Hut 3 Headlines

These Ultra intelligence reports, produced by Hut 3 at Bletchley Park, were sent daily to Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Allied commanders from May 1941 to May 1945. Hut 3 Section focused on wireless messages intercepted from the German army and air force, deciphering and analysing the information they contained. Particularly important messages were summarised into these ‘Headlines’. The selection in this album shows the variety and importance of the intelligence obtained by Hut 3 – from reports on the morale of German troops, to potential booby traps and news of the fall of Stalingrad.

This Collections Uncovered album was first published on 31 January 2018.

Battle of Stalingrad, 31 January 1943. Field Marshal von Paulus, commander of the German forces in Stalingrad is captured by this ‘strong Russian attack’. Two days later Germany surrenders the city.

German frontline, 12 March 1944. Concerned that the confidence and will to resist of German soldiers is being eroded by Allied ‘mendacious and artful’ propaganda, Hitler orders the creation of a newspaper for their ‘political enlightenment’.

D-Day landings, 6 June 1944. Germany notices the landings in Normandy but little realises that they will lay the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front.

France, 7 June 1944. Field Marshal Rommel orders booby traps to be laid to impede the advancement of Allied forces into German-held territory.

Operation Valkyrie, 24 July 1944. The 20 July Plot by senior German Army officers to assassinate Hitler in a bomb attack has failed.

The air war, 25 July 1944. The Germans are using electronic devices to deceive the Allies’ aircraft recognition apparatus, disguising their aircraft as friendly.

Operation Bagration, late July 1944. The Red army is advancing towards German-occupied Riga, the Latvian capital city. The German army uses the threat of being ‘shot on the spot’ to stimulate maximum engagement of its troops in an attempt to maintain control of the city.

English Channel, 9 August 1944. Human torpedoes attack Allied shipping off the Normandy beaches in what is effectively a mass suicide mission. Several Allied vessels are lost, including the destroyer HMS Quorn and 130 of her crew.

German Home Front, 15 August 1944. Germany is so desperately short of manpower that it begins to conscript men aged between 55 and 60.

Eastern Front, 2 May 1945. Although confident that Hitler’s death would only “increase the determination of his troops”, Field Marshal Schörner will abandon them after Germany‘s formal surrender on 8 May 1945. His troops do indeed fight on, continuing to engage the Soviets until 11 May.