war, The

Cryptologia, Apr 2003 by Kruh, Louis

THE WAR

Murray, Gil. The Invisible War: The Untold Secret Story of Number One Canadian Special Wireless Group, Royal Canadian Signal Corps, 1944-1946. Dundurn Press, 8 Market Street, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, M5E 1M6 CANADA. 2001. 302 pp. $24.99.

This book reveals for the first time, details of the previously top-secret story of Number One Canadian Special Wireless Group (1CSWG), a unit of the Royal Canadian Signal Corps in World War II. While Canadians forces were necessarily focused on the war in Europe, the 336 officers and enlisted men of 1CSWG were the only Canadian unit sent to Australia to participate in the top-secret intelligence mission of intercepting the wireless communications of the Japanese navy, army, and air forces in the South West Pacific theatre of operations

Not intended as straightforward military history, Murray, a former journalist, tells of the tribulations and high jinks of the youthful Canadians. They were trained to intercept the Japanese Kana code and other signals at speeds thought unattainable by students, which is why Murray calls the Warrant Officer instructor "an excellent model for a prison warden, one with the fabled heart of gold hidden somewhere underneath his chestful of campaign ribbons." Soon training ended and it was off to San Francisco where our author was briefly AWL but all boarded the USAT Monterey and 27 days later arrived in Brisbane. Murray relates the adventures of the 300 Canadians in a new environment on the other side of the world and how they coped with it. He does a commendable job until he veers off to involve other historical figures with erroneous information. For example: he tells how Kana was deciphered by Herbert W. Yardley, (his middle name is Osborn); or that a Purple machine was developed from the German Enigma coding machine (obviously not true); and how William Friedman had secretly reconstructed the Purple machine from stolen plans (also untrue).

Brisbane was headquarters for the Central Bureau (CB), which had been set up early in the Pacific as the pivotal clearing house for all Japanese wireless messages intercepted in the South West Pacific Area. 1CSWG had a two month layover and spent the time learning additional tricks of the signal-snooping trade from the experts. They also were made familiar with the Typex coding machine, which would be used in the Darwin station to encipher and radio-teletype 1CSWG's messages back to CB. Then it was on through the wilderness of the Australian Outback to Darwin, one of the most northerly points in Australia and to the building of a powerful wireless intercept station near Darwin on Australia's north coast.

The Canadian operators, many of whom had been monitoring Japanese signals for several years at Canadian points, harvested hundreds of thousands of Japanese military messages revealing vital advance information on enemy strategies. The contribution of 1CSWG was praised confidentially after the war by its Australian hosts, but nothing has been revealed to the public about the Canadian unit's work until publication of this book. Murray has done a remarkable job of unearthing information which had been virtually buried by the Official Secrets Act, right into the 1980s and 1990s. He also found more than 20 photographs to illustrate his work. It is a fascinating story worth your reading though the lack of an index is regrettable.

Louis Kruh

ADDRESS: 17 Alfred Road West, Merrick NY 11566 USA.