enigmas - and other recovered artefacts - of U-85, The

Cryptologia, Apr 2003 by Hamer, David H

Significant fragments of a codebook were also recovered but the information gathered from this document suggests that its contents are not related to the use of Enigma. Rather, the recovered fragments refer to flag signal procedures. Several blank pages of radio message sheets, in the form of a page-numbered pad, were also recovered.

1 Details are in the declassified after action report A9/DD147, U.S. Atlantic Fleet Destroyer Squadron 27, "Destruction of German Submarine" dated April 15, 1942.

2 U-85's actions were not part of Operation Paukenschlag proper, which was carried out by five of the larger Type IX boats (U-66, U-109, U-123, U-125 and U-130) and which ended on 6 February 1942.

3 Triton, codenamed SHARK by Bletchley Park, was the cipher assigned to the Atlantic U-boats at the time of U-85's loss.

4 U-85 is still basically in one piece today even after sixty years under water, although an unsuccessful attempt by commercial salvage divers to breach the pressure hull during the 1970's damaged the outer structure of the bow section.

5 This description of U-85's attitude is at variance with information gleaned from present-day underwater photographs and interviews with divers, which have U-85 lying fairly evenly on her keel in the bottom silt with perhaps a 30-40 degree heel to starboard. However experienced divers [3, 6] point out that significant movement of wrecks, even large ones, resulting from storm activity is well documented.

6 Roger Hunting suggests [6] that the Navy divers, who were using hard-hat suits and breathing surface-supplied air, would have had great difficulty entering the wreck through the conning tower hatch - at the time the only available access - and negotiating the mass of debris resulting from the penetration of the superstructure by a 3-inch shell from Roper.

7 Details of the recovery efforts may be found in a declassified report: "Salvage Operations - U-85", S94/(0049), Submarines Atlantic Fleet, USS Falcon, dated May 14, 1942.

8 All three German military services used the single-notch wheels I-V: the Kriegsmarine had three additional, two-notch wheels, designated VI-VIII.

9 Der Schlussel M, Verfahren M Allgemein, M.Dv.Nr. 32/1 (para. 47b) dated August 1940, states that all machines M2802 and above are of type M4.

10 Since Wheels II, III, VI and VII were recovered earlier and M2946 had IV, V and VIII installed it may be inferred that the missing wheel is I.

11 Following Kriegsmarine common practice, one of the two right-hand wheel positions of each machine is occupied by a two-notch wheel (VI-VIII).

12 It is reported by Jim Bunch, but unconfirmed at the time of writing, that a single wheel was recovered by an unknown diver prior to Roy Parker's dive in 1997.

13 This, and any following translation of German text, is a loose colloquial interpretation intended to express the general meaning of the text rather than being literal in content.

14 This rather odd construction means simply that the item is considered 'Secret' once it has been written on (and thus contains information) but that the pad itself is not inherently a 'Secret' item.