Y Service.

This is coolbert:

The recent comment from Steiner to the blog has stimulated my interest again regarding the Bari Raid - - 1943. Worst shipping disaster since Pearl Harbor. Allied naval vessels and transports and supply ships in harbor caught flat footed, defenseless mostly, night-time attack by the Luftwaffe successful.

It is generally accepted that the Luftwaffe raiders were able to approach Bari undetected because: [taken from the "The Enemy is Listening"]

"the Allied radar coverage looking eastward was not yet adequate . . . It happened on that day our main radar installation in Bari was unserviceable."

According the author of the book: "The Enemy is Listening" - - Aileen Clayton, the Luftwaffe at Bari had also dispersed Dueppel [German radar jamming chaff] and flown low to the target to escape expected radar detection.

NO radar detection was possible at the time [the allied radar at Bari was not working] but the GERMAN DID NOT KNOW THAT!

In addition, according to Clayton, the British Y Service [radio interceptors], while not totally ignorant of Luftwaffe intentions in the area, were slow to respond to radio traffic of the raiders, interception and decoding of communications of the aerial attackers late or non-existent!

"The raid on Bari coincided not only with the defective radar but also with a state of flux in the Y organization in the Mediterranean"

At that exact moment of Bari, units moving, preparing to displace, inadequate personnel left behind to accomplish the mission in an adequate fashion.

"There is no record available of messages being monitored from the bombers as they approached the target. When we did hear them, the damage had already been done."

Right! British Y Service radio interceptors during the Second World War were adept at fashioning real time intelligence on the combat actions of the Luftwaffe, based upon intercepted communications, ground-to-air, air-to-ground, and air-to-air, high frequency [HF] long-range communications.

Luftwaffe communications, relatively low-level so I surmise, using simple cryptographics, intercepted and decrypted by the English, providing allied forces with forewarning of German aerial attack. Intelligence gleaned from radio intercepts of Luftwaffe communications an invaluable tool throughout the entire war!

NOT SO in the case of Bari. Everything failed the allies at Bari. Radar out of action, Y Service ineffective, place [harbor at Bari] lit up like a gin mill, over-confident even cocky English Air Marshal - - total failure across the board.

coolbert.