You have to look at the facts the message was sent by
Sjt W Stot.<p>You do a search and you find this.<p><a href="http://www.archieraf.co.uk/archie/1037zau.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.archieraf.co.uk/archie/1037zau.html</a><p>And you will find that there was a sgt H H Stott and his crew position is w/op Air Gunner so hence the sjt W Stot.<p>You will then find that On 27th April 1942, the crew of Halifax W1037 ZA-U from 10 Squadron failed to return hence the need to send a message.<p>You will also find that on the birds ID NURP.40.TW.194 and NURP.37.OK.76 - NURP” was the National Union of Racing Pigeons so it was british so this back up the fact it was send by the RAF. The number 40 relates to 1940 but you can't read to much into that if you see this website.<p><a href="http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Others/Others-Doc-Birds&OtherAnimals/+Doc-Birds&OtherAnimals-Birds/RoleOfPigeonsInWartime.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Others/Others-Doc-Birds&...</a><p>You will see pigeons with number 38 was used in 1941 and 1942 and a pigeon with number 39 was used in 1945 and a pigeon with number 41 was used in 1942.<p>So this backs up the argument that the date would be between 1940 and 1945. So the date of the crash in 1942 wouldn't be far off.<p>All you have to do is find the codes used by Halifax W1037 ZA-U from 10 Squadron. The RAF would have records once you get that you can decode the message.<p>I thought the GCHQ had smart people working at it.<p>sgt H H Stott personal number is 1058698 take the first four numbers 1058 and use that as the ciper.<p>So the first letter A is plus 1 the second letter is O plus O the four letter is A and it is plus 5 which is G and the four letter K is plus 8 which is W so.<p>The first row is as follows.<p>BOG WT NHF LD KVG JB GJD IK<p>Which so far I have translated as.<p>BOMBER ON GROUND WITH TROOPS NEED HELF FAST LITTLE DEFENCE k___ v____ G_____ J___ B____ G____ J____ D____ I___ K___<p>Need help solving the rest.
Wow. I have in my possession some really similar looking crypted pages form an Italian partisan of the WWII (prepared and parachuted by the English forces).<p>It seems to me that the situations might be analog. How can I contact them? I see that they are asking for help but I don't see contact info.
As suggested in the comments on the Telegraph article, it would would seem likely that this message was encrypted with a one-time pad, making it essentially unbreakable. Unless the key is found in some MoD vault (and released to the public).
This message was sent by a homeland "Y Station", most likely from the RAF, to a decoding facility downstream, in the SIGINT community. At Bletchley or elsewhere. Y Stations were monitoring German military communications from the UK. It is why what we can now read on paper is the verbatim retranscription of a procedure that was heard on a radio receiver by a radio intelligence operator, --ie the presence of the standard "checksum" and EOM signature comprising the reiteration of the header group followed by the total number of 5-groups sent -- 27 in the instance. The origin time "1522" is the ZULU at which the actual transmission started while the end of transmission time is written after the checksum "1525/6".
Taking pauses into account, this means the morse code operator was transmitting the groups at 10wpm, a credible speed for this type of operation. I hope this helps.
Greetings from rainy Montreal
David Thorne-Alexander
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaumanor_Hall" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaumanor_Hall</a>
By the signature, in the video clip, there's a box labelled 'Number of copies sent', filled in with a number 2. So, assuming the other copy went on another pigeon, it could well have already been received and deciphered back in WWII.<p>Here's the still from the video showing that and the signature: <a href="http://i.imgur.com/KTp15.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/KTp15.png</a>
If you're interested in this you might be interested in a another unsolved message.
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taman_Shud_Case" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taman_Shud_Case</a><p>Also written up recently at <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/riddle-on-the-sands-20121119-29kwz.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/riddle-on-the-sands-20121119...</a><p>Unfortunately the evidence is that decryption might depend on either a unavailable first edition of the Enlgish translation of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubaiyat_of_Omar_Khayyam" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubaiyat_of_Omar_Khayyam</a>
and/or information from a person who died in 2007.
While much has been published about the German Enigma system I've not seen much about the British equivalents during WW2.<p>If this message was produced using a one time pad - which is practical for short messages - then it may be very difficult to decypher.
If you count you will find that there are 26 diferent codes. This tells me that each 5 letter code represents a letter of the alphbet. This is not a message but it is the code itself.