At the beginning of World War II, the United Kingdom was very passive, especially Germany’s “Sea Lion Project”, which bombed London every day. The most terrible thing is that the United Kingdom is an island with relatively poor resources. All materials need to be imported from overseas, while German ships are all over the place. In the Atlantic Ocean, especially the “wolf pack tactics” beat the British merchant ships without any tricks. When Britain was at its worst, the British Isles only had enough food for the British for a week. Churchill understood that only by deciphering the German ciphers could alleviate the passive situation everywhere.
The British deciphered the German “enigma”.
At that time, the German transmitting device was a kind of “Enigma” cipher machine, which is also the meaning of “enigma” in German, also called “enigma”, like an old-fashioned office typewriter. German intelligence once estimated that at the highest level in Britain and France, it would take at least four to five days to crack a code issued by “Enigma”, and by then the code had no value.
Nothing is absolute. The so-called super secret is not absolutely safe. The hard work the British put in to figuring out the ciphers and systems of “Puzzle” has finally paid off.
First, they started with machines that could imitate or explain every Wehrmacht’s “mystery” way, so as to deduce the coding routines that all the main Wehrmacht commands frequently changed when they issued orders day, night, and month. After difficult research, the British finally succeeded in developing a machine with the above functions, and named it “bomb”.
At the end of 1939, the British successfully deciphered the German code with a “bomb”, and regarded this deciphering as a “super secret”, trying every means to prevent the Germans from knowing this “super secret”.
After that, British losses were greatly reduced. For example, the losses of British merchant ships attacked by German submarines were reduced by 75%. In the British air battle, the British won a huge victory, but after several battles, the Germans began to doubt whether the British had deciphered it. password.
From November 14th to 15th, 1940, Germany implemented the “Moonlight Sonata” operational plan, which was to bomb Coventry Cathedral and industrial areas in the United Kingdom. Coventry is a famous industrial city in the UK. There are many aircraft parts manufacturing companies in the city. Because of the German army’s “Sea Lion Plan”, the German army carried out a large number of bombings on London, England, but because the British army made preparations in advance, Germany suffered losses. bigger.
Then the Germans turned to bomb Coventry. The bombing lasted for 10 hours. More than 500 shops were blown up, more than 50,000 houses were razed to the ground, 12 aircraft parts manufacturing companies were all paralyzed, and 554 people were killed. , wounded more than 4,800 people, and the German army’s results were quite brilliant.
Reluctantly sacrificed Coventry for secrecy
This kind bombing was not uncommon in World War II, but the reason why the Coventry incident caused such a big repercussion was because the British had deciphered the German code at that time, and the “bomb” intercepted the German air raid test. Ventry’s detailed plan. As soon as Churchill got the news, he held a meeting to discuss it. In the end Churchill decided not to defend Coventry and let the Germans bomb.
He believes that once Britain strengthens Coventry’s defenses, it may endanger the security of “super secret”, which is even more important to an industrial city. Because the value of “Super Secret” is more than one city, it will be the guarantee of the victory of the whole war.
Although Churchill’s decision was proved to be correct afterwards, Churchill was also under enormous psychological pressure at that time. Coventry was bombed into ruins, and the losses to the United Kingdom were also huge, but compared with the entire war, the cost of Coventry was still worth it, and it was relatively small.
The price Churchill paid to protect the “bomb” paid off. First of all, the British maritime transportation line was guaranteed, and the probability of British merchant ships being sunk was greatly reduced; after that, the information provided by the United Kingdom through “super-secret” sunk the German battleship “Bismarck”, which was more powerful than any British warship in one fell swoop. The battleship “Bismarck” was a battleship that Hitler attached great importance to and loved. This also proves that Churchill’s decision to exchange small forbearance for a big victory is still very courageous.
