Talk:HMS Griffin (H31)

Enigma codebooks?
Is this the same HMS Griffin that was involved in the capture of some important German codebooks on 26 April 1940 from the trawler Polares? If it is, the material recovered is stated as being found, by Bletchley Park, to be "invaluable" in Enigma: The Battle For The Code (p. 113), by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore. If so, this is the most important event in this ship's history – but there is no mention in the article. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:26, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Closer reading of Sebag-Montefiore shows that Schiff-26 and the Polares are the same vessel, yet the article has a different date of capture and still no mention of the documents that were crucial to the breaking of naval Enigma. Not sure if I need to alert User:Sturmvogel 66 as the major contributor to this article - apologies if you already have this watchlisted. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 07:42, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
 * David Kahn's Seizing the Enigma explicitly says that the keys captured from Polares on 26 April were the first break into naval Enigma, but did not make further progress in solving it possible as they merely allowed Bletchley Park to read six days of messages retrospectively.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:12, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
 * In judging sources, I think one needs to have some regard for the explanation given in the introduction to Sebag-Montefiore's book. His book was published 9 years after Kahn's and therefore benefitted from crucial information that came to light in that period. Important new references for him included the History of Hut Eight and ‘Cryptographic History of Work on the German Naval Enigma’- the latter not being available until 1999. (See pages 25-26 of the Battle for the Code)
 * How does such a view alter what the article should say about the usefulness of Griffins capture of German material? Kahn simply says: "The slips of paper enabled Hut 8 to read some naval Enigma messages retrospectively in May for six days in April. But though this success expanded Naval Section’s knowledge of the Kriegsmarine’s signals organization, it neither affected naval operations nor made further naval Enigma solutions possible." Seizing the Enigma: The Race to Break the German U-Boat Codes, 1939–1943 (pp. 165). That is all he says on the relevance of Griffin's action.
 * Sebag-Montefiore says a lot more, and his sources are informative for the key bits of his book, because often they are works of which Kahn was unaware. Quoting extracts, one finds: "The delay in breaking the messages meant that they were too old to be useful in an operational sense. However their message settings, which could be worked out once the wheel and plugboard settings were broken, were to give Alan Turing, and the three cryptographers working with him on Naval Enigma, the opening they needed." Enigma: The Battle For The Code (p. 113). Then on page 114 we have "Now at last he was able to work out a way to break some up-to-date Naval Enigma messages." This is all in the context of "...no single capture of material enabled the codebreakers to break the Naval Enigma once and for all. The early captures only gave the codebreakers some of the answers they needed, and even the later captures only showed Bletchley Park how to read German messages until the next change in Enigma procedure." (p. 26)
 * With this in mind, I don't think the article adequately represents the views of the latest and highest quality sources for the subject. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:31, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Then propose an alternative text covering all that.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:43, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Would normally have done so, but ran out of time. Will get back to it later. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 07:17, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Looks good, but unless Sebag-Montfiore specifies the cargo of Polares, you'll need to restore the footnote to Haarr, p. 89 that backed that info.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:20, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Sebag-Montefiore does mention the cargo and the armament of Polares. Since he has a lot of other detail, it appears more authoritative.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 17:32, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh, and match the existing cite format with author, page in the text and the full citation in the bibliography.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:22, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Done, using sfn template as gives better readability to the user but is still consistent with overall cite style. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 17:42, 25 May 2022 (UTC)