🧵 #VEDay80
Much has been made of the role of Bletchley Park and ULTRA during #WW2 yet the role of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS/MI6) was often underplayed.
⬇️ JIC chair Victor Cavendish-Bentinck noted SIS had "failed badly" initially and had been "saved" by ULTRA. #VEDay80
Much has been made of the role of Bletchley Park and ULTRA during #WW2 yet the role of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS/MI6) was often underplayed.
⬇️ JIC chair Victor Cavendish-Bentinck noted SIS had "failed badly" initially and had been "saved" by ULTRA. #VEDay80
Comments
Others have echoed F.H. Hinsley's (misguided) view that ULTRA shortened the war by up to four years. ULTRA provided an intelligence goldmine, yet it was not the magic bullet.
In 1946, SIS's Chief Major-General Sir Stewart Menzies estimated there were as many as "25,000 French agents working with S.I.S." and the Free 🇫🇷 service. #VEDay809
Allied imagery intelligence worked alongside "CX reports with very valuable results". IMINT probably wouldn't have been collected without SIS's reporting.
But there was a cost ...
SIS's Bari station had provided important intelligence in central Italy 🇮🇹 The head of the Rome-based RUDDER group had been arrested and executed having "behaved gallantly under interrogation and gave nothing away".
✍ "Our representative in Rome is trying to obtain from General Wilson a letter of thanks to their families".