Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 05.23.2013
OPERATION FORTITUDE was the Allied effort to deceive the Germans about the timing and location of the upcoming Allied invasion of Normandy. The plan called for intelligence to make the Germans believe that Norway was the primary target for the initial invasion. They also wanted to hide the buildup of forces in Southern England and to convince them that Pas de Calais not Normandy was the real......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 05.23.2013
The Spitfire’s PR, or photo reconnaissance, variant proved to be extremely successful in the imagery collection role. The camera-equipped fighter aircraft accomplished several key reconnaissance missions. For the high-altitude, highspeed area coverage missions, the pilot of a high-flying fighter kept constant watch on the rear-view mirror to make sure that a contrail did not reveal his......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 05.23.2013
The P-38 played a critical role in applying the decisions of national policy makers after intelligence provided critical information. On 14 April 1943, the U.S. naval intelligence effort, code-named “Magic,” intercepted and decrypted a message containing specific details regarding an upcoming inspection tour by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander of Japan’s Combined Fleet. The SIGINT......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 05.23.2013
The Italian aircraft on display is a Macchi MC.200 and it represented the British technical intelligence cooperation the US received in World War II. The aircraft transferred from a squadron in Italy to the 165th Squadron in North Africa during November 1942. The Italians abandoned it at Benghazi airfield following the battle of El Alamein and General Montgomery’s forces captured it there.......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 05.23.2013
During the first months of the war in the Pacific, the Navy OP-20-G group broke the very complex Japanese Imperial Navy JN-25 code. In decrypted transmissions, they saw the code “AF” mentioned several times and thought it might mean an attack was coming on that location. To affirm it was Midway Island, they used a communications cable that ran on the bottom of the ocean and had the Navy......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 05.23.2013
One of the greatest Foreign Materiel Exploitation stories of World War II was the testing of a crashed Japanese Navy A6M2 Zeke, known as Koga’s Zero. After the Japanese attack on Dutch Harbor, Alaska, in June 1942, a Zero piloted by an Ensign Koga, crash-landed on an island in the Aleutians. A PBY Catalina spotted the Zero. Navy personnel recovered it, buried the pilot and took the aircraft......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 05.23.2013
The cipher machine known as Enigma encrypted and decrypted secret message traffic for the Germans in World War II. Although invented in the early 1920s, Germany used it before and during the war. The Polish Cipher Bureau earned the distinction of first breaking Enigma ciphers in December 1932. Beginning in 1938, the Germans increased the complexity of the Enigma system, which required the......
Audio by NMUSAF PA | National Museum of the U.S. Air Force | 05.23.2013
Moving into the World War II years, the circular radio directional finder antenna on top of the museum’s O-47B recalls an interesting intelligence episode early in the war: The Battle of the Beams. Knickebein (Crooked Leg) was a German program that used two radio beams to accurately navigate and bomb at night. British intelligence at the Air Ministry, led by Reginald V. Jones, were aware of......
