12 obscure facts from the depths of WWII history. Even Mike might not know these.
Seven years before WWII, 23-year-old Marian Rejewski used permutation group theory to reverse-engineer the German Enigma machine without ever seeing one. He and colleagues built replica machines and the Bomba code-breaking device. In July 1939 they s…
Polish mathematician Marian Rejewski — age 23 — applied pure permutation theory to break the German Enigma cipher in 1932, seven years before the war began. The Polish Cipher Bureau built replica Enigma machines and the 'Bomba' — the first machine de…
Most people know Alan Turing cracked Enigma. Fewer know he also designed a voice encryption device for Churchill's transatlantic phone calls to Roosevelt called 'Delilah.' It used mathematical scrambling rather than physical key rotation and was neve…
Navajo code talkers developed a battle code based on their language that was never broken by enemy forces. Unlike machine-encrypted codes (like the German Enigma which WAS broken), the Navajo code was based on an unwritten language with only about 30…
Vera Atkins was a Romanian-born woman who spoke four languages and had a photographic memory. She joined the SOE's French Section as an intelligence officer and personally recruited and managed 39 agents sent into occupied France — including 13 women…
The Venona project decrypted Soviet communications from 1943-1980, revealing deep Soviet penetration of the Manhattan Project, Treasury, State Department, and OSS. Over 3,000 messages decoded, identifying hundreds of agents including Julius Rosenberg…
The Venona project was a top-secret American-British intelligence effort that decrypted Soviet communications from 1943-1980. The project revealed that the Soviets had deeply penetrated the Manhattan Project, the U.S. Treasury, the State Department, …
Spanish citizen Juan Pujol Garcia managed to convince the Germans he was a fanatical Nazi, then convinced the British he was a valuable spy, then played BOTH sides simultaneously. He created a fictional network of 27 sub-agents that didn't exist, fab…
Before D-Day, the Allies created an entirely fictional army group — FUSAG (First United States Army Group) — supposedly commanded by General George Patton and stationed in southeast England. They built a completely fake staging area with inflatable t…
Juan Pujol Garcia — code-named 'Garbo' by the British and 'Arabel' by the Germans — was a Spanish citizen who managed to convince the Germans he was a fanatical Nazi, then convinced the British he was a valuable spy, then simultaneously played both s…
Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr (German military intelligence), was simultaneously running operations against the Allies AND helping anti-Nazi resistance. He recruited agents he knew were British, deliberately sent false intelligence to H…
Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr, recruited British agents, sent false intelligence to Hitler, helped Jews escape to Switzerland, and participated in the July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler. He kept detailed diaries. Arrested July 23,…