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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Some sort of code?


Goosegirdle

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This is from an early 1918 diary of a cadet at OTC. Any ideas of what this is?

 

H.T., uhihtl rh hfl lwuf tht ntitft tw oefl hteu. Ctt tuw, oiw witwf & ihre. Ettt oiw hthef utlftulhp titfefte

 

Ett oiw witwf then titfeft. Iwil uhih. Wootfltl oiw. Ihtt ohih, nihitl otfit.

 

Heihtl rh uith hteii uhw uhel nht uhn hfrintipehel. Ettt hti hthef weflhp titfeftn

 

Aeiip lel fwt trif rhy then titfeft.

 

Thanks in advance.

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If this has come from Percy Smythe's diary, my own thinking is that the OCR reader messed up on try to recognise those sentences, but they still made it into print.

I can't believe it is a language , however willing to be proven wrong,- any code breakers out there?

 

Cheers

John

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Thank you for that snippet IPT, I have never fully read through his diary so had no idea that it is mentioned in the foreword.

 

John

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10 hours ago, IPT said:

In the foreword, Smythe's daughter, who transcribed the diary said that it is a code.

 

I don't like "Ettt" though.

Never mind, have a 'titfeft' or three!

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My comma drill is getting poorer and poorer.

 

I did run it through a few online code breaking tools, but it would take a lot more time than i've got.  

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The Field Service Pocket Book gives an illustration of the use of the Playfair cipher, based on a 5x5 square grid (I and J doubling up) but without knowing the key word it is virtually impossible to break. It is unlikely to be a simple substitution cipher, because "Ettt" would still decode as a word with three consecutive letters the same, which eliminates English and most other languages.

 

I do agree that it is a code, and possibly its use had been the subject of a recent lecture at the OTC, and he was just practising.

 

Ron

 

 

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Hi,

 

Knotty and IPT, well recognised. It is from Percy Smythe's Diary.

 

Thanks for all those replies, "Ettt" threw me too.

 

Percy does mention the Playfair cipher somewhere in the diary, so Ron's answer looks good.

 

There is not much I can do in the podcast other than to identify that there were 4 sentences in code that can't be de-ciphered.

 

In case you hadn't seen the posts in here on the podcast, here is the direct download link to Episode 2.1. The quality has improved in the 32 episodes recorded since then. New microphone, more experience in tech and delivery on my part, etc:

 

http://traffic.libsyn.com/6bobaday/Episode_2.1_Percy_Smythe_Build_up_that_chest.mp3

 

Thanks,

 

Phil Mannell

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I am not a cryptographer but the Playfair code came about in1854 and continued to be used until 1942 when  its weaknesses were pointed out to the SOE  by the brilliant code-breaker Leo Marks. His book  Between Silk and Cyanide is hugely informative  on the subject and at the same time very humorous.

 

I do not  know if this will help but there is a chance if it  is Playfair you can find an encode on the net if that is what this code is.

 

TR

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Terry_Reeves
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13 hours ago, johnboy said:

to do anything the key word would be needed

Playfair was a pretty simple code, so, if you want to go into frequency distriburio of letters, it may not be too difficult to find the codeword.

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The multiple TSB in ettt are not filling one with confidence, until you consider it might be a number of course?  Still no nearer the bull!

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15 hours ago, RaySearching said:

 

 

Percy Smythes Diary

 

 

Ray

 

Ray, thanks for posting. It amused me to identify the various locations around Cambridge.

 

Incidentally, the bike shop in Mill Road (18 March 1918) is still there!

 

Ron

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On 10/6/2017 at 23:27, Ron Clifton said:

Ray, thanks for posting. It amused me to identify the various locations around Cambridge.

 

Incidentally, the bike shop in Mill Road (18 March 1918) is still there!

 

Ron

Ron, I'd love to see a photo of that bikeshop! Phil

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I wonder if Percy wrote the code word in the margin of his diary (That would make sense)! Unfortunately, his daughter passed away a few years ago, so the Smythe's may have difficulty locating the original, I have asked them to look at the original if they can locate it.

 

Phil

Edited by Goosegirdle
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