this sea faring goliath, and died to a man sending the dreadful ship to the bottom of the sea. Yet the matter was never fully set at ease insofar as British intelligence was concerned.
The public never knew about it, as the whole incident was a closely guarded secret, spun out instead as a dastardly combined German U-boat and surface raider attack on a neutral American naval task force. Few knew all the details of the encounter, and those that did lived with a terrible fear those next six months. They waited, eyes white with fear, every time a flight of German bombers would appear over London, thinking the next one would surely deliver another fatal and catastrophic blow with this horror weapon, but it never came.
Sailors who had been involved in the battle spread rumors in spite of warning to hush the matter, and the fleet soon came to believe that the Germans were developing fearsome new naval weapons to counter the Royal Navy’s advantage at sea. But they were never seen again. Even in skirmishes with the last big German battleship, the
Weeks became months, and became a long year. All the information, Admiralty reports, interviews with senior officers in command and individual ship diaries, along with all their signals logs had been bundled, collected, classified, and coalesced under one file—“
Something in the feeling that lodged in his gut sent Turing right to this very file, and he opened the box with some trepidation, reaching first for the sheaf of photo samples that had been obtained— all too few considering the resources that had been thrown at this raider. He took the best of them out, remembering how he had squinted and stared at it when he first saw the image a year ago, and how he had noted the shadow of a man standing there on the long foredeck to work out the scale and length of the ship. Now he held the photo in his left hand, and compared it to the new arrival in his right. He stared at them, for a very long time, his eyes darkening further as he studied them both under a magnifying glass. Then he sealed up the box and walked briskly back to his desk and picked up a telephone.
“Special line,” he said tersely. “Admiralty.”
He identified himself, saying simply “Turing, Hut Four. Geronimo. I repeat. Geronimo.”
There was a pause, a very long pause it seemed. Then the voice said in quiet confirmation.
In the early morning hours of August 12, 1942 a telephone rang in the personal quarters of Admiral and Commander-in Chief, Home Fleet, John Tovey. Its strident alarm roused him from much needed sleep, and he groped fitfully for the receiver on his nightstand, finally grasping it and muttering an irritated “yes?” that was clearly tinged with “how dare you.” Yet he knew, on one level of his still sleep fogged mind, that he would not be receiving a call at this hour without real urgency behind it.
What could it possibly be this time, he groped? Home Fleet had no operations in progress. The Dieppe Operation was not yet teed up. Operation Pedestal was not in his purview. The only thing on his calendar was the laborious agony of hosting the Turkish Ambassador and Naval Attache aboard
“Yes, John Tovey. What is it?” This time there was less irritation and more accommodation in his voice.
The line cleared. He heard a low tone indicating an encrypted connection had been established. Then a voice came on the line with a single word, and his heart seemed to skip a beat when he heard it.
There was a long silence while the other party waited, and Tovey realized the caller was needing his confirmation that the codeword was received and understood. “Very well,” he said haltingly. “Geronimo…. Has First Sea Lord Admiral Pound been notified?”
“I will confirm my attendance now—anything else?”
That was quite enough, thought Tovey as he hung up the receiver. It seems he would not have to suffer the boredom of formal protocols this afternoon after all. Instead it would be Sir Dudley Pound and all the other hatbands and cuff stripes at the Admiralty after a long, cold flight to London. Yet the nature of the call—that single word known to so very few—filled him with dread and foreboding. Intelligence has got their mitts on something new, he thought. What could it be?
He eased out of his bed, reaching for the light. There was very little time to waste if he was going to catch his plane at the appointed hour. God help us if there’s been another ‘incident,’ he thought, thinking that word so completely inadequate for what he and his men had gone through in the North Atlantic…well…a year ago, wasn’t it? Yes, a full year, almost to the day.
They put him on a fast Coastal Command Beaufighter, which was no surprise if they wanted to get him to the Admiralty in good time. The plane climbed through the typical shroud of low lying fog and up into a drab pre-dawn sky, the throttle opening up to near full power for most of the 500 mile run in. They landed at a little used RAF station, as close to Whitehall as possible, but one requiring a short drive to reach the Admiralty citadel. The grey dawn was breaking by the time Tovey’s car reached his destination, and he was all of thirty minutes early, working his way in through security to eventually reach the citadel command center of the Admiralty, Special conference room 1. The door was plainly marked: MOST SECRET — AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
A solitary Marine guard stood to attention and saluted as he approached. When Tovey had returned the salute, the guard turned, knocked quietly on the door with a white gloved hand, then opened it for the admiral, standing stiffly to attention again as Tovey entered. The door was pulled quietly closed behind him, and he crossed the antechamber, opening the inner door to find four other men seated at the conference table. The guest list was not surprising. First Sea Lord, Sir Dudley Pound sat at the head of the table, flanked by his Second Sea Lord Sir William Whitworth and then Tovey’s old friend Sir Frederick Wake-Walker, now Third Sea Lord. The fourth man was not in uniform. He wore dark pressed trousers, white shirt under a fine knit vest and a grey tweed jacket. His tie looked over worn and ill tied, as though he threw it on as an afterthought. A dash of straight brown hair fell on his forehead above coal dark eyes, bright with fire.
The men stood to greet him, and Admiral Pound extended an arm as they exchanged handshakes. He made the introduction. “I can see you were surprised to see a man in civilian clothing in these chambers, Admiral,” he said warmly. “May I introduce Professor Alan Turing, called in this morning from Bletchley Park.”
“My pleasure,” said Tovey as he shook the man’s hand. “If I understand correctly, you led the decryption effort for German Navy Enigma traffic?”
“I did my part, sir,” said Turing, his voice high and thin. “The chaps in Hut Eight had a good deal to do with sorting it all out.”
“Well it’s been a godsend, in more ways than you can imagine. First rate, but I’m inclined to think that we’ve
