[johnmoore]

You have to look at the facts the message was sent by Sjt W Stot.

You do a search and you find this.

http://www.archieraf.co.uk/archie/1037zau.html

And you will find that there was a sgt H H Stott and his crew position is w/op Air Gunner so hence the sjt W Stot.

You will then find that On 27th April 1942, the crew of Halifax W1037 ZA-U from 10 Squadron failed to return hence the need to send a message.

You will also find that on the birds ID NURP.40.TW.194 and NURP.37.OK.76 - NURP” was the National Union of Racing Pigeons so it was british so this back up the fact it was send by the RAF. The number 40 relates to 1940 but you can't read to much into that if you see this website.

http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Others/Others-Doc-Birds&...

You will see pigeons with number 38 was used in 1941 and 1942 and a pigeon with number 39 was used in 1945 and a pigeon with number 41 was used in 1942.

So this backs up the argument that the date would be between 1940 and 1945. So the date of the crash in 1942 wouldn't be far off.

All you have to do is find the codes used by Halifax W1037 ZA-U from 10 Squadron. The RAF would have records once you get that you can decode the message.

I thought the GCHQ had smart people working at it.

sgt H H Stott personal number is 1058698 take the first four numbers 1058 and use that as the ciper.

So the first letter A is plus 1 the second letter is O plus O the four letter is A and it is plus 5 which is G and the four letter K is plus 8 which is W so.

The first row is as follows.

BOG WT NHF LD KVG JB GJD IK

Which so far I have translated as.

BOMBER ON GROUND WITH TROOPS NEED HELF FAST LITTLE DEFENCE k___ v____ G_____ J___ B____ G____ J____ D____ I___ K___

Need help solving the rest.

[jgrahamc]

This is very imaginative but it doesn't appear to have anything to do with actual code breaking.

[takluyver]

On the other hand, 'W Stot' could well be different from 'H H Stott': it's a short surname, and not particularly rare:

http://www.192.com/atoz/people/surnames/stott/50/

Also, the article mentions that spelling 'sergeant' with a j, as in the abbreviation 'Sjt' was more common practice in the army, whereas the RAF would probably have used a g.

[andyjohnson0]

@SuperChihuahua posted a link to http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2012/11/02/dead-pigeon-sparks.... According to the author of that document it may have been Sergeant William Leslie Stott (508080 in the RAF, died in 1945 aged 35, buried in Chester’s Overleigh Cemetery) [1]. The spelling of "Sergeant" matches.

[1] http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2928300/STOTT,%20...

[aw3c2]

Are you randomly guessing words based on their first character or is there any actual logic behind it?

[DanBC]

>All you have to do is find the codes used by Halifax W1037 ZA-U from 10 Squadron. The RAF would have records once you get that you can decode the message.

Those records could very well have been destroyed, either through war time action or subsequent fire or flood or other catastrophe, or deliberately.

>I thought the GCHQ had smart people working at it.

It's possible that they've decrypted it but are declining to say so. Don't forget that they've only just this year (60 or so years later) released some of the work of Turing.

[kevinprince]

UK didnt even acknowledge the existing of GCHQ or the Cipher Schools at Bletchley until 70's and 80's.

[alpine01]

Assuming that this is the Stott who wrote the message and looking at the detailed nature of the mission to bomb the Tirpitz, could this information be used to programatically reverse engineer the key in a sensible amount of time? I.e. assuming certain keywords may be in the message, like "Tirpitz" or "down" etc...

[EliRivers]

KILLED VIOLENT GERMANS JUST BECAUSE GERMAN JUGGERNAUT DOESN'T INFER KETCHUP

[johnmoore]

This would explain why the AOAKN is at the start and end.

BOGWT - BOMBER ON GROUND WITH TROOPS

Because it is important.

[JASONBULLEN71]

Surely you must have miscalculated, if you are using the 1058 sequence then AOAKN would read BOFSO