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CODEBOOKS
There are some similarities between the way in which Britain secured its intelligence advantage in the two wars. In World War II, the German naval codebook and an Enigma coding machine were retrieved from the crippled U-boat U-110 without the Germans fully appreciating the scale of their loss. In World War I, British intelligence managed to secure three German codebooks.
The most important was the codebook retrieved from the German cruiser Magdeburg when it ran aground in the Baltic in 1914. The Russians seized the ship and passed the codebook on to their British allies. When the Kaiser was advised of the Magdeburg's loss, he blithely remarked: 'Oh, well, sparks are bound to fly at a time like this.' If he had known that the Allies had secured one of his vital codebooks, he might have been much more distressed.
German warships were obliged to advise fleet headquarters of their global positions on a daily basis. Possessing the codebook gave the British a vital edge in knowing the whereabouts of the German ships. German radio transmissions were intercepted at locations such as the coastguard station at Hunstanton in Norfolk and passed on to the men of Room 40 for decrypting. This intelligence advantage proved to be of great value to the British at Jutland in 1916.
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