How a US military attaché's leaked reports nearly handed North Africa to the Axis
In short: For months, the German military knew the Allies' every move in North Africa, thanks to a compromised American code. While the Allies relied on their own code-breaking to gain an edge, they were simultaneously leaking their own secrets, proving that intelligence is only as reliable as the security behind it.
The North African campaign, spanning from June 1940 to May 1943, was a brutal contest for control of the Mediterranean. Early in the conflict, the Axis powers gained a significant intelligence advantage through the 'Black Code,' a cipher used by the US State Department. Bonner Fellers, a US military attaché in Cairo, sent detailed reports to Washington regarding British troop positions, morale, and supply levels. In September 1941, Italian intelligence stole a code book containing this cipher, allowing them and their German allies to read Fellers' dispatches—which they dubbed 'the little fellow'—with ease. This intelligence gap persisted until June 1942, when Fellers finally switched to a secure system.
The Allies also struggled with poor radio discipline. German forces, particularly the 621st Signals Battalion, intercepted open, uncoded British transmissions, identifying unit deployments with little effort. This changed only after the British captured German documents during the Battle of Gazala, revealing the extent of the leak. The British then overhauled their procedures, implementing dummy traffic and rigid wireless silence. Meanwhile, the Allied 'Ultra' program provided decrypts of German Enigma traffic. While Ultra was instrumental in identifying Axis supply routes, its impact remains a subject of intense historical debate.
Historians Vincent P. O'Hara and Enrico Cernuschi have challenged the traditional view that Ultra was the decisive factor in the campaign. They argue that of the 2.67 million tons of supplies shipped to Axis forces in North Africa, 2.24 million tons arrived safely. This suggests that despite Allied intelligence efforts, the Axis supply chain remained largely intact. Ultimately, the campaign concluded in May 1943 with the surrender of over 275,000 Axis personnel in Tunisia, marking the end of Italian colonial presence in Africa and the elimination of Germany's primary European ally's military capacity.
The campaign was also defined by shifting alliances and strategic compromises. Operation Torch, the Anglo-American landing in November 1942, was a direct response to pressure from Joseph Stalin for a second front. It forced the Axis to divert critical resources, including transport planes intended for Stalingrad, to North Africa. By the time the Allied pincer movement trapped the remaining German and Italian forces in Tunisia, the theater had evolved from a series of desert raids into a massive, multi-national confrontation that fundamentally altered the trajectory of the war.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: North African campaign
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