Nigel de Gris ( born Nigel Arthur de Gray ; March 27, 1886 - May 25, 1951 ) is an English cryptographer , holder of the Order of Saints Mauritius and Lazarus , Order of St. Michael and St. George and the Order of the British Empire . Veteran of the First and Second World War. He became famous for the decoding of the Zimmermann telegram , which involved the USA in the First World War, which changed its course.
| Nigel De Gris | |
|---|---|
| Nigel de gray | |
| Date of Birth | |
| Place of Birth | Parish Priest House [1] Copdock , Suffolk , England , British Empire |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | Oxford Street, London , England , UK |
| A country | |
| Scientific field | cryptography |
| Place of work | Room 40 Government Communications Center |
| Alma mater | Eton |
| Known as | cryptanalyst Telegram Zimmermann |
| Awards and prizes | Order of the Saints of Mauritius and Lazarus Order of St. Michael and St. George Order of the British Empire |
Content
The Beginning of Life
Nigel de Gris was born on March 27, 1886 in Kodpok, there he was baptized. [2] He is the grandson of the fifth Baron of Walsingham . Nigel’s father, Arnald de Gray , was a parish priest. Nigel studied at Eton College , where he studied foreign languages. Instead of going to university, he hoped to become a linguist and enter the diplomatic service . Knowing perfectly German and French, he did not pass the Italian exam and, instead of diplomatic service, became a publisher. [3] He worked at the publishing house of William Heynman from 1907. On December 29, 1910, in Hertfordbury, 24-year-old Nigel De Gris married his second cousin, Florence Emilt Frances Gore , [4] who was 27 years old. December 22, 1911 their son John was born. In total, de Gris had three children. Barbara was born on July 18, 1915, and Roger was born on April 18, 1918. [5] In life, he was modest and feeble, for which colleagues nicknamed him dormouse . [6]
Role in World War I
Room 40
With the outbreak of war, Nigel de Gray entered the British Royal Navy reserve and served as an observer in the aeronautical forces on the Western Front in Belgium. In 1915, he was transferred to the Naval Intelligence Directorate as a cryptographer. He worked in the diplomatic section of Room 40 , the secret service unit of the British Navy, which was engaged in cryptography, that is, decryption of encoded enemy messages. [3]
Zimmermann Telegram
On January 17, 1917, at the age of 31, Nigel de Gris, together with the venerable William Montgomery, who was 46 years old, decoded Zimmermann's telegram . This was a message from the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, transmitted through Washington to the German Ambassador to Mexico, Heinrich von Eckardt ( German: Heinrich von Eckardt ). The telegram said that German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmerman was proposing to Mexico to take back the US territories - Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. In exchange for this, Mexico was to join the war as a German ally. [7] [8]
Jobs in Italy
In the spring of 1915, De Gris was appointed to Taranto , then to Rome as lieutenant commander . His task was to lead the Mediterranean branch of the British Naval Intelligence Agency, to keep in touch with the Italian branch, and to focus on cryptograms from Australia. For work in Italy, he received the Italian Order of the Saints of Mauritius and Lazarus , and in 1918 he was awarded the Order of the British Empire . [3]
The interwar period
After the end of World War I, Nigel de Gris led the Medici Society , which published old works of art , and he had time for many hobbies. He was a keen shooter : he loved to come to the villages to his many cousins, where he went hunting. He was a good watercolor painter and draftsman, loved to work in his large garden in Iver . As an amateur actor, he was a member of the Old Stagers and Windsor Strollers societies, playing cricket at Canterbury Cricket Week . [3]
Role in World War II
In 1938, after the financial crisis, de Gris lost his job at the Medici Society. A year later, he was offered to work in Bletchley Park . During the war, a government school of codes and ciphers ( Government Code and Cypher School, GC&CS ) was located on the territory of this English manor in Buckinghamshire , which was a military base that successfully decrypted German messages encoded using the Enigma machine . His sister Barbara, who met her future husband there, and his son John worked with him. [9]
After World War II
After the war, de Gris remained at GC&CS, which was renamed the Goverment Communication Headquarters , and managed a group of cryptographers working on the Venona project , the decryption of Soviet encrypted reports. In 1945 he was awarded the Order of St. Michael and St. George .
After retiring, Nigel de Gris bought a pottery store, but on the day the deal was completed, he died of a heart attack on Oxford Street. This happened on May 25, 1951, Nigel de Gray was 65 years old. [9]
Notes
- ↑ Ancestors of Lieut. Commander Nigel Arthur DE GRAY RNVR, OBE, CMG
- ↑ Visitation of England, 1909 , p. 23.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Historical Dictionary of Naval Intelligence, 2010 , p. 86.
- ↑ Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 1999 , p. 12.
- ↑ Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 2003 , p. 4065.
- ↑ Inside Room 40, 2010 .
- ↑ Simon Singh, 1999 .
- ↑ Spies of the First World War, 2010 , pp. 94-96.
- ↑ 1 2 Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence, 2014 , p. 169.
Literature
- Paul Gannon. Inside Room 40: The Codebreakers of World War I. - Ian Allan Publishing, 2010 .-- P. 287. - ISBN 0711034087 .
- Fredrick Arthur Crisp. Visitation of England and Wales . - London, Privately printed, 1909. - Vol. 16. - P. 306.
- West N. . Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence . - Scarecrow Press, 2014 .-- P. 786. - ISBN 0810878976 .
- Moisley, Charles. Burke's Peerage and Baronetage . - Crans, Switzerland: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 1999. - Vol. one.
- Moisley, Charles. Burke's Peerage and Baronetage. - Wilmington, Delaware, USA: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003. - Vol. 3.
- Simon Singh. Historical Notes: 184 King's Road, Tighnabruaich // The Independent. - 1999. - September 1. Archived on August 26, 2011.
- James Morton. Spies of the First World War. Under Cover for King and Kaiser . - the National Archives Kew, 2010. - P. 272. - ISBN 978 1905615469 .
- Nigel West , "Gray, Nigel Arthur de (1886-1951)" in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography