Re: Y Service
> Unfortunately one of the ones let go was the Coventry raid.
I'd be interested in any citations for that other than Winterbotham . Everything I've read makes it very clear that Coventry was one that got away not one was "let through". There is no way that anyone would have let through a raid like Coventry if there had been anyway to stop it. Never mind the scale of the raid, Coventry's position in the heartland of industrial Britain would have meant it was far to valuable to be allowed to act a decoy. Ultra, especially that early in the war wasn't perfect. They never knew everything. Neither were the electronic countermeasures. The night fighter force was in its infancy, Spitfires weren't good night fighters, Hurricanes were only marginally better.
The Wiki has a good summary, the enumerable books on BP and Enigma as well as those on the RAF cover this in a lot more detail. RV Jones' Most Secret War covers the countermeasures aspect. Coventry was the one that got away.
Dresden wasn't particularly "the" reprisal, in many ways the whole of Bomber Harris' campaign was the reprisal.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
