Page 329 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Therefore, most of the decrypted radiograms contained little useful information. In some cases, they
were just service communications between radio stations. Some of them used difficult to interpret
concealed expressions, such as “a pair of boots necessary for the company” or “a candelabrum
needed to decorate a room”, etc. Others dealt with hydrometric services, reporting for instance
the level of river waters or meteorological news for the air force. Only a few of these telegrams
imprudently mentioned actions planned by Air Squadrons or the position and movements of some
Divisions .
35
In any case, we must admire the spirit of sacrifice of the Austrian telegraphists and of the Penkala
staffs who, in the critical situations caused by the withdrawal and disintegration of their Army,
continued to fight a cryptographic struggle almost lost, along with the war.

14.4 VITTORIO VENETO

The ausTrIan radIos revealed exPecTaTIon for ITalIan aTTack
In the last months of the war, RDF proved the Austrian stations were still operational after the
Second Battle of the Piave River and generated a significant amount of precious cryptographic
material for Italian analysts, making faster their decrypting processes.
After decentralisation, the information obtained from the Italian direction finding and interception
stations , together with those from three French and one British station, were forwarded to the
36
1 Radio goniometric Section twice a day. The Section issued regular daily reports, in addition to
st
three or four graphs a month as the one shown in picture 14.7, where green colour indicates the
stations already identified in the previous map .
37
The decrypting activities were now partially carried out within the Armies and at the 1 Radio
st
goniometric Section. For example, in a document of the 6 Army dated September 1918 it reads,
th
“on this 14 day at 12.10 pm the following encoded communication by the enemy radiotelegraphic
th
station located in La Chiesa (Val Cismon) was intercepted and decrypted: “What happened to
the Spetelf station? Signed Lieutenant Mottnitz”. The Officer’s concern was justified because
the loss of a listening station dedicated to telephonic interception (Spetelf) could have significant
consequences and offer the enemy important information on techniques and methods used in this
field.
A later radio interception at 3.22 pm on the same day revealed that “Lieutenant Mottnitz asked
again about that station, as he had not received an answer yet”. The close on the note of the 6 Army
th
was quite ironical and reads: the Spetelf station being sought “is the one we have captured!” .
38
The cryptographic analysts in the Intelligence Services of the Armies not only decrypted many
intercepted dispatches but helped breaking the enemy ciphers whenever possible. By exploiting the
results of radio eavesdropping, the 4 Army cryptanalysts contributed to start the breaking of the
th
code “known as ‘German’ and eventually also of a new code, which was only a modified version

35 We cannot exclude that the “installation” (impianto) and “uninstallation” (spianto) messages unprotected with the new
ciphers may have provided the enemy operators, in some cases, with indications on the movements of the Italian Divisions.
36 There were 18 and 14 stations, respectively.
37 ISCAG, Coll. 249.
th
38 Headquarters, 6 Army, Intelligence Office, Riassunto di vari, op. cit. The final piece of news is not connected with the
prisoners’ statements.

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