Stubbington - Kept in the dark : the denial to Bomber Command of vital ULTRA and other intelligence information during World War II

First published in

Great Britain in 2010

By Pen and Sword Aviation

An imprint of

Pen and Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street

Barnsley

South Yorkshire

S70 2AS

Copyright John Stubbington 2010

ISBN 978-1-84884-183-3

eISBN 9781844685516

The right of John Stubbington to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Plate Section

Bletchley Park Mansion. ( Bletchley Park Trust )

Lancaster dropping a 4,000lb Cookie and 30lb incendiaries. ( IWM CL 001404 )

No. 5 Group raid on Tirpitz , 12 November 1944. ( TNA Air 24/299 )

Focke-Wulf 200 Kondor .

Focke-Wulf aircraft factory at Bremen. ( TNA Air 40/253 )

PR image radar site at Auderville, taken on 22 February 1941.

Plan of V-2 launch site in Normandy. ( TNA Air 40/2887 )

Wrzburg, ground control radar.

Schweinfurt ball bearing factory map, issued October 1943.

US War Department press release, 30 October 1945. ( TNA Air 48/194 )

88mm anti-aircraft Flak gun in field deployment.

Total German Armament Production, 194045. ( TNA Air 48/194 )

Percentage Distribution of Armaments Production. ( TNA Air 48/194 )

RAF Lancaster and 22,000lb Tallboy. ( IWM CH 015375 )

German Aircraft Production, 19391944. ( TNA Air 48/194 )

Aschematic plan of an underground lubricating oil plant at Porta, Westphalia. ( TNA Air 8/1019 )

I wish to acknowledge the generous and effective assistance that has been provided to me during the research, drafting and editing of this book. In no order of precedence, I am particularly grateful for the extensive advice and guidance from:

• Sir Arthur Bonsall, KCMG, CBE, Director of GCHQ 197378; senior member of the Air Section at Bletchley Park throughout WW2.
• Professor Jack Dixon, who trained as an RAF pilot at the end of WW2 and subsequently graduated from Merton College, Oxford, before emigrating to Canada.
• John Gallehawk, a previous curator of the Archives at the Bletchley Park Trust and author of many Intelligence documents.
• Sqn Ldr Dick Green, CEng, with shared experience from relevant Air Intelligence appointments.
• Dr Phil Judkins, Chairman of the Defence Electronics History Society.
• Air Vice Marshal John Main, CB, OBE, FREng.
• John Nichol, RAF Historical Society.

By no means least, I acknowledge and appreciate the help from many members of the staff at The National Archives and Peter Elliott at the RAF Museum Library over a long period of research.

I also appreciate the tolerance of my wife Valerie during that long period of research and drafting when there were many other things that had comparable or higher importance in the whole scale of life outside the scope of writing a book.

The National Archives (TNA) at Kew has been a major source of the official historical material, from which extensive reference has been drawn both within the bibliography and the footnotes. Where direct reference has been made in footnotes or elsewhere, the source has been identified by reference to The National Archives folder number.

The Harris Archives at the RAF Museum, Hendon, has been a source of valuable records of correspondence between Sir Arthur Harris and the Prime Minister, other senior members of the Air Ministry and Government departments.

The Bletchley Park Archives has been a unique source of ULTRA Highlight Reports and some other Intelligence material that are not held in The National Archives at Kew.

Whereas the archive evidence used in this book has the validity of Official Records, the conclusions drawn from that evidence and the bibliography on some matters related to the conduct and performance of various Government and Air Ministry departments and staff are the sole responsibility of the author, unless otherwise supported by source material designated in the footnotes.