For rest and refit of panzer formations, Heeresgruppe Baker [Army Group B] ordered afternoon fourth [September 4] to remain in operation with battleworthy elements: two panzer, one-six panzer [Second, Sixteenth Panzer Divisions], nine SS and one nought [Ninth, Tenth] SS panzer divisions, elements not operating to be transferred by AOK [controlling army] five for rest and refit in area Venloo-Arnhem-Hertogenbosch.

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This intelligence, along with a second confirmation on September 6, indicated that at the very time when the British-planned Operation Market-Garden was moving forward, some of Germany’s best panzer divisions would be refitting in the town selected as the goal of the British First Airborne Division and the operation’s final objective on the Rhine–Arnhem. Putting this message together with intelligence that soon emerged from the Dutch underground in Holland that SS panzer units were refitting in the neighborhood of Arnhem, Allied commanders should have recognized that Operation Market-Garden had little prospect of success. Unfortunately, they did not put these pieces together, and officers at the highest level at Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery’s headquarters who had access to Ultra also failed to draw the correct conclusions.

A second example comes from a period three months after Operation Market-Garden, in December 1944. An unfortunate result of the rush to publish after the existence of Ultra became known to the public in the early 1970s has been the appearance of a number of legends. One of the most persistent is the belief that Ultra gave no advance warning to Allied commanders in December 1944 that the Germans were about to launch a major thrust through the Ardennes. Admittedly, Hitler’s intuition suggested to him that German security had been compromised and led him to undertake a series of unprecedented measures to veil the Ardennes attack. Still, there were overt indications even in the high-level codes about German operational intentions. Ultra, however, pointed to a number of other indicators. These suggested that the Wehrmacht was moving supplies of ammunition and fuel into the region behind the Ardennes. Since the Germans were desperately low on such materiel, the allocations of resources could only portend major operations to come in the Ardennes. The German high command had no reason to expect that the Allies were planning to launch a major offensive in this area, especially since they were so obviously trying to kick in the door to the Reich at so many other points. Unfortunately, the mood in the higher Allied headquarters and in intelligence circles was euphoric–the war was almost over, and the Germans could not possibly launch an offensive.

The third case of Ultra information not being used occurred during the Battle of the Atlantic. By 1943 the Allies were using Ultra, when available, in moving their convoys across the North Atlantic, so that the great formations of merchant shipping could avoid submarine patrol lines. In one particular case, decodings had picked up a heavy concentration of German submarines north of the Azores. Thus, a major convoy of aviation fuel tankers from the refineries at Trinidad to the Mediterranean was rerouted to the south of the Azores. Unfortunately, because his escorts needed refueling and the weather was better north of those islands, the convoy commander disregarded his instructions, sailed north of the Azores, and ran smack into the U-boats. Only two tankers reached port. What made the episode even more surprising was the fact that the convoy commander had just served a tour of duty in the Admiralty’s convoy and routing section, where he surely must have had some awareness of the reasons for rerouting convoys.

If some commanders occasionally misused Ultra intelligence, such instances were the exception rather than the rule. It is, however, difficult to assess Ultra’s full impact on the conflict. At times, particularly early in the war, no matter how much Ultra informed the British of German intentions, the Wehrmacht’s overwhelming superiority made successful use of the information virtually impossible. For example, decoded Enigma messages in the spring of 1941 warned the British about German intentions against the Balkan states, first Greece and then–after the anti-German coup in Yugoslavia–against that country as well. Such intelligence, of course, was of extremely limited value due to the overwhelming forces that Hitler deployed in the region.

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