| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Since the revelation of the Ultra secret in 1974, it has been widely accepted that Ultra intelligence-that is, high-grade Axis codes decrypted by a centralized British interservice unit called the Government Code and Cypher School (GC and CS) at Bletchley Park-gave Great Britain a decisive advantage over its Axis foes and that this advantage was particularly significant in the battle against shipping to North Africa. As early as 1977, Harold C. Deutsch, a historian and head of research for the OSS (or Office of Strategic Services, the World War II forerunner of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency), concluded that the "systematic strangulation of [Rommel's] services of supply" due to knowledge of Axis schedules and convoy routes was a "decisive ingredient of British . . . victory in the Mediterranean." Deutsch's conclusions, reached thirty-six years ago, have been affirmed in official and popular histories and remain essentially unchallenged today.
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