D-day signal message to decode

[murphys]

Hello,

 

I found this coded message in a lot of papers of a navy member who participated of the d-day.

 

Does someone could be able to decode what is inscribe on it? I think it is the standard codage used during the ww2.

 

Thanks per advance for your answers.

 

[gwb123]

This is a really odd item.

 

The date "D + 1" is a term that would have more typically been used for prior planning purposes. Once the invasion had landed, the Germans would have been very aware of it. After that point, actual dates would have been more likely to have been used.

 

It's also odd that you have "D-Day" and "D + 1" on the same document. It seems it should be one or the other. If this is a legitimate item, this may have been added at a later date to give the message some historical context. Or it may have been fraudulently added to boost its value.

 

The final letter / number combination line is also odd, ending in a very visible "1,2,3,4,5". It would have stood out to anyone decoding the message, and may have simply been a marker for "End of Message" or other similar function.

 

I am not an expert on WWII cryptology, but I am not sure if there was a standard coding to which you refer. I assume codes varied by unit and service on a daily basis. To decode this you would need to know who sent it and on what day I believe. But perhaps we have a code breaker among us.

[murphys]

Thank you for your interesting comment. This document was found with a ww2 US Army code booklet (which don't refer this type of code) and others documents one of which, coded also, refers to 2 units belonging to the first wave that landed at Omaha beach.

 

.

 

I found this lot in an Antique dealer for less of 20 us$, that's why I would like to trust in the originality of this document, although I don't have the signification of this code.

[Larry569]

Maybe a simple grid with numbers across the top and letters along the side, then letters randomly filling the squares Q4, Z7, etc would have decoded letter in the square.

[General Apathy]

Hello,

 

I found this coded message in a lot of papers of a navy member who participated of the d-day.

 

Does someone could be able to decode what is inscribe on it? I think it is the standard codage used during the ww2.

 

Thanks per advance for your answers.

 

.

Hi Murphys, the frequency of letters or numerals may lead to finding the letter 'E ', that being the most commonly used letter and so on . . . . . . . . . . .

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency

Letter frequency

The frequency of letters in text has been studied for use in cryptanalysis, and frequency analysis

 

 

.

 

[murphys]

Hello, here is the answer!

 

This is a "Maplay" type grid. It is intended for the coding of cartographic data and mainly used by infantry units, in a complementary way to the "Slidex" coding system.

 

The "Maplay" was used until the 1980s before being abandoned by NATO, which had noticed that the NVA soldiers were using an almost identical system given to them by the Russians! This meant that they had cracked the code for several years. Here is a photo from the WW2 era: