It’s been a busy day here at Cipher Mysteries Mansion, with loads of people making suggestions via comments to my first dead pigeon webpage and my second dead cipher pigeon webpage.
I’ll try to bring all the pieces together into a single dead pigeon timeline, with a few additional thoughts to flesh out the gaps. But the first place to start is with a contrast-enhanced highish-res scan of the page (click on it to see a bigger version)
The contextual evidence we have to help us reconstruct a story is actually quite large:-
* The pigeon appears to have been coming back from France, in a line from Paris to Dieppe to Bletchingley to Twickenham
* The message was not sent in 1939 (because one of the pigeons was ringed in 1940)
* The “Sjt” seems to imply that this was sent by an RAF airman “W Stott” (though opinions differ on this)
* The note is addressed to “X02”, which I believe was Bomber Command in High Wycombe, Bucks
* Two pigeons were sent back to X02 carrying (presumably) the same message
* RAF bombers used to carry a pair of pigeons in case of emergency
* The note has two different inks (blue and black)
* The note is written in two different hands (Stott’s and a possibly French hand)
The first thing to look closely at is the very top line, which seems to have evaded everyone’s notice:-
I think this could well be “110”, for “110 Squadron”. The history of 110 squadron is that it was based at RAF Wattisham in East Anglia until 17 March 1942, before departing to India for the remainder of the war – so if this “110” indicates “110 Squadron”, it would have been before 17 March 1942 (which is entirely consistent with what we know).
As mentioned above, “X02” apparently denoted Bomber Command in High Wycombe. But I suspect this tells us a great deal: for if we have an RAF airman sending a pair of enciphered messages by pigeon from France to Bomber Command, this perhaps points to a bomber having crashed in France or Belgium – and up until March 1942, 110 Squadron flew Bristol Blenheim IV bombers.
There are three numbers on the image in the two hands, which I would suggest tell a very specific story. The first hand is RAF airman W Stott’s: these indicate a time of origin of 15:22 and a time of completion of 15:25 (perhaps on the 6th of the month). Whereas to my eyes the other hand looks French, with “lib.” almost certainly short for “lib[éré]“, released. But what is most convincing to me is that this is 16:25 French time – an hour ahead of British time.
The two pigeon ring references here refer to “NURP” (the National Union of Racing Pigeons), ringed in [19]”40″ and [19]”37″, and from “TW” (for which Twickenham is my best guess) and DK (which, as Matt Peskett points out, was probably Dorking rather than Denmark Hill). I’m pretty sure that I’ve read we’re looking at NURP 40 TW 194, which would have been the 194th pigeon ringed in 1940 by its Twickenham owner: which perhaps points to either a very large pigeon loft or a pigeon ringed late in the year (or perhaps a bit of both). Put it all together, and I suspect this means we can discount the first half of 1940.
My shaky inference is therefore that we could well be looking at a message from a RAF Bristol Blenheim IV bomber from 110 Squadron (“110Sq”) [possibly crash-] landed in Northern France after June 1940 and before 17 March 1942, not far from a line running through Dieppe and Paris. I’ve asked the Blenheim Society about this, let’s see if they can help!
Hi nick. I also looked up that 110 I also looked up 100 as there’s a faint curve if you look closely and the zero below is very ovate shaped. Also there was a place called sub depot 100 and guess where that was, hooten park!
This maybe a little farfetched but the beginning and end blocks have AOAKN. I know that AOA stands for air office administration in the RAF. Also the block that’s been written over twice, UAOTA stands for unit admissions office territorial army. I do wonder why this block is more bold than the others and at end of the sentence.
Found this page while searching for verification for my own hypothesis – nice!
The only difference between yours and mine being that I was looking at X02 being a receiving team #2 at “Station X” (used to refer to “Bletchley Park”), which moves the line on the map from Dieppe nearer to Douai – which, I think, tallies with a possible location for a W Stott? But not sure about this…
I’m actually going to use this message for a party game tonight – see how folks do with it. Beats pass the parcel, hmm? 🙂
Thank you for consolidating the info together – all the best!
Hi,
Many thanks for the above post, it has confirmed a number of hunches that I have been working on this morning in my own small efforts to shed some light on this message.
While I have little to offer that has not already been covered in your excellent post for the sake of completeness I would like to add the following information:
“On 27th April 1942, the crew of Halifax W1037 ZA-U from 10 Squadron took off at 2032 hrs from RAF Lossiemouth on the North East Coast of Scotland to participate in an attack on the German Battleship Tirpitz which was moored at the time in Fættenfjord in Norway.
The10 Squadron Operation Records Book states that the aircraft failed to return and no contact was heard from the crew after take off from Lossiemouth.”
A Sgt H H Stott is listed as W/Op Air Gunner and killed during this operation.
Source: http://www.archieraf.co.uk/archie/1037zau.html
I am currently working on verifying the above information and will report back should anything more concrete come to light.
Thanks,
Nick
Nick: Cassandra also mentioned this Sgt Stott in a comment here – http://ciphermysteries.com/2012/11/02/dead-pigeon-sparks-ww2-cipher-mystery/comment-page-1#comment-128658
Hello Nick
Idle curiosity, but how large is that page? (inches or mm)
Diane: I don’t recall seeing any measurements, but it’s described as tiny and as thin as a cigarette paper. Incidentally, the GCHQ press release is here: http://www.gchq.gov.uk/Press/Pages/Pigeon-takes-secret-message-to-the-grave.aspx
My word, I hope the journalist is following your column – only three days and the GCHQ summary is out of date. Well done, all.
Does anyone know why everyones so certain that signature says stott? Even with my glasses on I can only see st.t. No double t at the end. Also a lot of people survived ww2 so if it is stott is likely won’t be the stotts that died.
Anyway after a bit of reading today, AOAKN could be attention of net cargo or air officer administration to reply only or air officer administration kingsnorth or even squadron 77.
If you look up nurp.40.tw there is a list of pigeon breeders/hero pigeons here – http://books.google.co.uk/books?ei=yfqwUKb2O8z3sgams4DYCg&id=wgpBAAAAYAAJ&dq=NURP.40&q=NURP.40.tw#search_anchor – with a couple of other entries, which will give evidence as to what the TW means. I cant see the whole book though to see those entries! useful? who knows…
Hi Nick,
in French it is possible that “libe” means that the pigeon was let loose ar 16:25. The French friends that are here in Macon (where I live ) all go for the “let loose”
Russell
hi Nick,
thanks for the clear resume.
2 remarks :
– as Narissa mentions : I also wondered why there
only stands STOT and not STOTT
– how to explain that
in one way the pigeons where in the English bomber
and in the other way there would have been a
French signature ? (I guess there where no French
people in the English bombers ?)
To Narissa :
Thanks for the info about AOA and UAOTA. I have the feeling that this might be of great help. But for the moment not more then a feeling 🙂
Tom: we have more questions than answers for now. 🙁 All we can do is look at the facts (such as they are) and try to work out what scenarios would have been possible… and a bomber landing (or crash-landing) in France is one of those.
Melissa: the link didn’t work for me – what was the name of the book you found the reference in?
Someone found an explanation for the pigeon origins:
http://www.pillbox.org.uk/pillblogs/detail.asp?ID=342
Hi Nick,
I also only believe in the facts 🙂
But there are two ways of proving a these :
deduction but also induction.
My comment on the other page about why only a very very important message would be coded like the one we have, is deduced out of the following facts and reasonable thoughts :
1. I read one of the messages of pigeon they show at Blenchley Park (none of them is in code):
it says ” we are on the parallel way … our artillery is firing at us. For Gods sake let them stop.” To my opinion this message is of a more or less equal importance as to tell that one of our planes was shot down. So both messages need no code.
2. would it be so important to write the message in code when (in case of a fallen bomber) the ennemy made or saw it happen because it happened by their hand or on their land ? So no need for a code.
3. putting the the these of an important discovery (e.g. the discovery of the Bismarck) by induction in between the facts
– that it is rather exceptional that a pigeon message is coded
– that it takes more time to write in code then normal so one would only do it when of big importance
– in case of a discovery the most important thing would have been to let London know while hiding it for the ennemy
(so very clear for using a code)
makes me believe that the continent of the message rather is a mentioning of a discovery of great importance than a mentioning of a fact one cannot change any more.
But you are right : these are not yet the bare facts.
Let me end by saying I enjoy this mistery very much and I think it’s great that so many minds put together what they find.
Thanx to all
Spent a lot of time on this, having a break now but I’m convinced the sender is a serjeant w stout from the 253 field coy RE. The record even spells serjeant with the J and there aren’t that many that do.
On a wilder note, I keep thinking that 110 is actually the letters no.(Stand back from screen and look) Or in binary could be a 6.
Have fun everyone 🙂
Tom,
In regards to point 2, that a downed bomber would not need to send a coded message, your assumption is faulty. Airplanes don’t just drop out of the sky when hit, so it’s highly likely that enemy forces don’t have a great idea where a plane might have crashed. In this case any survivors would proceed to find shelter and perhaps sympathetic citizens to hide them. It wouldn’t be out of the question that they took the pigeons with them from the plane to send once they had found a secure location to relay said location to headquarters for rescue.
HMS Prunella (X 02) ??
Thanks for the reply, Nick.
For obvious reasons I was interested to see how easily people in England could learn to write very small, neat, even and pretty evenly spaced characters. I think the original would have had to be a little thicker, wouldn’t it? To cope with what appears to be a ball-point.
Although the RAF used the first usable ball-points that where available, i don’t think that the message was written with one.
My guess is that they where written with a pencil and carbon-paper, and this message is the one that was the copy. Carbon paper often was (dark)blue.
That also accounts for the other color of the pigeons information: the pages where first separated.
In these days much more was written down by hand. That experience made this handwriting so ‘neat’
Just something that came to me whilst asleep. The first printed bible was the tindale 1525 bible and bibles were used as codebooks in both world wars. Anyone got a copy? 6 word, 6 line, 6th chapter?
narissa
http://www.blisstonia.com/software/WebDecrypto/index.php
The initial AOAKN has the same letter form as BIBLE…but unfortunately also the same as CECIL, NANCY, TITAN, AWARD and about 400 others. I pity the agent if there codename was ENEMA, which also fits…
I don’t think the AOAKN start and end block is to do with the codeword. I think its to do with who the message is meant for. Or who the message is actually from. Or a wrap word, for example URGENT blah blah blah blah blah URGENT
Narissa: all the same, that is how a lot of WW2-era crypto systems flag the codeword, so it’s a pretty good working hypothesis. 🙂
Jimbo
I think there must have been some training involved here, to ensure that letter-forms were never confused. There are two forms for ‘U’ – in the coded section as such it is not made in the usual way, as a curve, but three sides of a box – and consistently (cf. Nurp). Similarly the ‘G’ is made like a Greek ‘e’, with a curved back – presumably to avoid any confusion with E proper.
It would be par for the course, wouldn’t it, in any signals training to drill habits meant to ensure messages were clear, even if sent under difficult circumstances?
SOE ever jump with pigeons to report being on the ground in one piece?
i see two messages to to places first is to AOAKN
first is 11 words long and 5 words (noting that message is also sent to UAOTA
second is two lines 8 and 3
asuming that the name are acronims for offices then it must be asumed the message is not incripted or the incription is inpart what u must use using a simple for standard letter shift 27 letter afabet a becomes the 11 letter across abd a shifts 5 every time till done to the pirod secon message uses 8 and 3 shift this is as i see it
Gord mentions the office abreviations too, like I did further down. If they were using abbreviations could xo2 mean executive officer 2nd in command? X0 is commonly used now as executive officer.
Regarding the KN, KN was usaaf code for kingsnorth but they didn’t start until late 1943 and also a/c code for squadron 77.
Like Narissa, I also noted the pattern similarity between AOAKN and BIBLE, with its one-letter shift on A A K > B B L.
On this basis, I considered this might be a case of someone who was perhaps encrypting “on the fly” (no pun intended), using a bible (perhaps the only book to hand) for want of a code-book proper.
Rather than 27 being a checksum, I took a punt on 27 being a reference to the New Testament (27 books) and 1525/6 denoting chapter 15, verse 25/6.
By crudely overlaying the alphabet onto Mark 15:25, I transcribed HVPKD as ETUDI (as in the French etudiant/etudier) and began to think I might be on to something…
At which point the wheels came off somewhat in a mass of THTTH etc. and a second check revealed HVPKD was actually ETUIA.
Oh well…
the first printed bible was translated to english between 1525 and 1526. see passage below from the british library info:
”Printing began in Cologne (Germany) in 1525, but was interrupted when Tyndale was forced to flee southwards to the city of Worms. Printing of the New Testament then began again and was completed in 1526.”
Anyone got a copy?
Narissa: http://www.bible-discovery.com/bible-download-1.php
There you can find all bibles in electronical form
Thanks germo. I’m standing back from this message now. I think its to do with the aarhus bombing of the gestapo hq. Let someone else work on that. It all fits anyway. Aarhus was lead by 110 squadron and comandered by 2nd bomber command.
If we count all the different words we find 26 codes. this tells me that each code represents a letter of the alphabet. I think that this is not a message but it is a list of new code. I cant imagine using 27 words or letters that are all 5 letters long since every one is different. perhaps the reciever of this list would know how to use it.
@Joe Girouard
splitting code to groups of 5 was standard practise for morse transmission , still is in ham-radio; all the Enigma-stuff from Bletchley goes this way; nor do you split words ( by e.g. spaces ) its one long text.
Has any one done a frequency table for the characters
( incase its a simple transformation ) ?
I did aword frequecy test and the 4 highest count goes like this W-9, L-8, N-6, 0-6. so I dont think that is the way to go I believe that E should be the highest count.
Is it just me or does anyone else see a period after the “I” in the last set, first row?
Also, the only letter that does not appear is “V”.
this may be usefull
http://www.archieraf.co.uk/archie/1037zau.html
W1037 ZA-U from 10 Squadron
Jog: the dot you refer to is the curl of the D
The 7th letter is a V
It seems to me to be curious that the message gives the apparent identifiers of two pigeons, which seems to be totally unnecessary. Unless that is, that the two birds were carrying separate, different, messages that needed to be combined,by exclusively OR ing or somesuch. Because the birds are both identified, the recipients would then know which two messages to combine.
If this were true, then presumably there is no chance of decryption without both messages.
What an interesting puzzle !
NURP 40 TW 194 is quite likely a Tonbridge Wells Bird, 194 birds were registered in Tonbridge Wells, it was also the site of 12 group Eastern Command Pigeon Service. NURP 37 DK 76 is quite likely to be a Dorking bird, from the same group
I have noticed two points that may be of assistance.
These messages began and ended with the sender’s identity which in this case is ‘AOKN’.
The first pigeon released would be identified as ‘NURP 40TW 194’ and would carry no other identity.
The second pigeon released would firstly carry the identity of the first pigeon released and secondly its own being ‘NURP 37DK 76’.
So this is the second pigeon released.
Hopefully this may be helpful.
I found this by decrypting :
AOAKN HVPKD FNFJU YIDDC could be :
JGHBY NUSHO MANSA RYZC
To Air Office Aviation by Nusho Mansa(r), sounds like a name from India or so…
Just wanted to post a few thoughts on this. I came up with an answer a while ago, but decided to relook it before I post. When I review a code, usually I do so at least once without the original look, to see what I may have missed. Here are a few things I thought might be useful to the community. First: AOAKN: I think this is the start/end signal. Not necessarily a message sender id. Second. RBQRH…repeat back QRH…signal. Third:DJOFM: ###FM (freq reference. this could be “use/via/var FM: xxxxx” Fourth: JRZCQ : probably refers to a command and control head quarters. My feeling is the letters are attributed to a number table and then back into different letters. X02 might reference the table or decrypt book/section, whereas the numbers 27 1525/26 might represent a table of some sort. Maybe a table similar to example provided on pg 228 of the book Codes Ciphers secrets and cryptic communications, by Fred B. Wrixon.
Mindy: this page is a little outdated. From the presence of the “X02” code (the Royal Signals X-code for “pass to second addressee”) at the top of a sheet from an Army Pigeon Pad 418B, we can now say with certainty that this was message sent by (or with the help of) the Royal Signals.
And having trawled through a couple of boxes of codes at the Royal Signals Museum at Blandford Forum, I can also say that the letter groups of the message do not appear to resemble any of the kind of code group styles used by the Royal Signals during WW2.
Moreover, because of the X02 code at the top combined with the lack of clear-text addressees, we know that the message contains two codresses (coded addresses). And the only place you’re likely to find codresses is in a ciphertext. So without much doubt it’s a cipher.
Hi all, ive been involved in codes and ciphers for many years now. My main interest is the SOE and SIS, this also encompasses SAS and OSS.
I have contacted the National Union of Racing Pigeons and they have no records for both numbers, not surprising really a lot of documents got burned during and after the war either by accident or on purpose.
If you do a frequency analysis of this code ( its a code not a cipher!) you get a very flat response, this is typical for a code.
Its highly probable that its and SAS Phantom code, that means its a code sheet with a One time Pad, at this point in the war, SOE & Leo marks especially were getting into the idea of using this, AOAKN is probably the call sign of the signaler , this could also be a one time number pad, Soe were using OTP (one time pads) at this point, and usually messages had an opening and closing of the same type, this makes for easier deciphering back at base in case there is mutilated morse. Unless you have the code sheet and the correct OTP you will never break it! Sorry!
Mark Stillman: from the “X02” at the top of the note and the colour of the cylinder (red), we now know with a high degree of certainty that this was a British Army pigeon rather than one from any other part of the Allied forces (or the police, or whatever). And unless anyone has managed to dig up any information suggesting that OTPs were used in the field by the British Army (remember that this was apparently sent by a “Sjt”), the enciphering system currently most likely to have been used in it (hat tip to Stu Rutter) is Typex. The search for the original black and red Typex rotors continues – if we can get the wiring for these, then perhaps we will be able to break this cipher!
Lib is shortform for liberated (when racing pigeons are let go at the lib site (race point the terminology is they are liberated).
TW is Tunbridge Wells club and every Club has a combination of letters to identify it and all members of the society would have rings from the club and the rings would be in sequential increasing number from 1 – 350 for example and the National Union had a record of who every ring was issued to or if it changed ownership the current registered keeper to help with identifying lost pigeons to get them back to their owners.
Pigeons in the two World Wars by Col A H Osman has lists of pigeons which performed well in the service of their Country.
NU is for National Homing Union and RP for the weekly Racing Pigeon magazine and press rings with RP were sold via the magazine as a small % of the purchase price was given back in the form of prizes for specific races.
The Homing World (now the British Homing World) and Pigeon Post (defunct) magazines did the same.
Stu Fawcett: thanks for dropping by! This post was from 2012, and I’ve returned to the topic of pigeons many times here since.
The thing I’d like to know is if Tunbridge Wells Racing Pigeon Society’s records survived in any form – it would be splendid to know exactly whose pigeon it was.