John F. Dooley Tales of Military Intelligence in World War I Codes, Ciphers and Spies John F. Dooley Codes, Ciphers and Spies Tales of Military Intelligence in World War I John F. Dooley Department of Computer Science Knox College Galesburg , Illinois , USA ISBN 978-3-319-29414-8 ISBN 978-3-319-29415-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-29415-5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016933031 © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 Published by Copernicus Books, an imprint of SpringerNature. Copernicus Books SpringerNature 233 Spring Street New York, NY 10013 www.springer.com T his work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. T he use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. T he publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Cover illustration: The cover image is copyright Dr. Nicholas Gessler, Duke University, and is used with his kind permission. Printed on acid-free paper This Copernicus imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland For Diane and Patrick vii Pref ace T his book is about two different things. First, it started with the rediscovery of a series of a dozen articles written in 1927 on contract for C ollier’s Weekly Magazine about the cryptographic section of the Military Intelligence Division of the US Army during World War I by John Matthews Manly, a member of that division. These articles were never published, and they disappeared until recently, when cop- ies were discovered in the William F. Friedman Collection at the George Marshall Foundation Research Library in Lexington, VA. The book describes how the arti- cles were written, how they ended up in the Friedman Collection, and what they contain. The articles are presented; edited for grammatical, factual, and spelling mistakes (but spelling conventions from the 1920s are retained); and annotated to provide a context for their contents. The articles themselves contained no citations or bibliography, so these have been added where possible. T he second thing this book attempts to do is to put cryptology, particularly American cryptology, in the context of World War I. America was late in many ways in getting to the Great War. American cryptologists had to work very hard to catch up with their European counterparts who already had 3 years of experience in using code and cipher systems in a modern war by the time the Americans arrived in France in the summer of 1917. The book is divided into four parts. Part I tells the story of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), how it was organized and how it got to France, and gives us a peek into the military intelligence operations within the AEF during 1917 and 1918. For the entire 19 months that America participated in the Great War, the AEF was playing catch up to the Allies who had already been fi ghting for 3 years by the time that the fi rst Americans arrived on the Western Front. The military intel- ligence organization was no different. A separate command from MI-8 (which han- dled domestic and diplomatic intelligence), the military intelligence unit in the AEF, designated G 2-A6, had to be built from scratch and in the beginning was largely trained by their British and French counterparts. Manly provides us with insight into its operations and problems in three articles plus a separate essay to set the story for us. ix