Military History: Polish secret services during WW2

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Polish secret services during WW2

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Topic: Polish secret services during WW2

Posted By: Mosquito
Subject: Polish secret services during WW2
Date Posted: 17-Apr-2016 at 08:07

Few people today realise that before and during WW2 Poland had one of the best in the world Secret Services, comparable with the British and much better than American and that its actions covered all the Europe and even the rest of the world.
After the war Polish Intelligence Services in Great Britain destroyed most of the informations they had and all the files of its secret agents in Europe and in the world, to not allow British Services to get them. However British services managed to get control over part of the Polish files but they are still kept in British archives as "top secret".

From:
http://%20www.iwp.edu/news_publications/detail/englands-poles-in-the-game-wwii-intelligence-cooperation%20 - http:// www.iwp.edu/news_publications/detail/englands-poles-in-the-game-wwii-intelligence-cooperation

"According to the records of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, “between 3 September 1939 and 8 May 1945, the total was 45,770 [intelligence] reports – 22,047 of which were received from Polish sources” (p. 560). In fact, the Poles supplied more “than 80,000 reports” to the Brits (p. 17). At the conclusion of the war, Commander Wilfred Dunderdale, the Prime Minister’s liaison with the intelligence community, stated that “the Polish agents have worked unceasingly and well in Europe during the last five years, and that they have provide, often at great danger to themselves and to their relatives, a vast amount of material of all kinds on a wide range of subjects. The Polish IS [intelligence service] has made an invaluable contribution to the planning and the successful execution of the invasion of France, and to the ultimate victory of the Allied forces in Europe” (p. 560)

The Brits were in a unique position to know. The Poles resolved to share their secrets and assets with the British from the outset. Although the Polish intelligence remained subordinated to the Polish constitutional authorities, its operations, infrastructure, and finances were to a certain extent intertwined with the British secret services. This was especially true at the spy center in Great Britain, where the hosts controlled virtually all incoming and outgoing radio and courier communications of the Poles.

Geographically, the intelligence activities of Poland literarily spanned the globe. The Polish net covered all of Europe, including Nazi-controlled territories, German satellite nations, neutral countries, and the Third Reich itself; north Africa, both free and Axis-dominated; Asia, including Japanese-occupied territory in China; Latin America; and North America.

[...]

The exception to the mono-cultural rule was the Polish intelligence set-up in France, where, by mid-1944, the majority of agents were French nationals. However, even there the iron Polish rule applied: no mercenaries. All operatives were highly motivated individuals who carried out their activities for idealistic reasons. They loved freedom. They hated Nazism and Communism. Most did not draw any salaries. Scarce funds provided to the network by the Polish Government-in-Exile (and by the British and Americans) barely covered the operational costs. But the price most commonly paid by the agents was blood. The losses among the assets were enormous. In a single case, in 1942, 500 operatives were arrested and executed after the Gestapo destroyed a Polish underground net which had conducted espionage and sabotage deep inside the Reich (including bombing attacks on the Berlin railway network). But the Poles kept fighting because their ultimate reward was to be a free Poland.

Aside from idealism, perhaps the most salient characteristics of the Polish operations were their sheer pragmatism, audacity, and forethought. The Poles not only diligently spied on Nazi Germany and its confederates, but also vigilantly kept a watchful eye on the Soviet Union. For example, Poland’s secret operatives in the United States tracked down Nazi and Communist sympathizers in the so-called ethnic communities, Slavs and others from Eastern Europe. Further, the Polish intelligence took advantage of its pre-war ties to its Japanese counterpart to milk it for secrets on the Nazis. In fact, Polish intelligence officers, usually under the cover of White Russian émigrés, worked out of Japanese diplomatic missions in Kaunas, Stockholm, Bucharest, and Berlin itself. The Poles swapped with the Japanese news about the Soviet Union for intelligence on the Third Reich.

Anti-Communism also allowed the Poles to operate much more suavely than the Anglo-Americans in Hitler’s European satellites and in neutral countries, Spain and Portugal in particular. The Polish even exchanged intelligence with the Finns and the Swedes. From 1940 at least Poland’s secret services worked hard to wean Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria from the Axis. At the same time, they supplied the Western Allies with crucial intelligence, for example facilitating US Air Force bombing raids against the Rumanian oil fields and refineries.

Of course, the greatest Polish gift to defeating the Nazis was the cracking of the Enigma code by Polish mathematicians working for military intelligence. That happened already before the Second World War. Still more, on the eve of the war, in August 1939, the Poles presented the French and the British with a working model of the Enigma machine, reconstructed from the scratch in Poland. Carried on by the Poles and the British, the decrypting project, code-named Ultra, provided the Allies with the most valuable intelligence which, ultimately, greatly expedited the victory over Hitler.

Other Polish contributions, both major and minor, are quite notable, if obscure. The Polish intelligence located and penetrated the Penemünde V-1 rocket factory, which, ultimately, resulted in its utter destruction by the Allied bombers. The Poles also stole an intact V-2 rocket, which was passed on to the Brits. Next, the British authorities received periodic, weekly and monthly, reports on industrial espionage, troop movement, target spotting, and the effects of the Allied bombing on Germany’s infrastructure and civilian morale.

Further, the Poles supplied the British with the Nazi plans to invade the USSR. The reports included the details of the German troop deployment. From the fall of 1941, the Polish underground Home Army, or, more specifically, its commando units led by Polish special service officers parachuted from Great Britain, carried out a sustained and massive sabotage campaign against German transport and personnel behind the Eastern Front. The intelligence teams reached as far east as Moscow. However, the epicenter of the sabotage undertaking was in occupied Poland, the Nazi transportation hub. Sustained assaults seriously retarded and, occasionally, halted the rail-based movement of the German troops.

The Poles prepared the grounds for the Allied landing in north Africa, so-called operation “Torch”. According to an American military attaché in the region, “the Polish network… were by all odds the most efficient and professional in their field, supplying the Allies with a wealth of valuable and proven information” (p. 36). Polish operatives also set up the stage for the invasion of Normandy. Polish agents served as decoys. By staging sabotage acts elsewhere, they lured the German forces away from Allied landing zones. Cases of supreme sacrifice and exemplary devotion to the cause can be multiplied virtually ad infinitum.

The achievements of the Polish intelligence were simply stunning. The Allies appreciated the high quality of their Polish network and frequently poached agents from the Poles. For example, the UK’s most valued “Agent no. 1” aka “Athos”, responsible for numerous acts of sabotage in Nazi-occupied Greece, including blown up oil depots, cargo ships, and submarines, was really Poland’s water-polo Olympian Jerzy Iwanow-Szajnowicz. Further, the British frequently passed on to the Americans numerous Polish intelligence reports either without attributing them or as their own. But Washington received the very same copies directly from the source by a separate special arrangement with the Poles. The US appreciated the contributions of the Polish ally.

Deputy Chief of American military intelligence General Hayes A. Kroner commented that “the Polish Army has the best intelligence in the world. Its value for us is beyond compare. Regretfully there is little we can offer in return” (p. 90). John Colville, Private Secretary to Winston Churchill, concurred: “Probably the best all-round players in the [intelligence] game were the Poles” (p. 37). A British scholar of intelligence, Hugh Skillen, dedicated his work “to the Poles who gave so much and received so little” (p. 472). "

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Replies:

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 17-Apr-2016 at 10:33

An interesting tale, Mosquito, but what should we expect from Marek Jan Chodakiewica a Pole from the right-wing to very hard-core neo-con leaning institute of world politics! This isn't to say there's not some truth between that over inflated ego trip. Delusions of grandeur hardly scratches the surface of what you have found to quote for us here today. Poland is as good a country as any other, Israel, Pakistan, Nigeria, England...etc....Poles have contributed much and many of us appreciate Polish endeavour. Were you aware that your Mr Chodakiewica was a very big supporter of that political nut case Ron Paul? Oops! LOL

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 17-Apr-2016 at 14:32

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

An interesting tale, Mosquito, but what should we expect from Marek Jan Chodakiewica a Pole from the right-wing to very hard-core neo-con leaning institute of world politics! This isn't to say there's not some truth between that over inflated ego trip. Delusions of grandeur hardly scratches the surface of what you have found to quote for us here today. Poland is as good a country as any other, Israel, Pakistan, Nigeria, England...etc....Poles have contributed much and many of us appreciate Polish endeavour.

Did he write somthing that is not truth?

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 17-Apr-2016 at 14:36

Polish-Japanese Cooperation

Now I will present you the information which for many might be shocking. Polish Secret Intelligence did cooperate with Japan Secret Services till 1944.

Before WW 2 Poland and Japan had excellent relations and Intelligence Services of both countries together cooperated in the actions against Soviet Union. Cooperation was deep and was based on the loyalty and lack of attempts to deceive the partner.
Cpt. Jerzy Niebrzycki of Polish Intelligence Services in the year 1936 was instructing Polish officers that in the relations with Japanese officers "loyalty is the most important thing".

In the 20ties Japanese secret services were very backward both in breaking ciphers as well as in creating new ciphers. In fact they were not able to break any Soviet ciphers.

First in 1922 Japan asked Poland for help and send to Poland large amount of Soviet messages. Polish cryptologist's did read them all in the two weeks. This resulted in farther cooperation, Polish cryptologist's were sent to Japan to teach Japanesse officers how to break the ciphers and finally the groups of Japanese cryptologist were being sent to Poland where learned from their Polish colleagues.

German invasion of Poland was badly recived in Japan and Japan services offered help to Poland and especially Polish officers of Secret Services almost imidatelly.

In 1939 Masao Ueda Japanese military attaché from embassy in Bucharest did offer his Polish colleagues full cooperation based on the partnership.

That time there were already three polish officers in the Kwantung army working as specialists to decode the Soviet COMINT. The Polish government in exile in London decided to let them stay in Manchuria and continue to do their duty.

The Japanese were disgusted and dissapointed that Germany cooperated with their enemy Soviet Union together against Poland and decided to conduct secret operations and espionage against Germans as well as against Soviet Union.

The proposal was accepted by the Polish goverment and Poland in fact signed informal alliance with Japan, both states decided to continue cooperation of their secret services and to exchange with gathered informations as well as to provide help to its agents if necessary.

The above descripted deal resulted in many joined actions and operations. For example maj. Michal Rybikowski wit the help of Japanesse services (under command of colonel Toshio Nishimura) was installed in Baltic States and Sweden.
In Lithuania Polish services recived great help from consul Chiune Sugihara.
Next in Sweden (where with the great help from Japanesse side was installed Polish spy network) Poles started cooperation with col. Makato Onodera who was giving Polish services important informations coming also from Hungarian and Finnish intelligence services which the Japanese inflitrated..
Japanese colonel Onodera disliked Germans and Hitler equally, he forseen their failure. What more, the Japanesse colonel was in friendly relations with the Wilhelm Canaris - chief of Abwehr and for meetings with Canaris in Berlin was always taking with him Polish officer who was pretending to be his Finnish translator Peter Iwanow.

But there is even more. Polish officers of secret intelligence services were employed in Berlin in the ambassy of Manchukuo (State of Manchuria") a puppet state of Japan where also with the help of Japanesse services created spy network.
Colonel Makato Onodera in his book after the war did write that in exchange Polish services gave him a lot of important informations from agents of Polish services in Smolensk, Vienna, Riga, Ural, Siberia and Moscow.

When Chiune Sugihara became general consul in Prague he appointed for his secretary Polish lieutnant Daszkiewicz who created the net of spies in German occupied Czechoslovakia, unsing codename "Herman Goering". Japanesse consul allowed him to use his own dipomatic limussine and Polish officer used it to travel in the whole country. In the march 1941 he was the first in the world to discover that Germans are going to invade Yugoslavia.
In mai 1941 Polish-Japanesse team did discover German plans of attack against Soviet Union.
On 11 december 1941 British goverment did force Polish goverment to declare the war against Japan but both countries ignored this fact and cooperation between secret services was continued untill 1944.

Interesting fact - Japan did not accept Polish declaration of war.

The prime-minister of Japan Hideki Tojo did say: "We do not accept Polish declaration of war. The Poles who are fighting for their freedom declared war on us under pressure from the United Kingdom."

The details of the Polish-Japanese cooperation during WW2 are described in the book of Hiroaki Kuromiya i Andrzej Pepłoński "Between Warsaw and Tokyo - Cooperation of Polish and Japanesse Secret Services in years 1904-1944".

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: medievalgear
Date Posted: 17-Apr-2016 at 15:28

Even today the Polish Special Units are some of the best in the world, our seals even train alongside with them...

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Some do. Some do not. I DO most.

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 17-Apr-2016 at 16:46

Originally posted by medievalgear

Even today the Polish Special Units are some of the best in the world, our seals even train alongside with them...

JW GROM is very much in its infancy but has already climbed to around number five in the special forces list. Actually, that should really be six as one and two should read SAS & SBS, but many lists have a tendency to put them together for some reason, even though the lists have America's Navy Seal and Delta force separate in second and third respectively. Go figure. Confused

However, considering there are a number of well-respected units from around the world out there JW GROM have done admirably.

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 17-Apr-2016 at 18:04

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

JW GROM is very much in its infancy but has already climbed to around number five in the special forces list. Actually, that should really be six as one and two should read SAS & SBS, but many lists have a tendency to put them together for some reason, even though the lists have America's Navy Seal and Delta force separate in second and third respectively. Go figure.However, considering there are a number of well-respected units from around the world out there JW GROM have done admirably.

From Polish spec. troops GROM gets all the press coverage. But it is said that the best Polish unit is JW FORMOZA. And they are the guys who train together with American Navy Seals.

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 17-Apr-2016 at 18:06

Originally posted by Mosquito

Did he write somthing that is not truth?

Did you check the quote in order to comment on any of the areas touched where there might have been distortion or omission? Does distortion or omission in a piece make it morally true, Mosquito? Do you only quote from those affiliated with the far right, Mosquito?

Here's a starting point. Enigma. Omission. Exaggeration.

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 17-Apr-2016 at 18:11

During WW2 some interesting info was also provided by Polish agent Kazimierz Leski

He did travel in occupied Europe in disguise as German general major Julius von Hallman. He visited Atlanctic Wall and drawed its detailed plans. He even visited feldmarshal Gerd von Rundtsted and his field Staff. The Germans have never realised that there is no such general in their army.

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 17-Apr-2016 at 18:12

Originally posted by Mosquito

From Polish spec. troops GROM gets all the press coverage. But it is said that the best Polish unit is JW FORMOZA. And they are the guys who train together with American Navy Seals.

My guess is that the list has done the same with Poland's GROM and FORMOZA as with the SAS and SBS.

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 17-Apr-2016 at 18:28

Originally posted by Mosquito

During WW2 some interesting info was also provided by Polish agent Kazimierz Leski

He did travel in occupied Europe in disguise as German general major Julius von Hallman. He visited Atlanctic Wall and drawed its detailed plans. He even visited feldmarshal Gerd von Rundtsted and his field Staff. The Germans have never realised that there is no such general in their army.

Not to mention his visit to the field staff of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, Mosquito. An excellent deception. LOL

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 18-Apr-2016 at 09:22

OPERATION CART

Poland had already many succeses before the war. For example all the secret messages carried in trains from Berlin to Koenigsberg in West Prussia were being read by Polish intelligence services.

The train was followed by a truck, from the truck 3 agents were jumping into the train, opening iron safe (it was done by professional bank robbers forced to work for secret services), removing all the seals, photo-copying all the mail and puting the seals back, closing the safe and leaving everything as it was before (all this in about 2 hours). The Germans have never found that their secret mail was being read.

Another succes was sending to Germany agent Jerzy Sosnowski who played the key role in the "OPERATION REICHSWEHR"

He presented himself in Berlin as a Polish Baron Ritter von Nalecz and he claimed that he dislikes Polish goverment which ruined his military career.

He was a very handsome man who quickly become the lover of many German women of high society such as Benita von Falkenhayn, Renate von Natzmer, Lotta von Lemmel and Isabelle von Tauscher (naming the few). He also recruited some German officers including Günther Rudloff from the Abwehr. Before the Germans realised that he is a Polish secret agent he was for years able to sent to Poland many important informations. Many of his aristocratic female lovers were working to get for him the secrets of German state.
Finaly the Germans realised that he is a spy working for Poland. He and most of his informators were arrested. The informators including all the women were found guilty of espionage and executed. Sosnowski himself was exchanged for German agents captured in Poland by Polish secret services.

From New York Evening Post, 20 february 1935:

Jerzy Sosnowski, Polish super agent in 30ties:

Sosnowski during WW1 was an officer of the Austrian army:

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 07:57

I'm loving your espionage stories of Polish agents, Mosquito. As I understand it then such things were going on a long time before the second world war in Germany and the Soviet Union. I know this is a little off-topic, but it makes good background for what you have put forward. What have you on the agents in the Soviet Union pre-war?

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 16:17

The espionage on the territory of USSR was extremly hard because of totalitarian system in this country. Among the spies were usually ethnic Poles and people who had Polish ancestors but also ethnic Belorusians and Ukrainians. However the Polish Operation of NKVD killed many of those people who were a part of so called "deep espionage".

There was also so called "shallow espionage" around the Polish-Soviet borders which was based on armed incursions on Soviet territory. It were usualy radical Belorusian and Ukrainian nationalists who were committing diversionary actions.

On the other hand in Poland every year between 1920-1939 were being arrested about 300-400 Soviet spies.

I have found a report to Yezhov, chief of NKVD from 11.08.1938. Sorry if there is some bad english but I have translated it myself with the help of google translator:

Report Nr. 00485, 11.08.1938

TOP SECRET

I send with this order a secret document about the fascist-insurgent, espionage, sabotage, defeatist and terrorist activities of the Polish intelligence in the USSR, as well as the materials of the investigation on POW 1 which reveal the image of a long-term and relatively unpunished sabotage and espionage work of the Polish intelligence on the territory of the Soviet Union.
With these materials you can see that the subversive activities of the Polish intelligence were carried out and continues to be carried out that impunity for this activity can be explained only by bad work of the authorities of the Central State Safety Board.
Even now, work on the liquidation of the area Polish sabotage and espionage groups and organizations POW did not develop fully. The pace and scale of investigation are extremely small. The same situation is with the records of Polish political emigrants. Regarding the work of agents, it is almost completely absent. Moreover, the existing agents, as a rule are double, substituted by Polish secret services.
Not quite vast liquidation of personnel of the Polish intelligence is all the more dangerous when it was broken up in Moscow's center POW, they arrested many of its most active members. Polish secret service, predicting the inevitability of their further mishaps, is trying to run, and in individual cases already starts its grid sabotage in the national economy of the USSR, especially in buildings of a defensive nature.

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 16:36

Originally posted by Mosquito

The espionage on the territory of USSR was extremly hard because of totalitarian system in this country. Among the spies were usually ethnic Poles and people who had Polish ancestors but also ethnic Belorusians and Ukrainians. However the Polish Operation of NKVD killed many of those people who were a part of so called "deep espionage".

There was also so called "shallow espionage" around the Polish-Soviet borders which was based on armed incursions on Soviet territory. It were usualy radical Belorusian and Ukrainian nationalists who were committing diversionary actions.

On the other hand in Poland every year between 1920-1939 were being arrested about 300-400 Soviet spies.

I have found a report to Yezhov, chief of NKVD from 11.08.1938. Sorry if there is some bad english but I have translated it myself with the help of google translator:

Not to say this isn't of interest, Mosquito because it very much is. However as a nation, you do tend to be forthcoming with accounts when such things have been stated, such as well established networks as in pre-war countries such as Germany and the Soviet Union. Maybe such networks were somewhat of a boast sometimes considering the lack of accounts.

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 16:38

Polish Secret Services in North Africa and its role in the Operation Torch.

One of the biggest actions of Polish Intelligence was invigilation of Northern Africa and preparation of Operation Torch.

After France collapsed Polish goverment sent to Vichy controlled Algier major Mieczysław Słowikowski who used codename "Rygor" (Polish for "Rigor") and opened so called "Agency Africa". Slowikowski did set up a company which was producting and trading cornflakes in the whole North Africa and the company became a comercial success which provided funds and network of shops and trading posts which were in the same time offices of secret agents. By the begining of Operation Torch Slowikowski and 2 other Polish officers commanded the army 2500 French agents who for various reasons (money, patriotism, dislike of Vichy goverment) were getting important informations. His intelligence officers were Polish but his agents were all French. Polish "Agency Africa" operated on the large territory from the Libyan–Tunisian border to French West Africa. Slowikowski posing as a wealthy businessman and using Algiers as a base, organized nine outposts in Algeria, Tunisia, French Morocco, and Dakar in French West Africa.

"I felt like a great spider whose growing net was covering bigger and bigger parts of the country" - said Slowikowski many years later.

Slowikowski did gather locations and detailed descriptions of all the arifields, seaports, mine fields, fuel depots, defence plans, movements of army, ships, moods of population, amount of ammunition in depots and military forces, coastal batteries, number of soldiers in regiments, their commanders (with detailed characteristics and political sympathies) and much more...

British historian M.R.D Foot in his foreword to Słowikowski's book "In the Secret Service", writes:

"Rygor, as he called himself [...], knew all the rules; and knew when to break them. Never go near children; but his son was with him, then in his earliest teens, and was a useful watchman. Never employ women on technical military tasks; but his wife helped him with his ciphering. Never go near the hostile security services; but he made friends with a disaffected senior police officer, who kept him and his family supplied with all the false papers they needed. In the teeth of every sort of obstacle — both locally, and in the shape of impractical instructions from the Poles in exile in London — he and the sub-agents he organized provided masses of data, military, economic and political, which played a leading part in the planning of operation 'Torch', the Anglo-American invasion of Algeria and Morocco in November 1942. "

In fact it was Slowikowski and his "Agency Afrika" that prepared Operation Torch. For this he was awarded by the British with Order of the British Empire, by the Americans with Legion of Merit and by Polish goverment Gold Cross of Merit with Swords.

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 16:55

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

Not to say this isn't of interest, Mosquito because it very much is. However as a nation, you do tend to be forthcoming with accounts when such things have been stated, such as well established networks as in pre-war countries such as Germany and the Soviet Union. Maybe such networks were somewhat of a boast sometimes considering the lack of accounts.

The problem is that Poland is not a Great Britain. Unlike Britain it was first occupied by the Germans, next by the Soviets. All the files of secret services which were not destroyed in 1939 felt into hands of either Germans or Russians. Many things about secret intelligence actions are known because their agents were discovered or arrested (like in the case of Sosnowski in Germany because it became also high class social scandal in Germany)but in case their operations were a full success, the cases remained unknown. Whats is also known is the fact that after Germany took over Poland, several hundrieds people were executed in Germany because some files were captured by them.

The deep cooperation between Poland and Japan during WW2 is known only because Japanese allowed their historians to read old WW2 secret files.

The fact that Polish mathematicians broke ENIGMA before the war is mostly known because Polish intelligence few days before the war gave all their work to French and British services.

Most of the files of Polish Secret Services in Great Britain were also destroyed before the British services tried to seize them. What is very interesting is that those files which British Services were able to capture was sealed and remain secret. Polish goverment was asking for those files several times. They will be opened around year 2030.

Some actions of Polish Secret Services are well known by the historians like for example capturing V2 rocket and sending it to Britain, discovering that there is secret rocket poligon and industry at Penemunde.

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 17:27

Originally posted by Mosquito

The problem is that Poland is not a Great Britain. Unlike Britain it was first occupied by the Germans, next by the Soviets. All the files of secret services which were not destroyed in 1939 felt into hands of either Germans or Russians. Many things about secret intelligence actions are known because their agents were discovered or arrested (like in the case of Sosnowski in Germany because it became also high class social scandal in Germany)but in case their operations were a full success, the cases remained unknown. Whats is also known is the fact that after Germany took over Poland, several hundrieds people were executed in Germany.

The deep cooperation between Poland and Japan during WW2 is known only because Japanese allowed their historians to read old WW2 secret files.

The fact that Polish mathematicians broke ENIGMA before the war is mostly known because Polish intelligence few days before the war gave all their work to French and British services.

Most of the files of Polish Secret Services in Great Britain were also destroyed before the British services tried to seize them. What is very interesting is that those files which British Services were able to capture was sealed and remain secret. Polish goverment was asking for those files several times. They will be opened around year 2030.

Some actions of Polish Secret Services are well known by the historians like for example capturing V2 rocket and sending it to Britain, discovering that there is secret rocket poligon and industry at Penemunde.

With due respect, Mosquito, the chances of absolutely nothing remaining of any accounts of espionage seems a little bit convenient and somewhat odd. So no one survived or lived to pass on any accounts at all? Why would the Soviets pick and choose records to destroy if they believed they had ultimate power? Also as a nation, you do tend to enjoy sharing stories of how well you do in endeavors, and yet there's nothing at all about anything happening.

Btw, Mosquito, might be an idea you reevaluate that little bit of Enigma history again. You totally miss out information about what really happened and the worth of what was presented to the British.

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 17:39

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

With due respect, Mosquito, the chances of absolutely nothing remaining of any accounts of espionage seems a little bit convenient and somewhat odd. So no one survived or lived to pass on any accounts at all? Why would the Soviets pick and choose records to destroy if they believed they had ultimate power?

Ask the Russians.
Some things are known from their files but it are mostly the files of the Polish agents who were discovered by Soviets or who changed sides.
Polish files are mostly lost because were burn in 1939.

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

Btw, Mosquito, might be an idea you reevaluate that little bit of Enigma history again. You totally miss out information about what really happened and the worth of what was presented to the British.

What I know is that British services were not even close to this what Polish had in 1939. They didnt know how enigma works, didnt have their own copy of enigma, havent read a signle german message coded by enigma. Everything has changed after Polish services gave them one and explained how it works.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/15/polish-codebreakers-cracked-enigma-before-alan-turing/

"While Britain still used linguists to break codes, the Poles had understood that it was necessary to use mathematics to look for patterns and had broken some of the early pre-war German codes.

They had then taken a further step by building electro-mechanical machines to search for solutions, which they called "bombes".

On the eve of war in 1939 Bletchely codebreakers Alastair Denniston and Dilly Knox met with members of the Cipher Bureau at a secret facility in a forest in Pyry near Warsaw to share their knowledge.

Alan Turing, also later visited the Polish codebreakers and used their knowledge to develop his own "bombe" capable of breaking the more complex wartime Enigma codes."

http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~foss/valentin/Polish_breackdown.html

The bomby
        The methods discussed so far did not identify the actual key, only a number of possibilities, which had to be tried, one by one, on an Enigma replica until the operators' fingers were raw and bleeding. What was needed was a machine to accomplish this task.

        The Enigma scrambler was single-ended; one set of terminals served both as input and output. What was needed was a device where certain input terminals could be energized, and as it went through all the possible positions, a second set of terminals monitored to detect a desired output. For example, if it was assumed that the first three letters of a coded message HJQ represented the plaintext anx, input terminals H, J, and Q are energized and output terminals a, n, and x monitored. The machine steps through all cycles until a match is found, and then stops.

        Three sets of double-ended scramblers, one machine cycle apart, were driven by a motor. In our example, input terminals H, J, X were energized, and the machine stopped at any occurence of a, n, x. For each test run, 6 bomby were required, one for each of the 6 possible rotor positions.

        The machines made a ticking noise as they worked, and stopped when they arrived a solution. The Poles called them bomby (plural, "bomba" singular), perhaps from the ticking of the clockwork in a bomb fuse which stopped just before it exploded. Another possibility is that the name came from an ice cream dish they were eating at the time.

        With keys given them by the French, and using replica machines they had built, the Polish team of Marian Rejewski, Jerzy R?zycki and Henryk Zygalski were able to decode most German messages. They were particularly interested in radio traffic between German troops training in Russia, a ploy which allowed them to circumvent terms of the Versailles Treaty. However, they never related their results to the French, probably because they feared the Germans would find out that their codes had been compromised and institute new procedures which would nullify their success. The French, puzzled at receiving no intelligence, continued to pass on the keys nevertheless.

        The Poles began their efforts when the Germans used only three rotors. Although the keys were out of date, they were able to apply them to a backlog of messages.

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 17:58

Enigma- German Machine Cipher- "Broken" by Polish Cryptologists
by Brandi Dawn Brown

http://www.math.ucsd.edu/~crypto/students/enigma.html

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 18:14

Originally posted by Mosquito

What gets me, Mosquito, is that we're supposed to believe that the Soviets decided to sift through the secret documents only removing the accounts of Polish espionage in regards to the Soviet Union and also somehow silenced anyone connected to the events, plus anyone who may have read them. Totalitarian regimes also believe in their own infallibility. They would have either kept all of the documents or destroyed them all because they would have believed in their own power. No, I don't buy it.

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 18:21

As for those who had full knowledge about operations of Polish Secret Services before WW2 there were only two such people: major Marian Jan Steifer and colonel Jan Henryk Żychoń.

There are not confirmed rumours that the first died in 1945 in Budapest, Hungary. But there are also rumours that he was captured by Soviet NKVD, transported to USSR tortured and murdered.

The second died in 1944 in Italy. There is only one his photogaphy:

The chief of Polish Secret Services in Great Britain was colonel Stanisław Gano. In 1945 British Goverment demanded from him all the files of the Polish Secret Services. He did burn most of them, including all the personal files of the agents (he didnt want to allow the British to force his agents to work for them), the rest was seized by the British. After the war he settled in Morocco. Died in 1968 in Casablanca, didnt write any book nor left any memoirs. He just kept silent until his death.

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 18:34

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

What gets me, Mosquito, is that we're supposed to believe that the Soviets decided to sift through the secret documents only removing the accounts of Polish espionage in regards to the Soviet Union and also somehow silenced anyone connected to the events, plus anyone who may have read them. Totalitarian regimes also believe in their own infallibility. They would have either kept all of the documents or destroyed them all because they would have believed in their own power. No, I don't buy it.

I told you what I know. And thats all. However from Japanese files you may learn about informations which Polish secret services shared with the japanese intelligence. Some informations must be also in the files of Polish intelligence which were captured by your British MI5 or MI6. Ask your goverment to share them.

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 18:43

Originally posted by Mosquito

Originally posted by Mosquito

Enigma- German Machine Cipher- "Broken" by Polish Cryptologists
by Brandi Dawn Brown

http://www.math.ucsd.edu/~crypto/students/enigma.html

Hopefully is will be of some interest to you, Mosquito.

CLASSIFIED documents released by France for the first time have shown that France and Poland played a crucial part in cracking the Enigma code used by the Nazis – and disprove claims in the Oscar-winning Imitation Game film that it was all due to British mathematician Alan Turing.
Deciphering the Enigma code – which was used by the German army, air force and navy from 1932 to 1941 – enabled the Allies to intercept communications and played a key role in the eventual defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.

French official ‘Mme Nathalie’ – whose real name has been withheld – of secret service archives department DGSE, said: “The situation portrayed in Imitation Game – that the French gave up trying to crack the Enigma code – is untrue.”

Proof of this is now available to the public after the DGSE decided to declassify some 600 documents connected to General Gustave Bertrand, the French intelligence officer who set up a department tasked with cracking military codes in 1930.

The “Bertrand archives” include references to a secret German source that reveals the major contribution made by France to deciphering the Enigma coding machine.

In 1931 General Bertrand was approached by a German agent who offered to sell information about messages being transmitted by his country. The French were also helped by Poland, which expressed fears that same year over “the development of Germany and its intentions” – three years before Hitler became Führer and consolidated his grip on power.

Historians assert that a Polish team of mathematicians led by Marian Rejewski in Warsaw was the first to understand that the German code was being produced by a mechanical system – like a very complex typewriter – which was subsequently perfected under the Nazi regime.

During the 1930s Rejewski and his colleagues, using material supplied by French intelligence from German sources, cracked Enigma repeatedly. But the Germans continued to use it, developing the code and making it increasingly difficult to decipher.

The Polish, French and British did not work together on Enigma until after Nazi Germany annexed Austria during the Anschluss of 1938. By then Polish intelligence had realised it did not have the resources to decipher increasingly complex German coding alone.

“The Polish undoubtedly brought good working methods with them – without them you would not have had the English [breakthrough],” said Olivier Forcade, expert on French intelligence during the Third Republic.

Forcade, who is also a history professor at the Sorbonne, added that he did not want to “diminish the genius of Turing”, but rather to set the historical record straight. “The Bertrand archives add the missing piece of the puzzle concerning the French intelligence services,” he said.

http://www.connexionfrance.com/Nazi-Enigma-Germany-Poland-France-war-17499-view-article.html - http://www.connexionfrance.com/Nazi-Enigma-Germany-Poland-France-war-17499-view-article.html

So it would seem that the information supplied by your own nation again was overblown and somewhat on the boastful side, Mosquito, hoping maybe documentation wouldn't surface saying events ran differently than they had stated. Also, what is know about what was handed over to the British is that the cyphers had advanced again and again and the Polish Cypher breakers were no longer capable of keeping up. So what the Britsh had was the machine, and the then obsolete original method of breaking the code. It was still of great use, don't get me wrong, but not the story being tried to be put forward.

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 18:53

It wasnt just "of great use". Without this what the Poles did, the British wouldnt be able to do anything. They simply had no idea how ENIGMA did work and tried to break it using linguistic methods.

As for Gustave Bertrand, in all the Polish books is written that he cooperated with the Poles on breaking ENIGMA however it was quite late when Polish Services shared with the French the results of their work.
And also - the French contribution didnt have any scientific character.

It was Rejewski and two other mathematicians from my university who really broke the system. The French contribution was important but there was no British contribution until Turing using the knowledge gathered by Poles and French constructed ULTRA.

To say the truth in above article should have been written:

"During the 1930s Rejewski and his colleagues, using material supplied also by French intelligence from German sources, cracked Enigma repeatedly. But the Germans continued to use it, developing the code and making it increasingly difficult to decipher.

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 18:57

Originally posted by Mosquito

I'm not saying you haven't told me everything you knew, Mosquito. What I am saying is that it's all but impossible to have not had anyone or something documenting any events from that time who in some way was connected. You have already shown how your people enjoy keeping such things alive.

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 19:06

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

I'm not saying you haven't told me everything you knew, Mosquito. What I am saying is that it's all but impossible to have not had anyone or something documenting any events from that time who in some way was connected. You have already shown how your people enjoy keeping such things alive.

And I tell you that such documents existed but were burn in 1939, in 1945 and most likely also by the Russians in 1941 when Germany invaded Soviet Union - if the Russians captured somthing valuable - what is not sure.
The people who had such knowledge are dead. Some of them like Slowikowski did write a book, some like Gano didnt. And there are plenty of files which survived, mostly because Japanese goverment shared them with the public. But most of historians even 10 years ago had no idea about Japanese - Polish cooperation. Nobody knew that there were Polish agents in Germany who used diplomatic passports issued by Japan or that Polish secret service officer was a personal secretary of Japanese diplomat in Germany or that there were Polish code breakers in the Japanese Kwantung army. Most likely because Poland was allied with Britain and British were at war with Japan. And the truth came out after 60 years. And there are no Polish sources which can confirm it because Polish officers who were engaged in this cooperation also didnt speak much about it.

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 19:11

Originally posted by Mosquito

It wasnt just "of great use". Without this what the Poles did, the British wouldnt be able to do anything. They simply had no idea how ENIGMA did work and tried to break it using linguistic methods.

As for Gustave Bertrand, in all the Polish books is written that he cooperated with the Poles on breaking ENIGMA however it was quite late when Polish Services shared with the French the results of their work.
And also - the French contribution didnt have any scientific character.

It was Rejewski and two other mathematicians from my university who really broke the system. The French contribution was important but there was no British contribution until Turing using the knowledge gathered by Poles and French constructed ULTRA.

Maybe you should read the article again, Mosquito. It does state how this new documentation had the French in from the beginning giving the vital material to Poland. Without such help from the French, your mathematicians wouldn't have had anything themselves to start their endeavor from. It makes quite clear how it was very early on this occurred and not the late that has been suggested. What Turing gained from what was supplied isn't known. What is known however is his method used to decipher was found through a number of commonly used words and built on from there. It would seem that in the end his genius was in the simplicity of his idea.

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 19:14

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

What Turing gained from what was supplied isn't known. What is known however is his method used to decipher was found through a number of commonly used words and built on from there. It would seem that in the end his genius was in the simplicity of his idea.

Even this wasnt his idea. The method based on commonly used words was already used by the Poles when they discovered that most of German messages contains the words :Heil Hitler. Dont learn history from the movies.

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 19:22

Originally posted by Mosquito

How do we know that such documents actually existed? Had the knowledge in any been known then surely someone would have written some of it down in order to not lose it all, and yet only those pieces from the records have been burned. The more times I look at it the more unlikely it seems. Even the Romans couldn't make everything disappear when they wanted knowledge of a person to be destroyed. The information won't stay hidden forever, Mosquito. Someone somewhere will hold something which in time will be revealed.

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 19:41

Originally posted by Mosquito

Maybe you shouldn't presume it was the movie words, Mosquito. LOL

The Polish cryptologic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomba_%28cryptography%29 - bomba (Polish: bomba kryptologiczna; plural bomby) had been useful only as long as three conditions were met. First, the form of the indicator had to include the repetition of the message key; second, the number of rotors available had to be limited to three, giving six different "wheel orders" (the three rotors and their order within the machine); and third, the number of plug-board leads had to remain relatively small so that the majority of letters were unsteckered.^{[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Disputed_statement - – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bombe#Dubious - discuss ]} Six machines were built, one for each possible rotor order. The bomby were delivered in November 1938, but barely a month later the Germans introduced two additional rotors for loading into the Enigma scrambler, increasing the number of wheel orders by a factor of ten. Building another 54 bomby was beyond the Poles' resources. Also, on 1 January 1939, the number of plug-board leads was increased to ten. The Poles therefore had to return to manual methods, the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zygalski_sheets - Zygalski sheets .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing - Alan Turing designed the British bombe on a more general principle, the assumption of the presence of text, called a crib, that cryptanalysts could predict was likely to be present at a defined point in the message. This technique is termed a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Known_plaintext_attack - known plaintext attack and had been used to a limited extent by the Poles, e.g., the Germans' use of "ANX" — "AN", German for "To," followed by "X" as a spacer.

Bletchley Park's commanding officer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Travis - Edward Travis acquired a £100,000 budget for the construction of Turing's machine, and the contract to build the bombes was awarded to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Tabulating_Machine_Company - British Tabulating Machine Company (BTM) at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letchworth - Letchworth .^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe#cite_note-23 - [23]} BTM placed the project under the direction of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Keen - Harold 'Doc' Keen . Each machine was about 7 feet (2.1 m) wide, 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 m) tall, 2 feet (0.61 m) deep and weighed about a ton.^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe#cite_note-24 - [24]} On the front of each bombe were 108 places where drums could be mounted. The drums were in three groups of 12 triplets. Each triplet, arranged vertically, corresponded to the three rotors of an Enigma scrambler. The bombe drums' input and output contacts went to cable connectors, allowing the bombe to be wired up according to the menu. The 'fast' drum rotated at a speed of 50.4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rpm - rpm in the first models^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe#cite_note-25 - [25]} and 120 rpm in later ones,^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe#cite_note-26 - [26]} when the time to set up and run through all 17,576 possible positions for one rotor order was about 20 minutes.^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe#cite_note-27 - [27]}

The first bombe, which was based on Turing's original design and so lacked a diagonal board, was installed in "Hut 1" at Bletchley Park on 18 March 1940^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe#cite_note-28 - [28]} and was named "Victory". The second bombe, named "Agnus dei", later shortened to "Agnes", or "Aggie", was equipped with Welchman's diagonal board, and was installed on 8 August 1940; "Victory" was later returned to Letchworth to have a diagonal board fitted.^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe#cite_note-29 - [29]} The bombes were later moved from "Hut 1" to "Hut 11". The bombe was referred to by Group Captain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Winterbotham - Winterbotham as a "Bronze Goddess" because of its colour.^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe#cite_note-30 - [30]} The devices were more prosaically described by operators as being "like great big metal bookcases".^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe#cite_note-31 - [31]}

During 1940, 178 messages were broken on the two machines, nearly all successfully. Because of the danger of bombes at Bletchley Park being lost if there were to be a bombing raid, bombe outstations^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe#cite_note-32 - [32]} were established, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adstock - Adstock , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gayhurst - Gayhurst and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavendon - Wavendon .^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe#cite_note-33 - [33]} In June–August 1941 there were 4 to 6 bombes at Bletchley Park, and when Wavendon was completed, Bletchley, Adstock and Wavenden had a total of 24 to 30 bombes. When Gayhurst became operational there were a total of 40 to 46 bombes, and it was expected that the total would increase to about 70 bombes run by some 700 Wrens. But in 1942 with the introduction of the naval four-rotor Enigma, "far more than seventy bombes" would be needed. New outstations were established at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanmore - Stanmore and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastcote - Eastcote , and the Wavendon and Adstock bombes were moved to them, though the Gayhurst site was retained. The few bombes left at Bletchley Park were used for demonstration and training purposes only.^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe#cite_note-34 - [34]}

^{http://https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe#The_British_Bombe - http://https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe#The_British_Bombe}

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: J.A.W.
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 21:10

Bear in mind the very difficult wartime situation the Polish Intelligence Services found themselves in..

..knowing that the British Intelligence Services were compromised by Soviet agents long planted within

their upper echelons..

Even the comparatively inexperienced US Intelligence Services were warned post-war by the ex-Nazi

SS/SD operatives they'd recruited - that the British had been effectively infiltrated by the Soviets..

..but too late to prevent 'Manhattan Project' nuclear weapons secrets - going to Stalin..

No doubt the Polish Intelligence Services in Britain wanted to prevent the Soviets getting data on

Polish operatives from the British, & the British are rightfully ashamed of their corrupt conduct,

which is why so many of those files remain 'secret' & unobtainable under the '100 year rule'..

So many dirty tricks/disinformation programs..

Its incredible that we so naturally assume the 'good-guy' vs 'bad-guy' stuff - is correct, all too readily..

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Be Modest In Thyself..

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2016 at 21:53

Originally posted by J.A.W.

Bear in mind the very difficult wartime situation the Polish Intelligence Services found themselves in..

..knowing that the British Intelligence Services were compromised by Soviet agents long planted within

their upper echelons..

Even the comparatively inexperienced US Intelligence Services were warned post-war by the ex-Nazi

SS/SD operatives they'd recruited - that the British had been effectively infiltrated by the Soviets..

..but too late to prevent 'Manhattan Project' nuclear weapons secrets - going to Stalin..

No doubt the Polish Intelligence Services in Britain wanted to prevent the Soviets getting data on

Polish operatives from the British, & the British are rightfully ashamed of their corrupt conduct,

which is why so many of those files remain 'secret' & unobtainable under the '100 year rule'..

So many dirty tricks/disinformation programs..

Its incredible that we so naturally assume the 'good-guy' vs 'bad-guy' stuff - is correct, all too readily..

No doubt you're correct, J.A.W. However, lest we forget. British intelligence practically wrote the book on the modern intelligence service and for decades to come at that time were still top dog at it. They pretty well knew infiltration might be an issue from the time of the Spanish civil war. However, knowing who may be infiltrators is still an issue all security services have to deal with. It should also be mention that amongst other nations who were fighting the Nazis Britain gave intensive training to the US, Soviet Union, and Polish in these aspects. Out of the three the Polish had the more developed skills to start with, but Britain developed her security service with which might still be an unrivalled network from the time of empire. America's only managed to top this in the 1970s I believe. As for corrupt conduct, again without a shadow of a doubt. Ask any of the services if they are spotless and if they reply yes then you know they're a bunch of liars. Hell what am I saying they're actors so they lie for a living. LOL

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 20-Apr-2016 at 17:02

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

British intelligence practically wrote the book on the modern intelligence service and for decades to come at that time were still top dog at it.

At that time, I mean WW 2 British intelligence was in terrible condition. Major Stevens and captain Best who knew everything about British agenture in Germany were captured and interrogated.
Since that time the most valuable informations which the British had were coming from Polish Secret Services.

From:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venlo_Incident

"The damage inflicted on Britain's espionage network in Europe caused new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill to start his own spy and sabotage agency, the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in 1940."

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 20-Apr-2016 at 22:24

Originally posted by Mosquito

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

British intelligence practically wrote the book on the modern intelligence service and for decades to come at that time were still top dog at it.

The Venlo incident was definitely a wake-up call, Mosquito, but the outcome simply added weaponry to British intelligence armoury. As the quote you added shows a new sabotage unit was formed. However, Churchill's sabotage agency was made up from departments already existing in the intelligence community. These three departments had already been a response to the events stated and expectations of an impending war. Churchill simply cut the red tape by fusing them together.

Mosquito, though much important information was coming through Polish agents we should forget these things tended to be a joint effort. For instance, without funding and other resources from Poland's allies what position would they have been in to take part? It has been stated that about 43% of reports received by British intelligence from continental Europe were from Polish agents. However as it has already been noted agents in France tended to be French. The significance being the huge number of reports of French origin being passed on to Polish handlers who then passed them on to British intelligence. This doesn't in any way make the Polish handlers/operatives any less brave because they aren't retrieving the vast majority of the information themselves. They were still being hunted by the Nazis, and at times being caught. My point is that at times figures don't show the whole thing as it really is. For instance, Mosquito, found this interesting snippet that has somehow slipped under the radar but has managed to make its way to the surface:

According to the book’s author, nearly 200,000 Polish Jews fought against Nazi Germany in the ranks of the Polish Armies on Polish soil and in exile. They defended Poland in September 1939 against the German aggression and they fought in the Polish Armies in exile. Despite the tremendous Jewish military contribution to the Polish war efforts, the official Polish historical bibliography of WWII ignores this Jewish phenomena. The purpose of this book is to rectify this historical injustice and to commemorate the Jewish Fighters in the struggle against Nazi Germany.

The book identifies nearly 5,000 Polish-Jewish officers, giving their name, birth date, military rank and service branch, and death circumstances when applicable. Originally published by the Association of Jewish War Veterans of Polish Armies in Israel.

http://www.avotaynu.com/books/PolishOfficers.htm - http://www.avotaynu.com/books/PolishOfficers.htm

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 21-Apr-2016 at 04:44

However the Jews Alani, were rather cooperating with Poles than British, who were consdered by them as an enemy.

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 21-Apr-2016 at 19:48

Polish-Jewish anti-British cooperation

Since 1937 after meeting of Ze'ev Jabotinsky (leader of Irgun) with Polish leader marshal Rydz- Smigly the Jews in Palestine, especially IRGUN recived Polish help. Some members of Irgun (few tens, no more than 100) were sent to Poland and were trained in construction of bombs, use of many kinds of explosives and street fighting.
Some amount of arms and explosives was also smuggled from Poland to Palestine to arm Irgun.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_%28group%29

Others received military training from instructors of the Polish Armed Forces in 1938–1939. This training was conducted in Trochenbrod (Zofiówka) in Wołyń Voivodeship, Podębin near Łódź, and the forests around Andrychów. They were taught how to use explosives. One of them reported later:

"Poles treated terrorism as a science. We have mastered mathematical principles of demolishing constructions made of concrete, iron, wood, bricks and dirt".

When the army of general Anders stationed in Palestine. All the soldiers of Jewish nationality who decided to stay in Palestine were allowed to leave the army. To the British they were reported by Polish authorities as deserters.

One of those who left Polish army in Palestine was later Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin. However he didnt run away but came to general Anders and asked him for permission to leave which was granted. He became the leader of Jewish terrorist organisation "Irgun".

Upon arriving in Palestine, Begin, like many other Polish-Jewish soldiers of the Anders' Army, faced a choice between remaining with the Anders' Army to fight Nazi Germany in Europe, or staying in Palestine to fight for establishment of a Jewish state. While he initially wished to remain with the Polish army, he was eventually persuaded to change his mind by his contacts in the Irgun, as well as Polish officers sympathetic to the Zionist cause. Consequently, General Michał Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski, the second in command of the Army issued Begin with a "leave of absence without an expiration" which gave Begin official permission to stay in Palestine. In December 1942 he left Ander's Army and joined the Irgun

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menachem_Begin

This is probably one of the reasons, why during WW2 when Polish troops stationed in Palestine the members of Irgun came to Polish commanders and told how to brand the trucks and cars of Polish army to make them look different than those of British army. Because Poles in the middle east were armed by British and dressed in British uniforms, the fighters of Irgun didnt want to attack Polish soldiers and vehicles.

After WW 2 Israel even wanted to make general Anders the general of their new Jewish army but Anders refused, saying that he is no mercenary.

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 21-Apr-2016 at 20:17

Originally posted by Mosquito

However the Jews Alani, were rather cooperating with Poles than British, who were consdered by them as an enemy.

Not exactly a shock considering the situation in Palestine at the time. However, this still sounds like a bit of a sweeping statement, Mosquito. My understanding of the situation is that even though many Poles of Jewish descent decided to join the struggle in Palestine many remained with the British to fight in North Africa...etc...against the Nazis. Considering such a sweeping statement I presume you've facts and figures pin-pointing numbers to back it up? I look forward to reading your data.

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: J.A.W.
Date Posted: 22-Apr-2016 at 01:59

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

No doubt you're correct, J.A.W. However, lest we forget. British intelligence practically wrote the book on the modern intelligence service and for decades to come at that time were still top dog at it. They pretty well knew infiltration might be an issue from the time of the Spanish civil war. However, knowing who may be infiltrators is still an issue all security services have to deal with. It should also be mention that amongst other nations who were fighting the Nazis Britain gave intensive training to the US, Soviet Union, and Polish in these aspects. Out of the three the Polish had the more developed skills to start with, but Britain developed her security service with which might still be an unrivalled network from the time of empire. America's only managed to top this in the 1970s I believe. As for corrupt conduct, again without a shadow of a doubt. Ask any of the services if they are spotless and if they reply yes then you know they're a bunch of liars. Hell what am I saying they're actors so they lie for a living. LOL

Britain's spy organisation goes back centuries, beyond Q.E.I's Francis Walsingham..

& their remit of infiltration throughout - was part of the reason for the "Perfidious Albion!" jibe.

Stalin had learned from captured British operatives - in his security role post WW I, to coordinate

a multi-pronged approach, combining Military/Agency professionals with both paid/compromised foreign traitor/double agents, & ideological 'moles' with longitudinal pathways to career infiltration, from tertiary education onwards..

The British 'establishment' culture ironically favoured this, & when the boss himself of the organisation

is a traitor/spy he does the job - even more smoothly, as this cannot ever be admitted/revealed..

..except - as in the the case of the Nazi Abwehr & Canaris, with his sabotage exposed post war..

Stalin himself, being fairly suspicious by nature, habitually reserved acting on intel' from a single source,

& usually required confirmation from various independent sources prior to taking meaningful action on it.

Stalin would also 'purge' & 'liquidate' his own security services, & en-mass, as only a harsh dictator could..

Mind you, recent 'waterboarding' type 'interrogation' practices have little on the practices of the

notorious British WW II Col' Scotland at the Tower of London..

.. let alone the post-war Jewish operatives of any organisation, Communist bloc, Zionist/Israeli, or even within Western Allied de-Nazification squads..

As for being "actors/liars" well, many such 'professionals' were/are of course, law graduates..

& likely, many a usefully employed ex-Nazi/SD operative was told.. "Love your work",

by a colleague/boss during the 'cold war' - even if they they might later be turned in, per Klaus Barbie..

Hans Kammler though, being a much bigger fish, remains on the QT.. even today..

Alan Turing too, although very useful with his splendid programmable electronic computer development,

was deemed a 'liability' due to his ( then illegal) 'homosexual propensities', & may've got the 'chop'..

..with this used as a pretext.. ( & what about James Forrestal? Was he an early MK Ultra victim?)..

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Be Modest In Thyself..

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 22-Apr-2016 at 08:18

Originally posted by J.A.W.

Britain's spy organisation goes back centuries, beyond Q.E.I's Francis Walsingham..

& their remit of infiltration throughout - was part of the reason for the "Perfidious Albion!" jibe.

I'd wager a jibe most intelligence organizations around the world would wear as a badge of honour no doubt. LOL

Saying that the actual jibe, J.A.W., as you may have already realized is one, historically speaking, made by your enemy or those with a grudge. Also, "perfidious" originally was used by many to describe many other nations. Btw, British only goes back to 1603. Smile

http://s1235.photobucket.com/user/The_Alani_Dragon_Rising/media/Albion_zpshbdqfhze.png.html">

Originally posted by J.A.W.

Stalin had learned from captured British operatives - in his security role post WW I, to coordinate

The British 'establishment' culture ironically favoured this, & when the boss himself of the organisation

is a traitor/spy he does the job - even more smoothly, as this cannot ever be admitted/revealed..

..except - as in the the case of the Nazi Abwehr & Canaris, with his sabotage exposed post war..

Stalin himself, being fairly suspicious by nature, habitually reserved acting on intel' from a single source,

& usually required confirmation from various independent sources prior to taking meaningful action on it.

Stalin would also 'purge' & 'liquidate' his own security services, & en-mass, as only a harsh dictator could..

People suffering from paranoia, J.A.W. It's a destructive force on the person suffering from it, but as witnessed with both Stalin and Hitler has huge consequences on others.

Originally posted by J.A.W.

Mind you, recent 'waterboarding' type 'interrogation' practices have little on the practices of the

notorious British WW II Col' Scotland at the Tower of London..

.. let alone the post-war Jewish operatives of any organisation, Communist bloc, Zionist/Israeli, or even within Western Allied de-Nazification squads..

The jury is still out on this one. Personally, I'm not keen on torture.

Scotland was accused by a number of prisoners of the London Cage of extracting confessions by torture. Prior to publication of London Cage, MI5 pointed out that Scotland had detailed repeated breaches of the Geneva convention, and had admitted "that prisoners had been forced to kneel while being beaten about the head; forced to stand to attention for up to 26 hours; threatened with execution; or threatened with 'an unnecessary operation'." Publication of the book was delayed for years, and these details were excised.^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Scotland#cite_note-Secrets-1 - [1]}

In London Cage, Scotland vigorously denied that violence was used against prisoners, and that confessions were obtained by seizing upon discrepancies in the accounts of prisoners. "We were not so foolish as to imagine that petty violence, nor even violence of a stronger character, was likely to produce the results hoped for in dealing with some of the toughest creatures of the Hitler regime."^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Scotland#cite_note-25 - [25]}

While denying "sadism", Scotland said things were done that were "mentally just as cruel". One "cheeky and obstinate" prisoner, he said, was forced to strip naked and exercise. This "deflated him completely" and he began to talk. Prisoners were sometimes forced to stand "round the clock", and "if a prisoner wanted to pee he had to do it there and then, in his clothes. It was surprisingly effective."^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Scotland#cite_note-Brainwash-26 - [26]}

Scotland refused to allow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Cross - Red Cross inspections at the London Cage, on the grounds that the prisoners there were neither civilians or criminals within the armed services.^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Scotland#cite_note-Torture-27 - [27]}

In September 1940, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Liddell - Guy Liddell , director of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MI5 - MI5 's counterintelligence B Division, said that he had been told by an officer present at the interrogation that Scotland had punched the jaw of a captured German agent at the London Cage. The agent was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wulf_Schmidt - Wulf Schmidt , known by the code name "Tate." Liddell said in a diary entry that Scotland was "hitting TATE in the jaw and I think got one back himself." Liddell said: "Apart from the moral aspects of the thing, I am convinced that these Gestapo methods do not pay in the long run." Liddell said that "Scotland turned up this morning with a syringe containing some drug or other, which it was thought would induce the prisoner [Tate] to speak."^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Scotland#cite_note-Deceiving-28 - [28]}^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Scotland#cite_note-Crowdy-29 - [29]} Schmidt subsequently became a double agent against the Germans as part of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Cross_System - Double Cross System of double agents operated by MI5.^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Scotland#cite_note-Crowdy-29 - [29]}

In 1943, allegations of mistreatment at the London Cage resulted in a formal protest to the Secretary of State for War by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MI5 - MI5 director https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell_Knight - Maxwell Knight .^{[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Scotland#cite_note-Witt-30 - [30]}

At his war crimes trial, SS General Fritz Knoechlein claimed that he was tortured, which Scotland dismisses in London Cage as a "lame allegation".^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Scotland#cite_note-London_Cage.2C_p._81-19 - [19]} According to Knoechlein, he was stripped, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deprived_of_sleep - deprived of sleep , kicked by guards and starved. He said that he was compelled to walk in a tight circle for four hours. After complaining to Scotland, Knoechlein alleges that he was doused in cold water, pushed down stairs, and beaten. He claimed he was forced to stand beside a hot gas stove before being showered with cold water. He claimed that he and another prisoner were forced to run in circles while carrying heavy logs.^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Scotland#cite_note-Secrets-1 - [1]}

"Since these tortures were the consequences of my personal complaint, any further complaint would have been senseless," Knoechlein wrote. "One of the guards who had a somewhat humane feeling advised me not to make any more complaints, otherwise things would turn worse for me." Other prisoners, he alleged, were beaten until they begged to be killed, while some were told that they could be made to disappear.^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Scotland#cite_note-Secrets-1 - [1]}

Scotland said in his memoirs that Knoechlein was not interrogated at all at the London Cage because there was sufficient evidence to convict him, and he wanted "no confusing documents with the aid of which he might try to wriggle from the net." During his last nights at the cage, Scotland states, Knoechlein "began shrieking in a half-crazed fashion, so that the guards at the London Cage were at a loss to know how to control him. At one stage the local police called in to enquire why such a din was emanating from sedate Kensington Palace Gardens."^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Scotland#cite_note-London_Cage.2C_p._81-19 - [19]}

At a trial in 1947 of eighteen Nazis accused in the massacre of fifty Allied prisoners who escaped from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalag_Luft_III - Stalag Luft III , the Germans alleged starvation, sleep deprival, "third degree" interrogation methods, and torture by electric shock. Scotland describes these in his memoir as "fantastic allegations." "At more than one stage in those fifty days of courtroom wrangling, a stranger to such peculiar affairs might have suspected that the arch-criminal of them all was a British Army intelligence officer known as Colonel Alexander Scotland."^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Scotland#cite_note-31 - [31]}

Scotland denied the allegations at the trial. In London Cage he says he was "greatly troubled. . . by the constant focus on our supposed shortcomings at The Cage, for it seemed to me that these manufactured tales of cruelty toward our German prisoners were fast becoming the chief item of news, while the brutal fate of those fifty RAF officers was in danger of becoming old history."^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Scotland#cite_note-32 - [32]}

^{http://https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Scotland#Torture_allegations - http://https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Scotland#Torture_allegations}

Originally posted by J.A.W.

As for being "actors/liars" well, many such 'professionals' were/are of course, law graduates..

& likely, many a usefully employed ex-Nazi/SD operative was told.. "Love your work",

by a colleague/boss during the 'cold war' - even if they they might later be turned in, per Klaus Barbie..

Hans Kammler though, being a much bigger fish, remains on the QT.. even today..

Is that a rebuttal, J.A.W., towards law graduates? LOL

I guess that's a matter of opinion. Smile

Anyhow, J.A.W. acting out a part convincingly enough is persuading the observer that what they are experiencing is true when it isn't. An analogy of the term acting and lying.

Originally posted by J.A.W.

Alan Turing too, although very useful with his splendid programmable electronic computer development,

was deemed a 'liability' due to his ( then illegal) 'homosexual propensities', & may've got the 'chop'..

..with this used as a pretext.. ( & what about James Forrestal? Was he an early MK Ultra victim?)..

I have a huge respect for Alan Turing and am not totally convinced on the official account of his death, but maybe I'm jaded by many such accounts of others factual and fictional. Btw, J.A.W., apart from the official account there two alternatives. One as you've stated, the hit, but the other is simply exposure to cyanide which occurred a lot in his experiments.

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 23-Apr-2016 at 22:17

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

Mosquito, though much important information was coming through Polish agents we should forget these things tended to be a joint effort. For instance, without funding and other resources from Poland's allies what position would they have been in to take part? It has been stated that about 43% of reports received by British intelligence from continental Europe were from Polish agents. However as it has already been noted agents in France tended to be French. The significance being the huge number of reports of French origin being passed on to Polish handlers who then passed them on to British intelligence. This doesn't in any way make the Polish handlers/operatives any less brave because they aren't retrieving the vast majority of the information themselves. They were still being hunted by the Nazis, and at times being caught.

It doesnt change the fact the for example the Free French were angry that Poles got better intel on the territory of France than they. Or that British services were stealing agents from Polish services.
The best example is Jerzy Iwanow-Szajnowicz who was a Polish secret agent which started working for the British. He was a great agent who himself helped to sunk 2 uboats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Iwanow-Szajnowicz

And Wiki article doesnt say his story at all. According to Polish book I have read, he was a traitor who started working for the British.

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 23-Apr-2016 at 22:25

Another Polish super agent who was working for the British was Krystyna Skarbek. After her were also modeled some characters in James Bond's books and movies:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krystyna_Skarbek

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 23-Apr-2016 at 22:30

BTW - in communist Poland the secret services were also modeled and based on the principles of Polish pre-war services. And they were also very successsful.

The best Polish communist agent was probably Marian Zacharski who gained "highly classified documents detailing Hughes Aircraft radar and weapons systems....material on the then-new Patriot and Phoenix missiles, the enhanced version of the Hawk air-to-air missile, radar instrumentation for the F-15 fighter, F-16, "stealth radar" for the B-1 and Stealth bomber, an experimental radar system being tested by the U.S. Navy, submarine sonar, and the M1 Abrams tank"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Zacharski

The only pain is that communist Poland was sharing the results of its work with the Soviets...

From viki article:

According to Kenneth Kaiser, an agency counterintelligence supervisor in Chicago, Poland was particularly active in industrial espionage. While the Soviet KGB got all the press, Polish intelligence was perhaps superior. They, however, could not care less about military intelligence; they wanted economic and scientific secrets. Their objective was to short-circuit development costs and undersell us And, as the Zacharski case suggests, they were good at finding friends in the right places.

However it must be said that once Poland switched sides after Warsaw Pact collapse and long before joining NATO, Polish services were a great help for Americans in their troubles. Operation Simoom in Iraq being the best example of it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Simoom

Of the cases which are now comonly known, for example a man-portable air-defense system produced in Poland "GROM" is based on the plans stolen by Polish secret services in Russia.

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 24-Apr-2016 at 22:37

Originally posted by Mosquito

As yet I've not been able to verify your claims of the free French's disdain towards the Polish in regards to intel gathering. My guess this was to be found in Polish books, Mosquito?

Stealing agents is a matter of opinion, Mosquito. Pretty sure it's the agent's choice and who is better to work for.

Jerzy Iwanow-Szajnowicz was a good agent. A Russian/Pole brought up in life in Greece until becoming a Polish citizen before going back to Greece gained his skills in the water in Greece before putting those skills to good use in the war. You say Polish book says he's a traitor? I don't get a sense of that from the little I've read on his work with the Greek resistance...etc.... Polish books hey?

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 25-Apr-2016 at 00:05

Originally posted by Mosquito

BTW - in communist Poland the secret services were also modeled and based on the principles of Polish pre-war services. And they were also very successsful.

The best Polish communist agent was probably Marian Zacharski who gained "highly classified documents detailing Hughes Aircraft radar and weapons systems....material on the then-new Patriot and Phoenix missiles, the enhanced version of the Hawk air-to-air missile, radar instrumentation for the F-15 fighter, F-16, "stealth radar" for the B-1 and Stealth bomber, an experimental radar system being tested by the U.S. Navy, submarine sonar, and the M1 Abrams tank"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_Zacharski

The only pain is that communist Poland was sharing the results of its work with the Soviets...

From viki article:

Those plans Marian Zacharski had wasn't he arrested before he was able to dispatch them? Sounds like a sting to me. He had been given away by a list of spies from a defector.

Operation Simoom was very useful in halving your debt to the US and getting the American to help construct JW GROM. One thing, though, if the Americans were so desperate for the assistance why only half of your debt? Just a thought but kind of obvious. Smile

The air defence system stolen from the Russians was at that time of turmoil after the collapse of the Soviet Union when almost anyone with cash could find someone to sell almost anything and your people had prior knowledge of the system and where to find it. Still if you don't have the brains to make it yourself I guess stealing the property of others is the next best thing and the cheapest. Smile

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 25-Apr-2016 at 08:57

Those plans Marian Zacharski had wasn't he arrested before he was able to dispatch them?

No, so far I know finally everything went to Soviets.

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 25-Apr-2016 at 09:01

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

Operation Simoom was very useful in halving your debt to the US and getting the American to help construct JW GROM. One thing, though, if the Americans were so desperate for the assistance why only half of your debt? Just a thought but kind of obvious

I guess our negotiators were poor ;) Anyway, they payed somthing like hundrieds millions of dollars for every saved CIA agent. Still good price, isint it?

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 25-Apr-2016 at 09:05

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

I guess stealing the property of others is the next best thing and the cheapest.

There were some technologies which client states of USSR were not allowed to develop on their own. Rocket technology was one of them. In general Soviets wanted all their client states to buy arms from USSR or at best - to produce older Soviet arms on the licence.

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 25-Apr-2016 at 14:08

Originally posted by Mosquito

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

I guess stealing the property of others is the next best thing and the cheapest.

I wasn't aware of this, Mosquito. However as I understand it in this case this was Soviet technology procured after the Soviet era when Poland was no longer a client state.

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 25-Apr-2016 at 14:37

Originally posted by Mosquito

I guess our negotiators were poor ;) Anyway, they payed somthing like hundrieds millions of dollars for every saved CIA agent. Still good price, isint it?

In my opinion, Mosquito, the payments are extraordinarily high. My guess is that there was little if any negotiating involved at all. You had assets on the ground a debt to pay, and still the Americans help construct JW GROM. I wonder how much convincing Hungary and the Czech Republic needed to join NATO, Mosquito. Wink

Btw, Mosquito, I still believe the full debt could have been cleared.

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 25-Apr-2016 at 15:18

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

......and still the Americans help construct JW GROM.

JW GROM is special force unit. The rocket system GROM is somthing else. Americans had nothing to do with it. They helped to train first GROM soldiers but didnt have any part in construction of GROM rocket system.

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 25-Apr-2016 at 15:32

Originally posted by Mosquito

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

......and still the Americans help construct JW GROM.

That is why I said JW GROM, Mosquito, and not GROM rocket system.

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 25-Apr-2016 at 15:59

Originally posted by Mosquito

Those plans Marian Zacharski had wasn't he arrested before he was able to dispatch them?

No, so far I know finally everything went to Soviets.

At the moment, I can confirm the Vympel K-13 as tech from the stolen plans of the missile system. As for the stealth radar technology the Soviets either never received it or didn't understand what they had. Russia's came out with theirs in 2009. Can find anything on the rest but I will keep on searching.

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 25-Apr-2016 at 19:10

Originally posted by TheAlaniDragonRising

At the moment, I can confirm the Vympel K-13 as tech from the stolen plans of the missile system. As for the stealth radar technology the Soviets either never received it or didn't understand what they had. Russia's came out with theirs in 2009. Can find anything on the rest but I will keep on searching.

Soviets had big problem in the 80ties. They were not even able to copy many of the stolen technologies.

As for Zacharski there is quite a lot about him :

http://articles.latimes.com/1985-06-07/news/mn-15956_1_william-holden-bell

http://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/22/us/polish-businessman-accused-as-spy-goes-on-trial.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/1984/0112/011219.html

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 25-Apr-2016 at 19:19

and btw - consider the fact that even now only such cases of espionage are known which ended in the capture of the agent. Those who were not captured got their files burned long time ago.

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 26-Apr-2016 at 16:23

Originally posted by Mosquito

and btw - consider the fact that even now only such cases of espionage are known which ended in the capture of the agent. Those who were not captured got their files burned long time ago.

Mainly because it is hard to say if there was any depth of talent in the field much above those caught, I couldn't possibly comment a great deal on hearsay alone, Mosquito. This isn't to say there may not have been any.

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: TheAlaniDragonRising
Date Posted: 26-Apr-2016 at 16:37

Originally posted by Mosquito

Had already read these things about Zacharski, but thank you anyway, Mosquito.

As for the Soviets having problems copying stolen technologies. Again, I guess it is possible in some instances. However, the anti-aircraft missile technology is quite technical. Would have expected those capable of understanding those specs to also do so with the stealth technology. Not finding anything about a Soviet use from the plans of the tank is the most baffling though considering they really did know their stuff in regards to tanks.

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What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.

Posted By: Mosquito
Date Posted: 07-Jul-2016 at 19:50

This is German announcment that 100 Polish hostages will be killed because 2 German officials were murdered by underground forces which are "on the pay of England".

You can notice that it is signed by "Der Kommandeur der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD fur den Distritk Warschau" -Commander of Police and SS for Warsaw District - without any name. German commanders in Poland were completely terrorised and were hiding their indetities.
However even this measures wasnt usualy enough because Polish secret services were able to identify them and next execute. Operation Kutchera being the best example of such actions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Kutschera - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Kutschera

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"I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German blood" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted By: AnchoritSybarit
Date Posted: 23-Mar-2017 at 02:23

OMG. Three pages of posts about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

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What I have I hold.