Differentiation of Signals (Part 1 of 2)

Heroes Remember

Differentiation of Signals (Part 1 of 2)

Transcript

The reason we could identify them and I, you know, this is sixty, seventy years ago, apparently they, the Brits had access to a, a German publication. When a German unit was created in Germany and had signals equipment, they were assigned a certain page in that book, "Call Signs and Frequencies" which they suppose to use. There were given five frequencies and twenty call signs they, they used. And let's say they're on page forty-five, right. In that book of a hundred and eighty pages, I don't know how many pages are in it, but we had that book. So, if I, and every day about five o'clock in the morning, all the German units in France on the Russian front, in Italy, in the desert, changed call signs and frequencies. They did it every day. But if you identified one unit and identified the number they used, so if they said forty-four, if he was on page fifty-two, he added forty-four to fifty-two. He's now on page one hundred and twelve. There, there it is. This is, so we could identify units very quickly and there was quite a, quite a competition. Every day, every day, quite a competition. And we had what they call secure line, secure lines, we could talk to people. We had a British unit and eventually an American unit also doing the same thing but a little further along the coast line, and we were we were competing who would get the, the, the qualifier for the day and then we'd pick up the phone, "It's forty-two!" But this was all scrambled.

Description

Mr. Pollak describes how they were able to differentiate the origin of one signal from another.

Fred Pollak

Mr. Pollak was born May 20, 1919, in Vrezno, Czechoslovakia, a small town in the German part of Bohemia. In September of 1938, his family was expelled from Vrezno and had to go inland to Prague. They arrived in Canada as refugees in August of 1939 and lived in Prescott, Ontario. Mr. Pollak eventually joined the Canadian Army, enlisting as a typist. At the end of the war, Mr. Pollak monitored radio transmissions for German traffic and was also employed as an interrogator of war criminals in Belsen.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 02:00
Person Interviewed:: Fred Pollak
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Location/Theatre:: France
Battle/Campaign:: Northwest Europe
Branch:: Army
Occupation:: Signals Intelligence

Related Videos

Decoding German signals

Mr. Pollak recounts how he went directly into service after landing in England and how his unit had three years experience intercepting and decoding German signals before they went over to Normandy in June 1944. He then describes the makeup of the unit and the duties they had.

Differentiation of Signals (Part 2 of 2)

Mr. Pollak describes how they were able to differentiate the origin of one signal from another.

21 Panzer Division

Mr. Pollak describes the 21 Panzer Division and how useful their intelligence of the signalling patterns became in tracking the German’s movements.

Crossing the Rhine

Mr. Pollak describes an incident while crossing the Rhine where the Canadian unit were able to decode more effectively than the British or Americans and they subsequently averted serious casualties from an artillery barrage.

Werewolf Operation

Mr. Pollak talks about rumours of the Werewolf Operation, which was a fortified area in Austria of young SS who would continue to fight. He also discusses how the German High Command continued to exist after the end of the war and helped control the defeated army.

Date modified:: 2019-06-20