Bletchley Park carrier pigeon found dead 70 years after it disappeard with coded message.....

[lithgow]

I seem to remember carrier pigeons and their field use forming the basis of an episode of 'Combat'-no higher compliment.

[Adrian]

A quick link as an update to this story, apparently the code is proving hard to crack so an appeal to the public has gone out to help.

Ned, over to you......

WW2 Pigeon message stumps GCHQ.

[KradSpam]

From the look of Monty's beret it looks like one of the pigeons made it home at least. Croissant crumbs apparently mess with his digestion.

[big ned]

A quick link as an update to this story, apparently the code is proving hard to crack so an appeal to the public has gone out to help.

Ned, over to you......

WW2 Pigeon message stumps GCHQ.

The link supplied shows that the code is of groupings of 5 random letters, making this almost certainly a OTP method of encryption that if done correctly is impossible to break. If you re read the link I supplied in post #12, it explains how it is infallible. The only real hope was that a copy exists somewhere, which is also highly unlikely. Therefore the boffins are looking at trying to I.D. the sender of the message to perhaps gain a clue, but again, realistically this will never happen. It will almost certainly remain an ENIGMA......

Incognito, Ned.

[davejb]

CLMNK OJUHG BGRFE XTYDE AFRTV PXZRE SFTRY MWNHY LACGT QIHYT
And i'm not telling you what it means so there

[Adrian]

Another update:

Has the code been cracked?

[Wagriff]

Sounds like that Canadienne's got it cracked! You gotta feel for the pigeon, though- he made it all the way from the battlefield across the Channel, only to get stuck and die in an English Chimney...poor guy...he Almost made it home...

[big ned]

Sounds like that Canadienne's got it cracked! You gotta feel for the pigeon, though- he made it all the way from the battlefield across the Channel, only to get stuck and die in an English Chimney...poor guy...he Almost made it home...

I don't think so.

1. An SOE operative using an outdated code from WW1 to send highly important information that needed almost instant reaction to be initiated upon by carrier pigeon?

By the time the bird got home, the message was passed on, then decrypted and forwarded to either the RAF or in theatre artillery to attack the enemy armour would take literally hours. By that time the Germans could have given their tanks a full service, put their feet up with an ersatz coffee and sausage sandwiches to the strains of 'Lilli Marlene' on the gramaphone for a couple of hours and still done a 'Lord Lucan' way before any bother from our chaps!

2. Mr. Young states that the message was encrypted by using an obsolete code book used by the RFC in WW1. He avoids any parts of the 'code' he has, that do not fit with the message, by saying they are 'acronyms' for certain words and meanings. Really?? There must be a bloody thick book of those lying around somewhere. For instance, he states that using his WW1 code, the letter 'J' is an acronym for 'Jerries', as in the coded line 'FNFJW' which he claims reads "Final Note (confirming) Found Jerries Whereabouts". As far as I know, the name 'Jerry' or 'Jerries' was not used in WW1, and only came into use in WW2, so how does he explain that? I think it's all bollocks and the guy is a fantasist making up a story that doesn't stand up to close scrutiny by a long straw.

I look forward to his sending his method to GCHQ as requested so that it can be proved unequivocally.

3. If the code was a tactical code, it would have been designed to only be proof against decoding for a couple of hours. This would allow it to be encoded and decoded while the information in it was still of tactical value. If the code were of this form, I would have expected GCHQ to have cracked it by now.

If the code were of strategic importance, or if it contained critical personal details, you wouldn't want the Germans to crack it. Here time was less important and a 'one time pad' would have been used. These codes are genuinely unbreakable - and this is probably the reason GCHQ failed to crack it.

In which case the message is lost forever, particularly as both sides were meant to throw away the page of the one time pad as soon as the message had been encoded/decoded.

This is going to remain one of life's little mysteries I'm afraid, and Mr. Young is a sad fantasist, but let's wait and see how his evidence stacks up when scrutinised by the real Sneaky Beaky's.....

Regards, Ned.

[Adrian]

The BBC can't put one past Ned!

[KradSpam]

Yeah I agree, those messages he is suggesting are not the type of thing I would expect to be sent from the field in France to the UK by pigeon. They sound to me like tactical messages, I don't think Bletchley would worry themselves with some squaddy's problems with a couple of panzers on any given day in Normandy. SKCOLLOB LLA STI KNIHT I.