Buster11
20th May 2013, 21:01
The tenuous link to a military aircrew forum is this. My late father flew RE-8s and DH 9a’s in WW1 and in WW2 was a codes and ciphers officer. He was captured in Crete and spent most of the War in Stalag Luft III, where he produced forged documents for use by escapers.
He sent many letters home, some of which we received with a covering note (from MI9?), saying that it was believed that he was sending coded information but our help was needed to decipher them. He was an artist and his letters were all in pencil, written in very small precise upper-case script about 1/16 inch high. Eventually my godmother realised that occasional letters were slightly higher than the rest and these were the message. Whether nor not he used any other system I don’t know, but those letters went back to whatever department had sent them to us. I still have all the rest of them, but wondered if anyone on PPRuNe could suggest, a) what department might have been involved and how to contact it now, and, b) if such material would have been archived.
I’ve already done some extensive Googlation and suspect a Kew visit may be the next step, but meanwhile would appreciate any suggestions.
He sent many letters home, some of which we received with a covering note (from MI9?), saying that it was believed that he was sending coded information but our help was needed to decipher them. He was an artist and his letters were all in pencil, written in very small precise upper-case script about 1/16 inch high. Eventually my godmother realised that occasional letters were slightly higher than the rest and these were the message. Whether nor not he used any other system I don’t know, but those letters went back to whatever department had sent them to us. I still have all the rest of them, but wondered if anyone on PPRuNe could suggest, a) what department might have been involved and how to contact it now, and, b) if such material would have been archived.
I’ve already done some extensive Googlation and suspect a Kew visit may be the next step, but meanwhile would appreciate any suggestions.