German weather ship Lauenburg
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HMS Tartar's boarding party prepares to board the weather ship Lauenburg north east of Jan Mayen
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History | |
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Nazi Germany | |
Name | Lauenburg |
Namesake | Lauenburg/Elbe |
Laid down | 1 July 1936 |
Launched | 1938 |
Acquired | 1940 |
Commissioned | November 1940 |
Fate | Sunk 28 June 1941 |
General characteristics | |
Type | Converted trawler |
Complement |
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Lauenburg was a German
Early life
Lauenburg had been built in 1938 as a
The weather ships and Enigma
The
Although the weather ships did not transmit enciphered weather reports on Enigma machines, they needed one to decode the Enigma signals transmitted to them. Hinsley realised that if the code books could be captured from one of these trawlers, the naval Enigma system could be broken, with British intelligence able to decipher messages to U-boats and discover their locations. The problem remained that if the navy were to attempt to capture one of the weatherships, the German crew would have time to throw their Enigma settings into the sea before they were boarded. Hinsley instead reasoned that the following month's Enigma settings would be locked in a safe aboard the ship and could be overlooked if the Germans were surprised and forced hastily to abandon ship. The
Halfway through June 1941 the Germans replaced the
Capture and sinking of Lauenburg
At around 7pm on 28 June, a lookout aboard Tartar sighted Lauenburg off Jan Mayen and the destroyer opened fire. Lauenburg's crew quickly abandoned the ship in two lifeboats. Minutes later, Tartar steamed alongside and a boarding party seized Lauenburg and a large amount of material was collected, then the Allied warships sank Lauenburg with gunfire; confirmation of the sinking was sent by radio, but the boarding was specifically not mentioned so that listening Germans would not suspect the recovery of Enigma materials.[2] The recovered material allowed further understanding of the Enigma codes and resulted in faster decoding of encrypted messages, as well as providing an up-to-date set of codes.
See also
References
This article has an unclear citation style. (February 2015) |
- ^ Wetterbeobachtungs-Schiff Lauenburg
- ^ Dr. Mark Baldwin, "The Enigma Machine", presentation to the BCS Tayside & Fife Branch, Abertay University, 26 August 2019