Focus on
Olga Gray and the Woolwich Arsenal Spy Ring
In 1938, thanks to years of work by a remarkable female agent, MI5 ensured a package of British defence plans stayed secret.
Series
Government Code and Cypher School: Combined Bureau Middle East (CBME): Records
Catalogue reference: HW 51
What's it about?
HW 51
This series contains surviving records of the Combined Bureau Middle East.
Full description and record details
-
Reference (The unique identifier to the record described, used to order and refer to it)
- HW 51
-
Title (The name of the record)
- Government Code and Cypher School: Combined Bureau Middle East (CBME): Records
-
Date (When the record was created)
- 1940-1944
-
Description (What the record is about)
-
This series contains surviving records of the Combined Bureau Middle East.
-
Related material (A cross-reference to other related records)
-
Policy papers on the history of CBME are in HW 14
-
Held by (Who holds the record)
- The National Archives, Kew
-
Legal status (A note as to whether the record being described is a Public Record or not)
- Public Record(s)
-
Language (The language of the record)
- English
-
Creator(s) (The creator of the record)
- Government Code and Cypher School, Combined Bureau Middle East, 1940-1945
-
Physical description (The amount and form of the record)
- 93 file(s)
-
Access conditions (Information on conditions that restrict or affect access to the record)
- Open
-
Immediate source of acquisition (When and where the record was acquired from)
-
In 2003 Government Communications Headquarters
-
Subjects (Categories and themes found in our collection (our subject list is under development, and some records may have no subjects or fewer than expected))
-
- Topics
- Intelligence
- Middle East
-
Accruals (Indicates whether the archive expects to receive further records in future)
- Series is accruing
-
Selection and destruction information (Information about how the record was selected for archiving)
- Selected under Acquisition Policy criterion 2.2.1.3, documenting the work of the CBME. All surviving records retained.
-
Administrative / biographical background (Historical or biographical information about the creator of the record and the context of its creation)
-
The Combined Bureau Middle East (CBME) was established in late 1940 at Heliopolis near Cairo in Egypt as the signals intelligence centre for the Middle East. It comprised army, air force and naval staff working on signals intelligence, and continued until March 1943.
-
Record URL
- https://beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/id/C15965/
Catalogue hierarchy
Over 27 million records
This record is held at The National Archives, Kew
17,110 records
Within the department: HW
Records created or inherited by Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)
You are currently looking at the series: HW 51
Government Code and Cypher School: Combined Bureau Middle East (CBME): Records
You may be interested in
-
-
Focus on
The Spycatcher affair
The book Spycatcher sparked one of the most controversial courtroom battles of the 1980s, bringing questions around state secrecy to a global audience. -
The story of
Anthony Blunt's confession
Security Service files paint a vivid picture of what happened when Anthony Blunt – then employed in the royal household – admitted spying for the Soviet Union.
Related records
Records that share similar topics with this record.