30 Military Mission Moscow. A question.

[Egorka]

Hello,

In the following link you can see the telegram sent ny Eisenhower to 30 military mission in Moscow on 8 May 1945.
Link: http://www.danmarkidenkoldekrig.dk/B...er_antonov.pdf

I have a couple of questions.

• What time was the telegram sent. At 18:19?
• What time do you think it took for the mission to process the telegram and send it further to the Russians?
• Do you have any further info on the 30military mission.

General John R. Deane was head of the U.S. Military Mission to Moscow, 1943-45.
He authored the book "The Strange Alliance - The Story of Our Efforts at Wartime Cooperation with Russia" (The Viking Press, 1947).
Does anyone have the book?

[Roadkiller]

Speculation based on having read many military messages in my life, albeit in a completely different format. Reading from the top down:

Message pad designator (in other words, don't scribble a message on a cigarette pack and expect me to send it, use a proper message pad).

Security classification. (S E C R E T)

Precedence. (URGENT) Precedence informs communicators how quickly the authority who signed the message expected it to be in the hands of the action addressees. "URGENT" is not a modern precendence so I cannot state exactly how long would be expected. However, here ( http://law.justia.com/cfr/title47/47....2.2.5.0.169.7 ) it is described as:

... Urgent telephone calls or messages shall be handled as fast as possible and ahead of all other calls or messages except those having a higher precedence. Any message or call of a lower precedence in the process of transmission will be halted, if feasible, to clear the channel for this transmission...

Action Addressee: (TO) The station expected to take action on the message

Information addressees: (FOR INFO) On a modern message, communicators have 24 hours (unless otherwise indicated) to get the message to these addressees, who are not being ordered to take specific action.

Originator; (FROM) The unit sending the message, and in this case, it seems to include who authorized the transmission.

Ref No looks to be a filing number.

TOO seems to be the time the message was processed into the communications center of the unit originating the message. 08 is the day of the month, 1735 the time, and "B" is the time zone.

Text of the message.

Then a number of internal addressees and filing processes are identified.

FS OUT might be the sequence this message was transmitted this day/month or year.

The date and, it would appear, the transmission time (1819B) follow. It appears that the message was transmitted about an hour after it came into the communications center.

The filing number and date/time complete the message to show that nothing follows

[Egorka]

Originally Posted by Roadkiller

FS OUT might be the sequence this message was transmitted this day/month or year.
The date and, it would appear, the transmission time (1819B) follow. It appears that the message was transmitted about an hour after it came into the communications center.

Thanks!
I suppose if the transmission time "1819B" is also the reception time at the destination office in 30 Military Mission in Moscow.
I guess so ar the transmission medium was radio, right?

Then I wonder when the request was sent to Russians as the result of this message...

[Jon Jordan]

I'm not sure what the "30" means - there was a military mission under Deane, as you pointed out, but I never heard of the prefix "30". AGWAR is "Adjutant General, War Department," "CCOS" is the Combined Chiefs of Staff (based in Washington), and "BCOS" would be British Chiefs of Staff (Brooke, et al.).

Sorry I'm not more help - I Googled "Strange Alliance" but only found small snippets. Good luck with your hunt!

Jon

[Roadkiller]

Originally Posted by Egorka

Thanks!
I suppose if the transmission time "1819B" is also the reception time at the destination office in 30 Military Mission in Moscow.
I guess so ar the transmission medium was radio, right?...

The time of receipt (TOR) at the other end would depend on the method of transmission (wireless or landline) and whether there is a direct link between the two. If not, other communications stations between the two are required to relay the message and this will add time.

It is hard to tell how it was sent and whether relaying was necessary as we are not looking at a transmitted/received copy. If the message was sent via radioteletype, morse or teletype it is processed in all CAPITAL LETTERS. As neither Baudot code for radio/teletype ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baudot_code ) nor Morse Code ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code ) have lower case elements.

Other processing we would need to account for is encryption and decryption. The message was originally classified secret. Thus it would need to have been encrypted unless there was a direct, secure connection between the two communications facilities (and perhaps not even then).

Encrypting the message may have consumed the bulk of time between when the message was first processed (1735B) and when it was transmitted (1819B). Unless the message was encrypted elsewhere, which is entirely possible.

But perhaps add another 1/2 hour to 45 minutes on the receiving end for decryption if the processing time at the transmission site included encryption.

[Jon Jordan]

Originally Posted by Roadkiller

But perhaps add another 1/2 hour to 45 minutes on the receiving end for decryption if the processing time at the transmission site included encryption.

Assuming the encryption clerks were not backed up with messages, as they often were....

[Roadkiller]

True enough. Although to be pedantic, the message would cycle into the bottom of the pile of messages marked "Urgent" (or higher). It would jump the queue ahead of "Routine" or other lower messages.

[Egorka]

I ordered in the library the book "The Strange Alliance - The Story of Our Efforts at Wartime Cooperation with Russia" (The Viking Press, 1947).
Lets see what it says...

[Naffenea]

Originally Posted by Roadkiller

Precedence. (URGENT) Precedence informs communicators how quickly the authority who signed the message expected it to be in the hands of the action addressees. "URGENT" is not a modern precendence so I cannot state exactly how long would be expected. However, here ( [URL]http://law.justia.com/cfr/title47

Urgent is still a precedence, both in voice and data communications.

[Roadkiller]

Originally Posted by Naffenea

Urgent is still a precedence, both in voice and data communications.

What are the handling requirements? Please provide a reference.

This ( http://jcs.dtic.mil/j6/cceb/acps/acp127/ACP127G.pdf ) is ACP 127, which lays out message procedures for allied forces. Article 150 describes 4 precedences:

Designation Prosign
(1) FLASH Z
(2) IMMEDIATE O
(3) PRIORITY P

(4) ROUTINE R

This ( http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/joint_st...rations/50.pdf ) is JANAP 128, which is a US military publication which describes precedence in article 521 as the same four used by ACP 127.

This ( http://www.isode.com/whitepapers/tes...anag-4406.html ) is a discussion of STANAG 4406 which adapts legacy data communications methods to "modern" X400 standards. There is a chart about 1/2 way down the page which shows the same four precedences.

[Jon Jordan]

Originally Posted by Egorka

I ordered in the library the book "The Strange Alliance - The Story of Our Efforts at Wartime Cooperation with Russia" (The Viking Press, 1947).
Lets see what it says...

Should be interesting reading - and perhaps slightly less biased than if it had been published two years later!).

Cheers,

- Jon

[Egorka]

Originally Posted by Jon Jordan

Should be interesting reading - and perhaps slightly less biased than if it had been published two years later!).

Cheers,

- Jon

Got the book today. Lets see. Now I just have to choose between reading and chatting on the forum... hmm...

[Roadkiller]

Share what you've learned when you've done reading

[Egorka]

I am enjoying the read very much. I find it amusing and informative. Mainly from etnographical point of view, but there are also some small details of different matters here and there, which an insight into some matters.
I've read 80 pages so far and already have seen part of my answer.
In the chapter "Some Minor Projects", p.64-71 the author describes the set up of signalling service between Moscow and Washington.

So basically prior to beggining 1944 the communication between USA and USSR was by the commercial radio telegraph and was unstable.
The story is how new more relyable connection was established. It was (see top p.69) a 1 channel (later expanded) radio connection through Teheran. The radio stations on both ends were connected to 2 teletypewrites - one Russian operated and one American operated. The Amercan terminal in Moscow was in the J.R.Deane's office.
The telewriter was submitting the encoded signal, which was automatically suplied to the radiostation for relaying.

Here are the scans: http://flic.kr/p/c1frvW