Jerry Roberts - War Service

War Service

Early in World War II his tutor Professor Leonard Willoughby at University College London recommended him to the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park where he was interviewed and accepted by Col. John Tiltman for a code breaker. Professor Leonard Willoughby, who had worked during the First World War in Room 40 the main cipher-breaking unit of that time. Roberts was one of the four founder members of the Testery in October 1941. This team was tasked with breaking the German High Command’s most top-level code Tunny, after Bill Tutte had successfully diagnosed the logic of the Tunny system early in 1942.

Captain Roberts was one of the three original senior linguist-cryptanalysts working on the daily breaking of Tunny. The other two were Maj. Denis Oswald and Capt. Peter Ericsson, the Testery under Maj. Ralph Tester (a linguist but not codebreaker) task for breaking Tunny from July 1942. He was one of the three shift-leaders in the Testery (total staff 118 by 1945), and worked there until 1945 War’s end.

By the end of the War, the Testery had grown to nine cryptanalysts, a team of 24 ATS, a total staff of 118, organised in three shifts working round the clock. Messages broken by hand amounted to 1.5 million pieces within 1st year of its foundation. After the Testery had been breaking Tunny for a year by hand, the Newmanry became active in July 1943. The Newmanry developed and used machine methods to help speed up one stage - breaking of the chi-wheels but the psi-wheels and motor-wheels were still broken by hand in the Testery. From mid-1943 onwards, the Testery is credited with breaking over 90% of Tunny traffic.

Tunny was the top-level cipher system used between Army HQ in Berlin and the Generals and Field Marshals in the field. Many were signed by Field Marshals; von Rundstedt, Rommel, Keitel, Jodl etc. – as well as a number of messages signed by Adolf Hitler himself. Tunny had 12-wheels and was very advanced. It was more complex, faster and more secure than the 3-wheel Enigma machine. Tens of thousands of Tunny messages were intercepted by the British and broken at Bletchley Park by Capt. Roberts and his fellow code-breakers in the Testery. These messages contained much vital insight into top-level German thinking and planning. Tunny provided vital information that changed the course of the War in Europe and saved tens of millions of lives at critical junctures - such as the Battle of Kursk in Russia, and D-Day. Gen. Eisenhower (later U.S President) said after the War "Bletchley decrypts shortened the War by at least 2 years". Tunny decrypts made major contributions to winning the War.

Enigma decrypts helped Britain not to lose the War in 1941. Tunny decrypts helped shorten the European War by at least 2 years.

After VE Day from 1945-47 he was a member of the War Crimes Investigation Unit. Continued to use his fluent German and French and spent two years driving about the British Zone of Germany and France interviewing witnesses, victims and sometimes the accused in various war cases, taking legal statements from them for use in court.