Coded PoW Letters

[Buster11]

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suggest, a) what department might have been involved and how to contact it now, and, b) if such material would have been archived.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.

[CoffmanStarter]

Have you tried contacting the staff at Bletchley Park ? They might be more able to help you ...

Bletchley Park Ltd
The Mansion
Bletchley Park
Milton Keynes
MK3 6EB

Telephone
[phone]

Bletcley Park National Codes Centre

[500N]

An article was published in one of the English newspapers
- DM or Telegraph or The Sun - on exactly this subject and
that they had solved the code.

Might be worth a look up.

[Pontius Navigator]

The OP is asking where the letters might have been sent and archived not what the coded message might be.

Bletchley is a good place to start. Maybe contact The National Archives at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 4DU. Tel: [phone] as well.

[Buster11]

Many thanks Coff and PN for the useful steers, which I am following up. Another source has suggested a couple of outfits that do IR reflectography, but specialise in fine art, so I suspect their fees would be in line with that market. I also have a lead to an electron microscopy specialist and the British Library may be another.

[CoffmanStarter]

Happy to help ... Let us know how you get on

[Melchett01]

You could also try the Intelligence Corps Museum at Chicksands. They may not have the letters, but they may have a good idea of where to look if the Kew etc can't help and their website says they are more than happy to help out with research questions.

Intelligence Corps Museum - British Army Website

Keep us posted - sounds fascinating

[500N]

PN

I understood what the OP was asking, the article might have given
him a pointer as to who had them during the war but I could have
worded my post better.

I think the same people have been listed anyway.

All good

[Innominate]

There is a research project at Plymouth University that has had some success in decoding POW letters BBC News - World War II prisoner's coded letters deciphered. The contact I've been given is:
School of Computing and Mathematics
Plymouth University
Drake Circus
Plymouth
PL4 8AA

Apparently coded letters often have the date in the format 21/5/13 rather than 21 May 2013 and the sender's name is underlined.

[Pontius Navigator]

500N, ah, thank you.

[brickhistory]

Hope we get a follow up on this as well. It does sound fascinating.

Coincidentally, I finished within the last two months, a small book on the American version of this operation. After learning from the British MI9, Uncle Sam developed an assembly line of sneaky comm and supplies under a MIS-X.

So much so that by late 1944, the POWs said "stop" at several of the stalags and oflags as they had too much stuff and risked it all being found.

And all records was all burned immediately following VJ-Day.