Irish Potato Famine: Early Racism In America

The Great Famine, The Blight, or whatever one chooses to call it, the potato famine in Ireland was one of the worst tragedies to hit Europe during the 19^th century.  Unprecedented widespread starvation, disease and subsequent migration to various countries changed the lives of a vast number of Irish people.  The destitute situation at home left Irish landowners with little other choice but to provide passage for the starving peasants to other countries where opportunities were more plentiful.  Traveling to this new land of ‘Milk and Honey’ was as treacherous, if not more so, than the situation they had fled.  Dark, confined, cramped and unsanitary conditions were what faced these underfed migrants.  If one was lucky enough to survive the diseased and malnourished voyage across the Atlantic there were more and longer lasting challenges ahead for him.  The frail and vulnerable condition upon arrival of these passengers left them at the mercy of the newly savvy entrepreneurs of America.  New York was a large and bustling city during this time where people of all classes were given the opportunity to change their economic status in life.  This combination of desperate Irish immigrants just wishing to enjoy a meal and the profit seeking ‘native’ Americans led to a disastrous situation.  Irish immigrants were rushed off boats and herded into overpriced slums, and this is where the American perception of the Irish really begins.  The condition of the Irish upon arrival in New York led them to accept anything that was available to them.  Unfortunately, these people were already despised for their Catholic faith, but once they were forced into the filthy, disease filled, drunken areas, a new and even more negative perception emerged about the Irish which would last until recent times.

September 1845 brought with it an economically and socially destructive force that would ravage Ireland like never before.  Phytophthora Infestans was its scientific name, but most remember it as ‘The Blight’.  It was a fungus so destructive that it was able to almost completely rot the potato and turn it into a ‘black, squelchy, stinking mess’ within days.[i]  With potatoes being Ireland’s main food staple this was needless to say a cause for alarm.  Initially, the fungus was found to have only affected certain areas and only to a limited extent, but that was soon to change.  The very next year, naval Captain Mann stationed in County Clare distressed:

The first alarm was in the latter part of July, when the potatoes showed

symptoms of the previous year’s disease; but I shall never forget the change

in one week in August.  On the first occasion, on an official visit of inspection,

I had passed over thirty-two miles thickly studded with potato fields in full

bloom.  The next time the face of the whole country had changed; the stalk

remained bright green, but the leaves were all scorched black.  It was the

work of a night.[ii]

This reoccurrence of fungus combined with the economic policies then embraced by Ireland and England created a situation of mass starvation.

            During the 19^th century, England and Ireland were energetically pursuing laissez-faire economic policies. This attitude of letting the market correct itself was wholly embraced by Ireland’s Lord John Russell who was ‘ruling’ from Westminster.  During the famine, Russell believed that by ending many of the country’s controls on food prices and leaving poor relief up to the individual counties the economy and production levels would return to normal.[iii]  This decision and the fact that food was being exported out of areas where there was starvation outraged Irish peasants.[iv]  With food becoming ever more scarce the poor and starving were left with few options.

            During this period landlords were under increasing pressure due to certain clauses within the Poor Laws.  One such clause stated that tenants owning land worth less than 4 pounds were not required to pay the poor rate, but that the owners of the land would be liable for this amount.[v]  This created a great financial burden for large estate holders.  Many found that it would be more profitable to offer a small amount of money to aid in emigration than to continue paying the poor rate.  With the small farmers (who by in large were unable to pay rent on time) off their land, the land was often turned into more profitable export crops.  R. Dudley Edwards in The Great Famine: Studies in Irish History 1845-52 states clearly the landlords dilemma, “If the estate were to be run on business lines, a drastic clearance seemed essential; and the total cost of sending the ‘surplus’ to America was considerably less than the expense of maintaining them for a single year as paupers.”[vi]  Although this may seem callous, many landlords felt justified in their actions.  As poor relief began to fail and became more restricted, many that were without land and had little money, chose to emigrate.  This led to an experience, which would leave these Irish in a more precarious and destitute situation than they had fled.

            19^th century shipping was needless to say not a luxurious experience, but to a mass of starving people it must have at first seemed bearable.  With the flood of emigrants rushing to the ports in 1847, many ships made slight alterations in order to accommodate the Irish passengers.  Unfortunately, even with international standards on the living conditions of passengers in place, many ship captains chose to ignore them in order to turn a larger profit.  The captain of the ‘Sarah and Elizabeth’ gives a clear example of this when he packed 260 people onto 36 births far exceeding the regulated limit. The result of this greedy behavior was tragic.  Fever and disease spread quickly until justice was finally served when it claimed the life of the captain as well.[vii]  Passengers became more susceptible to illness due to a lack of adequate food and clean water.  While ships were required to provide at least three meals a day and water rations, many would scarcely provide two with a ‘little putrid water’.[viii]  Lacking clean living conditions or medical facilities, the condition of the surviving immigrants upon arrival in New York was a sickening sight indeed.

            Pre-famine New York City was quickly beginning to emerge as one of the world’s economic powerhouses, and by 1840 it was already the largest city in the union with a population over 391,100.[ix]  Many of the city’s inhabitants were strong believers in the Protestant faith and had an equally strong dislike for Catholics.  When news arrived in the city about the famine many attributed the country’s miseries to its’ Catholic faith.  Allegedly written by John Mitchell, in response to Dr. Whateley, the following correctly describes American attitudes regarding Catholic Ireland:

            Oh, Bishop! And tell your flock that the deadliest crime a nation can commit

            is to abdicate its nationhood, to set strangers to guard its gates, strangers to sit

            on its judgement-seats, strangers to train up its youth, strangers to rule its

            church.  Tell them that until they shall repent of this sin, and amend it, the hand

            of God shall be heavy on their land; the famine shall waste them….[x]

This widely shared negative sentiment about the Irish would be a crucial factor in how ‘native’ Americans would respond to the flood of desperate and ill Irish immigrants arriving in New York and other port cities.

            Despite the anti-Catholic atmosphere that permeated throughout New York City many Irish chose this as their new home.  History has shown that somewhere around 75% of Irish immigrants that came to the Americas ended up settling there, and 50% of this number arrived in New York.[xi]  This large influx of Irish entering the ports began to raise many new fears.  One such fear was that of disease.  Ships were regularly arriving with passengers suffering from severe outbreaks of typhus and other ship related diseases.  David H. Bennett in The Party of Fear: The American Far Right from Nativism to the Militia Movement clearly states the anxiety felt as follows, “The initial response of the Americans was, understandably, fear that the diseases the immigrants carried would ravage port cities and spread across the country.”[xii]  Facing this crisis the New York legislator decided that the initial quarantine system needed to be overhauled to make its requirements for entry more stringent.  This new system was to be headed by ten commissioners who were charged with providing a hospital, transportation assistance, and a staff of emigration officers to help ease the transition for the immigrants.[xiii]  Although this was an attempt to make things a little easier on the immigrants who were allowed to enter, many ‘natives’ still found ways to take advantage of the newcomers.  ‘Runners’ were a notorious breed of businessmen during this period that lurked about the docks waiting for their next victim.  When ships arrived ‘runners’ would surround the boats, with armed guards at times, and  ‘cajole’ the helpless Irish emigrants to stay at their bosses’ housing establishments, where they would be further exploited.  Many of these unsavory landlords became very wealthy by charging ‘three to four times the contract price’.[xiv]  This type of exploitation made the predicament in New York even worse for the Irish. 

            Once the Irish were given a chance to settle in New York City many chose to go away from their rural farming roots and endure the city life.  There are several reasons for this urbanization of the Irish.  One main factor was that the new immigrants were simply not educated enough in large-scale farming to be productive farmers.  Before arriving at the port of New York the majority had raised primitive crops such as potatoes and other roots.  Also, the lack of capital to buy such land prevented many from pursuing this avenue of enrichment.[xv]   .  This massive influx of immigrants into the New York City area created many economic problems for the ‘native’ inhabitants.  Housing had already been scarce before the famine, but with the great tide of immigration looking for housing, prices and availability became an enigma.  This helped to legitimize the fear in the minds of the indigenous people that these new immigrants would lower the standard of living for all, which would be ‘the greatest calamity which the folly of man could bring upon the land’.[xvi]  This attitude toward the Irish immigrants, ‘….increased feelings of loneliness and intensified the search for community….’ Which led many to view the Irish as clannish and thus further alienated them from society.[xvii]  This alienation, combined with a desire to go back to way things used to be, led large numbers of Irish to live with their own people in overcrowded slums.  R. Dudley Edwards discusses the consequences of such decisions when he states, “….mortality rates were highest amongst the Irish, who were particulary prone to the diseases occasioned by dirt, overcrowding or alcohol, and to pauperdom or lunacy.”[xviii]  These housing structures were sometimes just hovels dugout from underneath homes and many were filled with up to a foot of water.  This deplorable situation was needless to say a large factor in how native-born Americans viewed the Irish.

            After an immigrant secured a place to live the next thing that concerned him was where was he going to find employment.  With farming not an option in the city, and the majority not possessing any skills, many were forced to take jobs in mining, heavy industry, and other unskilled positions.  These jobs were generally in the form of ‘labour camps’ where the work was hard and the whiskey cheap.[xix]   This environment and availability of alcohol caused more hardship for the Irish.  The Irish had already been known for their excessive drinking, and now faced with hardship their drinking increased, and the ‘native’ perception of the immigrants worsened.  Nativist feelings were beginning to become outright hostile toward the new arrivals.  Signs were being placed in windows that read “None need apply but Americans” and politicians were calling for tariffs and taxes on immigrant workers.[xx]  With feelings of resentment rising the indigenous people of New York and other New England cities began to channel their feelings in secretive ways.

            With the perceived threat of the job taking, drunk, dirty, and worst of all Catholic Irish immigrants invading their Protestant homeland, many natives chose to join secret societies with the aim of combating this problem.   Gathering together in these secret societies helped kindle the fire of Nativism in Americans.  One of the most popular of these organizations was the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, which was formed in New York City in 1850.  In order to join this fraternity one was required to be ‘twenty-one, a Protestant, and a believer in God, willing to obey without question the dictates of the order.’  This society became a political force and had the sole purpose of making life as difficult as possible for any foreign-born Catholics.  Members were not allowed to vote for, employ, or profit from these individuals.[xxi]  By using methods such as these Protestants of New York City made it virtually impossible for the Irish to assimilate and created a greater need for community among the immigrants.

            The mid-nineteenth century was a tragic period for the Irish people.  The famine had wiped out over a million inhabitants of their homeland and left those remaining in poverty.  Desiring a chance to live, many boarded overcrowded, overpriced, and filthy boats and set sail for America.  The voyage across was a treacherous one, which took the lives of many.  The mass of immigrants who survived the voyage arrived in such a pitiful state they became the prey of the ‘natives’.  They were forced into filthy living conditions where they were charged outrageous prices, which must have led many to drink even more.  The jobs they received were of the lowest sort since many had little or no skills at all.  Despised for their faith many were persecuted and discriminated against when looking for work or public office.  If not for the sheer amount of immigrants coming into the cities it is hard to imagine the natives imagining them as being such a grave threat.  And if the Irish were to have arrived in better health and more financially stable they would have had more leverage in dealing with the anti-Catholic Protestant natives.  A healthy, slow but steady, migration of Irish Catholics to New York City and other ports would have helped alleviate the negative perception of the Irish, which lasted for decades after their arrival.

Jeffrey Brandon Lee

Harsh Realities of Trench Warfare in WWI

            Prior to the Great War of 1914, conflicts on the European continent generally consisted of two or three belligerent countries, and were normally resolved within a short period of time.  Towns and the countryside often showed little long-term effects after battles were waged and decided.  These realities were soon to change drastically with the outbreak of hostilities in August of 1914.  Many great military minds of the time predicted that the war would be over before Christmas, and some even sooner.  Little did they know that the idea of one more great push, one more decisive battle, would be the tragic mistake often repeated across the continent and the world. 

To make matters worse for the armies on the field and the towns and countryside’s in which the battles took place, were the improvements made in military firepower.  Whether it was the small but effective French 75’s, or the colossal yet burdensome German 420’s, the effect was devastating to the land and its’ people.  Majestic cathedrals and forest were laid to waste as if a tornado, miles wide, had carved a merciless path through their hearts. 

In few other places were the pointless bombardment, killing and destruction more evident than on the Ypres Salient.  It was in this cold, waterlogged and unforgiving land that the nightmares of a new brand of warfare began to descend on the troops.  Long departed from the battlefield were the days of Napoleon where armies stood with ‘Elan’ and lined up opposite one another and fired away.  Replacing this chivalric act were the horrors of trench warfare.  Day after day troops lived in water-filled muddy holes and waited for the dreaded order to charge.  The constant bombardment and trench raids over time cost each side hundreds of thousands of lives all to gain insignificant amounts of land.  This constant loss of life began to have a profound effect on the leaders and men of both armies.  It will be shown hereafter how trench warfare and the new weapons of war changed the face of battle and how this change affected the troops.

German military leaders had counted on a short war that would initially involve the speedy conquest of France, followed by a transfer of force to the Russian front and victory there, but that was not to be the case.  The Schlieffen-Moltke plan according to S.L.A. Marshall in World War I was, “…far from being recondite, was as simple as a geometric axiom, though for armies a straight line is not always the shortest distance between two points.”[1]  Therefore, the plan dictated that Belgium soil must be violated in order for quick victory to be achieved. 

Believing that Belgium was unlikely to resist, the Germans issued an ultimatum to the King of Belgium to either join them or be invaded.  King Albert I refused to allow the German army safe passage through his land and counted on his heavily fortified strongholds of Liege, Namur, and Antwerp to provide some resistance.  These forts were, ‘…immensely strong, subterranean and self-contained, surrounded by a ditch thirty feet deep.’[2]  Unfortunately for the Belgian King, these forts would fall to one of the most frightening new weapons of war, the 420mm howitzer.  Secretly the Germans had produced these so-called ‘Big Berthas’ for the express purpose of eliminating the threat of the Belgian forts.[3] 

Even against the superior artillery power of the Germans, King Albert I of Belgium brilliantly defended the cities of Liege and Namur, and after their fall he ordered the retreat of his troops to the fortified city of Antwerp.[4]  Although eventually Antwerp fell, Belgian troops provided vital time for the landing and advance of the British Expeditionary Force on the European Continent.

According to Sir Llewellyn Woodward, “Four divisions of the Expeditionary Force landed in France between August 9 and August 17, and moved forward from their main base at Le Havre to the agreed area of concentration between Le Cateau and Maubeuge.”[5]  Almost immediately upon leaving for Belgium the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) encountered German resistance.  The Germans had planned on a double envelopment of the French and English armies, but the fighting that took place between September 5 and September 13 left the Germans outflanked by their enemies.[6]  The Germans began to retreat and according to Winston Groom in A Storm in Flanders: The Ypres Salient, 1914-1918, “The Race for the Sea began September 18, six weeks and four days after the Germans had crowned that they would be occupying Paris.”[7]  During the next three weeks ten minor battles took place in which neither side was willing to make a deciding push.[8]

            The five days that King Albert I was able to hold off the Germans in Antwerp allowed the initial BEF troops to arrive in Flanders.  Antwerp fell on October 10 and in Ypres John Keegan states, “It was here, between 8 and 19 October, that the five corps now comprising the British Expeditionary Force arrived by train and road to sustain the Allied Defense.”[9]  Thus began the conflict on the Ypres Salient, which would last from 1914-1918.

            The initial battles in Flanders were prime examples of excessive confidence and lack of information, which plagued the majority of the military leaders of World War I.  During preparations for the first Battle of Ypres British intelligence was woefully wrong in its assessment of the German force it was facing.  England’s general French estimated that the Germans facing them consisted of ‘only a single corp’.[10]  Supremely confident in his objective French ordered Haig to attack the German troops on October 19.  By October 21 Haig began to realize that the forces he faced were much greater than he had been led to believe.  Instead of facing an “an understrength corps” he was instead facing five German corps with enough artillery to outnumber the British five to one.[11]  Haig was forced to disobey orders from French to attack the Germans and instead ordered his troops to dig in.

            On the other side of the conflict the Germans suffered from the exact opposite problem, in that they overestimated the English force they were facing.  This did not however prohibit the Germans from acting in an arrogant fashion.  The main part of the German Fourth Army consisted of high school and college students.  These soldiers were ill prepared for what they were about to face.  On the other side was the highly trained professional British Army that had been hardened by previous wars.  Nevertheless, according to Winston Groom, “In a fit of Wagnerian frenzy, the German students came on arm-in-arm or waving their rifles in the air, singing, and with their spiked pickelhaube helmets festooned with flowers.”[12]  They would soon regret this show of confidence.  Over 100,000 of these soldiers would be shot down in the hills around Ypres by the end of the attack, and Germany would later name the battle “The Massacre of the Innocents”.[13]

            The areas surrounding Ypres would witness battles in which many youth would die and little ground would be gained.  Finally, the British were pressed back to an inferior low position in which the Germans controlled the high ground.  With the leaders of each army suffering from an inability to admit defeat or that a battle was pointless, both sides were forced to dig in, and here is where the nature and true horrors of the new war became evident.

            Trench warfare introduced a new static nature to armed conflict on the Western Front.  The English, French, and Belgians were relentless in their defense of Ypres and the Germans were equally as insistent on conquering the town.  Thus, with the lower ground, the English led army was forced to try to defend against a superiorly armed, manned, and strategically located enemy. 

The ground in which the Allied army sought to defend was located in an area where the water table was only a few feet from the surface.  To help provide more protection to the soldiers on the line, many were forced to stack sandbags, but these provided little protection against machinegun fire.  Where the water table was lower Winston Groom states:

“Under the supervision of the Royal Engineers, the hastily dug out trenches

 were deepened-or built up-to six to eight feet whenever possible and widened

 to four or five feet, zigzagged so as to prevent any large stretch to be enfiladed

 in an attack.”[14]

Although initially the English were in short supply of barbed wire, when it began to arrive in volume they were able to reinforce their trenches with up to a 150 feet of wire to help protect against trench raids.[15]  This had to be done at night in order to reduce the risk of sniper fire from enemy lines. 

            The trenches were constantly changing and growing and in some areas troops were forced to put up signs in order to navigate the labyrinth of passages.  Some trenches were used to supply the troops of the front line and some were used for reinforcements, but no matter what the purpose, trench life for the allied troops was far from comfortable.

            German troops were afforded a little more comfort and much more safety than their adversaries.  By occupying the high ground the Germans weren’t as affected by the water table as were the Allies, therefore their trench systems were more elaborate.  According to Winston Groom:

“On the higher ridges they dug down sometimes thirty feet deep, safe from

all shell fire, and constructed intricate complexes of bunkers, some complete

with electric lights, running water, kitchens, flooring, and furnished with

chairs, tables, beds, and boudoirs looted from Belgian homes.”[16]

Falkenhayn began to understand that offensives were going to be difficult to undertake, and likely kept in the back of his mind his ‘bleeding white’ strategy, therefore he opted for a heavily fortified shelter for his troops to wait until the opportune time.  This sharply contrasted with the English approach, in which they didn’t want trenches to become a place of relative comfort, so they were built hastily and afforded little comfort.[17]

            The trenches on the allied side did provide some protection to the soldiers, but with the new powerful weapons of war they were still vulnerable to attack.  Other than the very large 420’s, with their 1-ton projectiles, the German artillery had only limited effect on the Allied trenches.  This changed by the second battle of the Ypres Salient in which the German High Command made use of a deadly new weapon it had secretly been researching, asphyxiating gas.  

            Gas had been used in previous conflicts and thus many of the men fighting World War I had been outfitted with gasmasks, but the new German invention was more hideous than previously used formulas.  The masks the Allied troops were fitted with were not able to provide protection against attack.  Sir Llewellyn Woodward states, “The Germans themselves, fortunately for the Allies, employed their weapon on too small a scale to be decisive.”[18]  This proved to be a vital mistake.  The Allies soon developed a mask that provided protection against the new gas and virtually eliminated the threat.

            Another important invention that proved to be vitally important to each side was the airplane.  Though it had little effectiveness in bombing runs during the conflict, it provided important information on troop movements.  On April 22, 1915 flight commander Strange of the Allied forces was flying above the Ypres Salient when he observed a ‘Yellow-Green smoke’, which he realized was gas.  This was the very same attack mentioned above in which the Germans effected an unknown blow to the Allies.  According to Alexander McKee in The Friendless Sky, “Next morning, he went out again-and found the Germans dug in in new positions, but with no Allied troops in front of them.”[19]  This is a great example of how the air forces of World War I were able to help or hurt their own forces.  With this information, of which the Germans had no idea, the Allied air force was able to launch an air campaign that held off the Germans just long enough for the gap to be filled.  These aerial displays also provided the troops on the ground with much needed distraction from the horrors of trench life. 

            The combatants that fought on the Ypres Salient were subjected to some of the most inhumane experiences in the history of warfare.  Trench life and the life of those who burrowed underneath the trench systems was a new experience for the soldiers in Flanders.  No longer were combatants able to look their enemy in the eye when attacking.  Instead, day after day they sat huddled in their holes chilled to the bone wondering whether that day may indeed be their last.

            If the practice of war were not horrible enough, soldiers in the trenches bared witness to the true cost of battle.  Many combatants were forced to eat and sleep among the stinking corpses of dead men.  The ground was wet with blood and the water putrid and discolored.  As one soldier stated:

            “You found the dead embedded in the walls of the trenches, heads, legs and

            half-bodies, just as they had been shovelled out of the way by the picks and

            shovels of the working party.”[20]

These ghastly sites along with the non-stop shelling of their positions wore quickly on the men in the frontlines.

            Soon the commanders of both armies began to realize the stress that trench warfare was having on the men in the frontline.  It became evident that soldiers needed to be rotated out of their positions from time to time.  According to Winston Groom, “Two days in the frontline trenches, two days in the reserve trenches farther back, four to six days “in billets,” and then the whole process started over again.”[21]  This helped alleviate some of the hardships of trench life, but not all.

            Months, and in some cases years in the trenches, had another interesting effect on the men of World War I and particularly those who participated in the Ypres Salient.  At the outset of hostilities national pride lead the troops forward in battle, but as time wore on the mindsets of the troops began to change.  The relentless carnage on both sides turned the anger of the common soldier against their leaders instead of the ‘enemy’.  This was best illustrated on December 25, 1914.

            No one knows exactly how or when the Christmas truce started, but a good starting point can be assumed to be on Christmas Eve.  Most of the combatants on the Ypres Salient were believers in Christianity and therefore practiced the celebration of Christmas.  It was in this spirit that on the night of  December 24, 1914 according to Stanley Weintraub that, “Lieutenant Malcolm Kennedy recalled, “the sounds of singing and merrymaking,” and occasionally the bark of a German could be heard, shouting, “A happy Christmas to you, Englishmen!””[22]  Although no soldier dared poke his head above ground that night, the emotion and camaraderie that was shared between combatants would soon change that fact.

            On Christmas morning the first of many brave souls began to venture forth from their trenches.  One such soldier timidly moved forward and stated, “I am a lieutenant! Gentlemen, my life is in your hands, for I am out of my trench and walking towards you.  Will one of your officers come out and meet me half-way.”[23]  Thereafter, men began to pour out of their trenches all bearing gifts for their enemies.  Some exchanged watches while others shared a drink or sang Christmas carols.  The most popular occurrence was the heated soccer match that took place in the mud.   For one day, the men on the Ypres Salient and other parts of the Western Front were able to forget about killing and staying alive, and instead look at their ‘enemy’ as a fellow man.

            Although the Christmas Truce of 1914 was a singular occurrence in World War I, it proved to demonstrate some of the changes in the nature of warfare.  Long departed from the battlefield were the days of troops amassing face to face in the anticipation of one great clash, which would decide the fate of the war.  Instead, men were reduced to digging holes in which to find some sort of protection from the frightening new weapons of war.  Gone was the severe hatred for the enemy.  Survival and retaining ones sanity were the orders of the day.  Poor strategy and lack of an ability to adjust to the new style of war plagued both sides of the conflict. Generals and other military leaders were often so far removed from the place of action that the ordinary soldier became just a number to be counted as dead or alive.  It became a numbers game in which each side sought to outgun and outman the other until the one side was forced to capitulate.  This fact, along with the new weaponry and static nature of warfare, helped seal the fate of millions of young men who participated in World War I.

By Jeffrey Brandon Lee

Intelligence During World War II

          World War II brought with it many new advances in the art of warfare, which helped and at times led to the fooling of various commanders in the field.  One of the most important developments during this conflict was the use of intelligence and deception.  Whereas before this conflict many military leaders were left with techniques such as scouting parties, blimps, and maybe a phone tap here or there.  With the improvement in technologies governments of the world sought better ways to protect information and also more improved methods of obtaining their opponents vital strategies.  Trying to achieve this latter goal often left the other side with the opportunity to pass along false information.  It is the purpose of this paper to; first analyze some of the techniques and instances where intelligence played a key role in some battle or operation, and second to show the significance of deception and its effectiveness in deceiving the opponent.  Although not all operations proved to be wildly successful, many proved to be game changers in the Allied war efforts against the Axis powers.

One of the greatest developments that occurred prior to World War II was the advent of code making and code breaking.  Although not as flashy and interesting as the Cloak & Dagger spies that movies have made famous, intelligence analyst played a far greater role than most would suspect.  Ronald H. Spector sheds light on this fact in Eagle Against The Sun: The American War With Japan:

 “More often it was hollow-eyed, unshaven cryptologist or photo-

reconnaissance analyst deep in a basement or windowless room,

surrounded by the clack of IBM sorters and tabulator machines or

the stench of darkroom chemicals-it was men (and women) of this

sort who were the intelligence aces of World War II.”[1]

It was analyst such as this that could have, with a little more concern from their superiors, prevented much of the damage the Japanese inflicted on the unprepared forces of Pearl Harbor.

            The real beginnings of American attempts to break potential combatant countries codes started with the formation of the Signal Intelligence Service in 1929.  Headed by William F. Friedman the SIS was able to rebuild a replica of the Japanese code machine and by late 1940 they were able to read almost all of Japan’s code ‘Purple’ diplomatic messages.[2]  Although authors such as Ronald Lewin quote General Marshall in The American Magic as saying that, “Operations in the Pacific are largely guided by the information we obtain of Japanese deployments.  We know their strength in various garrisons, the rations and other stores continuing available to them, and what is of vast importance, we check their fleet movements and the movements of their convoys.”[3] It appears evident that code Purple messages were of far more significance than General Marshall believed. 

On November 30^th 1941 the cryptanalysts in Washington intercepted a message from Tokyo to Berlin informing the ambassador that war with American may come “quicker than anyone dreams”.  During this same time Dutch and English Intelligence were warning of massive Japanese troops buildups in Southeast Asia.[4]  General Marshall may have believed in old fashion navy flyovers and patrol boats to gather such information, but it seems apparent that before the bombing of Pearl Harbor there was ample information available through code breaking intelligence that could have alerted the Navy and possibly saved lives.  Intelligence analyst may not have ultimately been able to stop the attack on Pearl Harbor, but they did play key roles in deciphering other Japanese codes throughout the war effort. 

One of the greatest examples of American intelligence success against the Japanese Navy was achieved before the battle of Midway.  Although code Purple was very important in assessing the general mindset of the Japanese government, JN-25 was considered by most analysts to be the golden egg.  JN-25 was the Japanese Navy’s military code in which it sent all of it orders for naval movements and attacks.  This code had been around for a couple of decades by 1941, and according to Stephen Budiansky in Battle of Wits:

“Slowly and laboriously, the new code book was being reconstructed;

 again, inexorably, on August 1, 1941, the Japanese introduced a

 new, 50,000 group additive book that sent the code breakers back to

 the beginning.”[5]

This setback did not deter the intelligence officers Rochefort and Layton as they went back to the drawing board and set about breaking this new codebook.  And according to Stephen Budiansky on May 14, 1942 Rochefort called Layton claiming, “I’ve got something so hot here it’s burning the top of my desk!”[6]  What he had uncovered was a massive assault planned by the Japanese on Midway Island which they designated AF.  The problem once again wasn’t that the intelligence was bad, but that the bureaucracy in the military inhibited the flow of information.

            OP-20-G was the designation of the top intelligence office in Washington, and upon receiving the information on the probable attack on Midway they dismissed it as a Japanese ‘deception’.[7]  Those in Washington were under the false impression that the real target was the Hawaiian Islands.  Furious at the meddling by OP-20-G, Rochefort approached Admiral Nimitz and asked permission to have the radio operators on Midway send an uncoded message claiming that their only means of fresh water had failed.  The purpose of this operation would be to prove that AF was in fact the Japanese code for Midway.  Nimitz’ agreed to the charade and the message was sent on May 19, 1942.  Again according to Stephen Budiansky, “Two days later Tokyo Naval Intelligence sent a signal in JN-25 reporting that “AF Air Unit” had sent a message to Hawaii reporting it had only a two weeks’ supply of fresh water and asking for an immediate resupply.”[8]  It immediately became evident that Midway was indeed the target of the Japanese Navy, and now the Americans had a hand up on the enemy.  The end result of the Battle of Midway was the Japanese Navy’s eventual withdrawal sand massive losses in aircraft carriers and planes.

            On the other front of World War II there was the important efforts of the combined British and American Intelligence Services.  One of the greatest test of these two allied intelligence services was that attempt to break the ever changing code of the famed Enigma machine.

            The beginning of the Enigma code machine began nearly two decades before the advent of World War II.  In October of 1919 a patent was filed in the Netherlands for a ‘Geheimscfriffmachine’, which was later bought by a German named Arthur Scheribus.  Scheribus then, according to Charles Whiting in The Spymasters, “…designed a machine including ‘multiple switch boards which connect each arriving lead with one of the outgoing leads and which are adapted to interchange this connection with great facility of variation.”[9]  While the German inventor intended his Enigma machine to be used for business purposes, that was not to be the case.  The company was liquidated soon after Hitler came to power and was reformed for the military purpose of producing a machine used to send code to commanders in the field and the infamous U-boat captains.[10]

            Once the American and British found out about the use of this encrypting machine they knew of the necessity of breaking its code.  The British manned over a thousand individuals at its’ Bletchly Park facility and the Americans used Building 26 on the NCR Campus in Dayton, Ohio.  Although both of these services were instrumental in the deciphering of the Enigma code, neither would have had such success if it were not for the Poles.

            In Peter Calvocoressi’s Top Secret Ultra: An insiders account of how British Intelligence monitored and broke the Nazi top-secret code he states, “From 1932 to 1938 German Enigma traffic was read by the Polish secret service.  The Poles were almost certainly the only people to do so in these years.”[11]  This amazing feat was soon ended as the German’s modified the machine by changing the way code was sent and by adding two extra wheels to the machine.  The Polish secret service was aware of the changes, but lacked the resources to solve the problem.  In an act of trust not shown often during times of war, they gave all the information they had to the British at Bletchly Park and the French equivalent.[12]  The German army soon defeated the Polish, but their help to the Allied cause was significant.

            The British at Bletchly used the model Enigma machine the Pole’s had provided them and adapted it to their own Typex machine in an attempt to solve the riddle.  Once they had achieved this, the tedious effort of data analysis began.  Stephen Budiansky gives a great example of this when he writes:

            “The other task was equally straightforward: begin cranking a cyclometer

through all 17,576 settings in all fifty-eight remaining wheel orders, note

down the ones that permit repeated letters in the doubly enciphered

indicators, and punch two new complete sets of 1,560 Zygalski sheets…”[13]

This process was eventually replaced by what was labeled by most countries as a ‘bombe’.  The British version of the bombe was “…like a series of Enigma machines in reverse.”[14]  Although highly ineffective at first, when coupled with the new bigram table, Banburismus machine, and captured daily Enigma settings the British bombe was able to break the German naval enigma code.  This led, “…to a sharp decline in sinkings by U-boats in the Atlantic that began in the summer of 1941.”[15]  Although the British played a major role in breaking the Enigma code they were not alone in their efforts.

            The American effort, as stated above, was located in building 26 in Ohio, and even though they were allies, there was fierce competition between the two services.  According to Jim DeBrosse and Colin Burke:

            “For the Navy and Desch, the race was on, not only against the Germans

and the U-boats in the Atlantic but in some ways against the British. 

The Americans knew that Bletchly Park was working on its own design for

 a four wheel Bombe and that their careers, their nation’s prestige, and the

Navy’s investment of millions of dollars and scores of highly skilled

personnel were at risk if they failed to arrive first at a working machine.”[16]

 Despite the competition for the prestige of having the best intelligence service, at times the British and American’s were forced to cooperate.  One reason for this was the far superior quality of the American Bombe’s, and the British need to decipher Germany’s Army and Naval codes.

            The United States had a choice of the two private sector companies IBM and National Cash Register Company to begin their code breaking efforts.  NCR was chosen over IBM due to its available plant space and technological prowess.  According to DeBrosse and Burke, “Even more propitious, NCR had at its disposal eleven city blocks of mostly idle factories and office buildings and a regional network of skilled labor and parts suppliers, all waiting to be put to work.”[17]  In early 1942 the government proceeded to authorize NCR to begin building its own ‘Bombe’. 

            At first the efforts were considered by many to be embarrassing, but in time those opinions would change drastically.  Early in 1943 the American Bombe needed an average of twenty-five days to read the German Navy’s ‘Shark’ code, but by late that same year the time was brought down to thirty-six hours.[18]  This speed was even greater than the best the British had achieved up to that point.  Disregarding their precious pride the British saw the necessity of using the much more efficient American Bombes to read the vital German military Enigma traffic.  The American Bombes were about ’50 percent’ faster and again according to DeBrosse and Burke:

            “The power of the 120 or so American Bombes was equal to or greater

than that of the 220 British Bombes at Bletchly Park.  The British, who

were charged with attacking many more German systems than were

the Americans-including the three-wheel Army and Air Force Enigma

traffic known as Bovril-asked for time on the American Bombes.”[19]

Although many discount the effectiveness of the breaking of the Enigma code, it is estimated by some experts that towards the end of World War II Ultra intelligence was directly responsible for up to thirty percent of all U-boats sunk.[20]

            While code breaking was a large part of the intelligence effort in World War II, it was not the Allies only means of using intelligence.  Deception was a strategy put to use on a grand scale during the conflict.  There are many examples of successful and failed attempts to fool the other side, but the focus here will be the deceptions leading up to the invasion of Normandy.

            By 1943 Hitler suspected a cross channel invasion from England was imminent, but the question remained where would this battle take place.  In order to reduce the amount of lives lost to the Allies it was decided that they needed to develop a scheme to leave Germany guessing whether the invasion would be anywhere from Norway to the Mediterranean. Originally the planned phony invasions were code named FORTITUDE and included three stages named TINDALL, STARKEY, and WADHAM.[21]  Although eventually the name for the operation was eventually changed to QUICKSILVER and divided in to six smaller parts, in the end it remained largely intact.

            QUICKSILVER I and II were the most important of the deceptions and included; the false placement of the American Third Army in the East, phony radio traffic, and the movement of several corps east to mislead the Germans into thinking the invasion would take place at the Pas-de-Calais.[22]  To help pass along this information to the Third Reich the Allies used men such as the Dutchman Hans Hansen who according to William B. Bruer in Deceptions of World War II, “Hans Hansen had been captured soon after his arrival and “turned”-given a choice of being hanged or sending finely orchestrated intelligence bulletins back to Hamburg.”[23]  With over 900 messages sent from Hansen during the course of the war the Abwher was fully convinced of his loyalty.

            QUICKSILVER III, V, and VI included the limited use of ‘physical deception.  QUICKSILVER III would use dummy landing craft on the southeast and east coast of England, while QUICKSILVER V would show the appearance of ‘extra tunnel construction’.[24]  QUICKSILVER VI would according to Holt include, “…the tempo of seeming activity round the dummy craft on the east coast would pick up, by simulated beach lighting and vehicle lights suggesting round-the-clock busyness.”[25]  QUICKSILVER IV called for an increase in training flights in the southeast and practice air-sea rescue missions.

            Although most of QUICKSILVER went according to plan, there were a few instances of failure or setbacks.  QUICKSILVER III ran into the problem of some of the dummy crafts blowing away and when the simulated activity did show up it was ‘late and ineffective’.[26]  The fifth and sixth stages of the plan ran more smoothly, but still ran into small problems.  Due to a disagreement on what type of lighting should be used on the real locations and the fake ones Holt writes, “…the lighting at the fake locations was brighter than at the real ones…”[27] These problems were relatively small and didn’t effect the outcome of the whole operation, as Hitler was thoroughly caught off guard by the D-Day invasion at Normandy.

            Since the ancient writings of Homer and the fall of Troy, it has been the goal of military leaders to gather information about their enemy and if possible to fool them as to their own intentions.  With the increase in technology that preceded World War II these facts became more important and necessary for each side of the conflict.  While some experts claim that the overall part that intelligence and deception played was a small role, if any, in the Allied victory over the Axis powers, it is beyond argument that it at the, very least saved many lives.  If the Japanese had the advantage of surprise at Midway or if Hitler knew the exact locations of the landings on D-Day, the cost to both sides could have been horrific.  Intelligence and Deception, as it grew out of World War II, has become a permanent fixture in military operations today and seems poised to stay that way for the indefinite future.