Second World War ran the Double-Cross System, controlling double agents in Britain. Academic background Masterman was born in Kingston upon Thames, and educated at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, and Dartmouth, then at Worcester College, Oxford, where he read modern history.Campbell, John P. "Masterman, Sir John Cecil (1891–1977), college head and intelligence officer." ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-31420 In 1914, at the outbreak of the First World War, he was an exchange lecturer at the University of Freiburg, and as a result spent four years interned as an enemy alien in the Ruhleben internment cam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Double-Cross System
The Double-Cross System or XX System was a World War II counter-espionage and deception operation of the British Security Service ( MI5). Nazi agents in Britain – real and false – were captured, turned themselves in or simply announced themselves, and were then used by the British to broadcast mainly disinformation to their Nazi controllers. Its operations were overseen by the Twenty Committee under the chairmanship of John Cecil Masterman; the name of the committee comes from the number 20 in Roman numerals: "XX" (i.e. a double cross). The policy of MI5 during the war was initially to use the system for counter-espionage. It was only later that its potential for deception purposes was realised. Of the agents from the German intelligence services, ''Abwehr'' and '' Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD), while many who reached British shores turned themselves in to the authorities, others were apprehended after they made elementary mistakes during their operations. In addition, some were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ultra (cryptography)
Ultra was the designation adopted by United Kingdom, British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park. ''Ultra'' eventually became the standard designation among the western Allies of World War II, Allies for all such intelligence. The name arose because the intelligence obtained was considered more important than that designated by the highest British Classified information, security classification then used (''Most Secret'' and so was regarded as being ''Ultra Secret''. Several other cryptonyms had been used for such intelligence. The code name "Boniface" was used as a cover name for ''Ultra''. In order to ensure that the successful code-breaking did not become apparent to the Germans, British intelligence created a fictional MI6 master spy, Boniface, who controlled a fictional series of agents throug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an English country house and Bletchley Park estate, estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire), that became the principal centre of Allies of World War II, Allied World War II cryptography, code-breaking during the Second World War. During World War II, the estate housed the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), which regularly penetrated the secret communications of the Axis Powers most importantly the German Enigma machine, Enigma and Lorenz cipher, Lorenz ciphers. The GC&CS team of codebreakers included John Tiltman, Dilwyn Knox, Alan Turing, Harry Golombek, Gordon Welchman, Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander, Hugh Alexander, Donald Michie, W. T. Tutte, Bill Tutte and Stuart Milner-Barry. The team at Bletchley Park devised automatic machinery to help with decryption, culminating in the development of Colossus computer, Colossus, the world's first programmable digital electronic computer. Codebreaking operations at Bletchley Park ended in 1946 and al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Theatre
The European theatre of World War II was one of the two main theatres of combat during World War II, taking place from September 1939 to May 1945. The Allied powers (including the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union and France) fought the Axis powers (including Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy) on both sides of the continent in the Western and Eastern fronts. There was also conflict in the Scandinavian, Mediterranean and Balkan regions. It was an intense conflict that led to at least 39 million deaths and a dramatic change in the balance of power in the continent. During the 1930s, Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany, expanded German territory by annexing all of Austria and the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia in 1938. This was motivated in part by Germany's racial policy that believed the country needed to expand for the pseudoscientific "Aryan race" to survive. They were aided by Italy, another fascist state which was led by Benito Mussolini. World ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Double Agents
In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organization for the target organization. Double agentry may be practiced by spies of the target organization who infiltrate the controlling organization or may result from the ''turning'' (switching sides) of previously loyal agents of the controlling organization by the target. The threat of execution is the most common method of turning a captured agent (working for an intelligence service) into a double agent (working for a foreign intelligence service) or a double agent into a ''re-doubled agent''. It is unlike a defector, who is not considered an agent as agents are in place to function for an intelligence service and defectors are not, but some consider that defectors in place are agents until they have defected. Double agents are oft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Codebreaking
Cryptanalysis (from the Greek ''kryptós'', "hidden", and ''analýein'', "to analyze") refers to the process of analyzing information systems in order to understand hidden aspects of the systems. Cryptanalysis is used to breach cryptographic security systems and gain access to the contents of encrypted messages, even if the cryptographic key is unknown. In addition to mathematical analysis of cryptographic algorithms, cryptanalysis includes the study of side-channel attacks that do not target weaknesses in the cryptographic algorithms themselves, but instead exploit weaknesses in their implementation. Even though the goal has been the same, the methods and techniques of cryptanalysis have changed drastically through the history of cryptography, adapting to increasing cryptographic complexity, ranging from the pen-and-paper methods of the past, through machines like the British Bombes and Colossus computers at Bletchley Park in World War II, to the mathematically advanced comput ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oberkommando Des Heeres
The (; abbreviated OKH) was the high command of the Army of Nazi Germany. It was founded in 1935 as part of Adolf Hitler's rearmament of Germany. OKH was ''de facto'' the most important unit within the German war planning until the defeat at Moscow in December 1941. During World War II, OKH had the responsibility of strategic planning of Armies and Army Groups. The General Staff of the OKH managed operational matters. Each German Army also had an Army High Command ( or AOK). The Armed Forces High Command () then took over this function for theatres other than the Eastern front. The OKH commander held the title of Commander-in-chief of the Army (). After the Battle of Moscow, the OKH commander Field marshal Walther von Brauchitsch was removed from office, and Hitler appointed himself as Commander-in-Chief of the Army. From 1938, OKH was, together with () and () formally subordinated to the . OKH vs OKW OKH had been independent until February 1938, when Hitler creat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oberkommando Der Wehrmacht
The (; abbreviated OKW [oː kaːˈve] Armed Forces High Command) was the Command (military formation), supreme military command and control Staff (military), staff of Nazi Germany during World War II, that was directly subordinated to Adolf Hitler. Created in 1938, the OKW replaced the Ministry of the Reichswehr, Reich Ministry of War and had nominal oversight over the individual high commands of the Wehrmacht, country's armed forces: the army (), navy () and air force (). With the start of World War II, tactical control of the Waffen-SS was also exercised by it. There was no direct chain of command between the OKW and the other High Commands. Rivalry with the different services' commands, mainly with the Oberkommando des Heeres, Army High Command (OKH), prevented the OKW from becoming a unified German General Staff in an effective command hierarchy, chain of command, though it did help coordinate operations among the three services. During the war, the OKW acquired more and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming Chancellor of Germany#Nazi Germany (1933–1945), the chancellor in 1933 and then taking the title of in 1934. His invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 marked the start of the Second World War. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust: the genocide of Holocaust victims, about six million Jews and millions of other victims. Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn in Austria-Hungary and moved to German Empire, Germany in 1913. He was decorated during his service in the German Army in the First World War, receiving the Iron Cross. In 1919 he joined the German Workers' Party (DAP), the precursor of the Nazi Party, and in 1921 was app ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
