Never Trust the Experts

SSH and the history of WWII

Here is a clear example of a time when an Alpha listened to his Deltas and Gammas, accepted their judgment in the place of his own, and experienced a disastrous defeat as a result.

Admiral Karl Doenitz was a near genius. With a measured IQ of 138, he came up with a naval strategy incorporating submarines and improvements in communications technology that gave Nazi Germany a fighting chance in the naval war that it had absolutely no business fighting.

However, he decided to trust his experts rather than his own intuition, and as a result, lost World War II’s Battle of the Atlantic.

The story of the German Enigma machines, the Ultra Project, Alan Turing, and the British cryptological project at Bletchley Park - although essentially unknown until the declassification of relevant materials in 1974 - are by now a fairly well known story. Thanks to a head start gifted by the Polish secret service (which had been studying German cipher machines since the 1920’s), their own herculean efforts, and the fortuitous recovery of German cipher materials, the basic fact is that the British were generally able to read U-boat wireless traffic in the Atlantic throughout 1941. The capture, intact, of the damaged boat U-110 complete with all its cipher materials, keys, and signal book was a particularly significant coup.

The most direct benefit from reading the U-boat traffic, from the British perspective, was not necessarily to hunt submarines (which still had tactical methods for escaping hunters), but to reroute convoys around U-boat patrol lines. This was achieved with significant success. Although the average number of U-boats in the Atlantic tripled between February and August 1941, the tonnage lost declined precipitously, so that July of that year saw the lowest losses since the fall of France. Dönitz was highly suspicious of the disappointing returns and suspected that the British were reading his mail, but an “investigation” by Naval Intelligence concluded that the Enigma system was fundamentally secure.

Remember, Deltas are always eager to prove that they are competent and Gammas will never admit that they are wrong. Which is why they can never, ever, be trusted when your intuition is telling you that something has gone awry.

I have repeatedly learned that if you’re in charge, and you have a feeling that something is amiss, you’re always right. It always is. The challenge is not giving in to the temptation to rely upon the very individuals who are screwing up to find their own mistakes.

Don’t ever do that.

I have personally witnessed major opportunities and billions of dollars lost to Deltas and Gammas whose only priority was covering their own asses and concealing their mistakes. So, if you think something might be wrong, be sure to bring in an outsider whose ego is not tied to the continuation of the status quo to root out the problem.

Otherwise, like Admiral Doenitz, you’ll be assured that everything is fine and your communication system is secure as the British are quite literally reading your mail and rerouting their convoys to avoid your wolf packs.

While the first Enigma cracks took place in 1941, the system was “was effectively cracked by British cryptologists in December 1942, allowing for the successful rerouting of Allied convoys to avoid German U-boats.”

The ironic thing is that one can see this date very clearly in the sunk tonnage figures, which is obviously what made Doenitz appropriately suspicious that he had a communications leak on his hands:

• 10-1942: 619,417

• 11-1942: 729,160

• 12-1942: 330,816

• 01-1943: 203,128

Always trust your instincts rather than the experts. As a general rule, if you have the sense that something is wrong and your Deltas wave off your concerns and assure you that everything is fine, do not, under any circumstances, take their word for it, or ask them to confirm their own assumptions.