Government Code and Cypher School: Sigint Board and predecessors: Correspondence...

HW 69

1940-1945

This series contains correspondence of the Sigint Board and its predecessors, the top level organisation which controlled the direction and priorities of signals intelligence work, including the manpower and employment of resources, tasking of units involved in signals intelligence, security and other matters.

YB and CY

Public Record(s)

English

• Government Code and Cypher School, Cryptography and Interception Committee, 1924-1943
• Government Code and Cypher School, Signal Intelligence Board, 1943-1946

17 file(s)

Open

From 2004 Government Communications Headquarters

Topics

Labour

Intelligence

Series is accruing

Selected under acquisition policy criterion 2.2.1.3, documenting the operations of the Sigint Board in directing wartime signals intelligence work. All surviving records selected.

The Government Code and Cypher School established a Cryptography and Interception Committee in 1924 - known during the Second World War as the Y Board (Y being the term used for wireless interception). The Committee's purpose was to guide the School's work and establish its priorities. The Committeee met infrequently, and its work was effectively carried out from 1928 by a standing sub-committee, the Y sub-committee. Other sub-committees were set up to meet particular needs during the war. The Y Board and its sub-committees were absorbed by a new Signal Intelligence Board, or Sigint Board, in October 1943. Its function, under terms of reference agreed by the Chiefs of Staff, was to reconcile competing service requirements for work to be carried out by the School, to oversee and direct the operations of British signals intelligence centres throughout the world, and to handle relations with the American intelligence agencies.