Transcripts

The bugged conversations of captured German prisoners were typed up into transcripts. The name or number of the two prisoners was given at the top of the transcript so that anyone reading it could know whether it was a U-boat Commander or a German Air Force Officer in conversation. Their date of capture was also given and the date of the recorded conversation. Each transcript was given its own unique reference number and kept in date order. Kendrick compiled an index of subjects so that if later an Intelligence Chief needed to know information on a particular subject, this transcript could be pulled out of storage and checked. Kendrick's index was far-ranging, spanning multiple pages. It reveals that there was extensive information that British Intelligence had secured about Nazi Germany using these listening techniques. Intelligence gathered from interrogations and the secret recordings were compiled by Kendrick into summary reports for circulation to the relevant Heads of Intelligence departments in the Army, Air Force and Admiralty. Kendrick was tasked with classifying the reports into a hierarchy of categories: Top Secret, Most Secret or Secret. The classification appeared in red at the top of everything he wrote, and it determined who had the right to see it. The whole operation was very efficient and well organised. The transcripts were so top secret that they remained locked away for over 60 years. Now they have been released into the National Archives in London and amount to a staggering 100,000 transcripts.