Re: De Gaulle and the British

j...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

There was a lot of information that the Free French weren't trusted
with. This was because their codes were no good: the British and
Americans knew from Ultra that the Germans were reading them. It seemed
clear that the Free French would not take kindly to the news that their
codes were being read by the Germans, and would likely refuse to believe
it. Which would then likely blow Ultra. Frankly, De Gaulle and his
forces were reckoned to be of lesser value than Ultra, and that does
seem a plausible position.

There's a problem with this. The break into
Enigma in 1939-1940 was a joint effort of
British and French intelligence. The Polish
codebreakers who had escaped the fall of
their country all went to France, and worked
at PC Bruno at Vignolles, under the supervision
of Captain Bertrand of the Services de
Renseignement.

During the defeat of France, Bertrand evacuated
the staff of PC Bruno to North Africa. After the
truce was agreed, a new codebreaking center
was established at Cadix, in the Vichy zone of
mainland France, using ex-PC Bruno personnel.
The Cadix center was funded by the Vichy
regime - but it continued to cooperate with
Bletchley Park until the German occupation of
southern France after TORCH. (According to
one report I've read, Cadix decoded some
Abwehr signals which allowed Vichy security
to arrest and deport a network of German
covert agents in the Vichy zone.)

So there was no reason to keep "the French"
in the dark about ULTRA.

.

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