In the lead-up to the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, Britain recognised the role telegraphy and wireless would play in the conflict, and took steps to stay ahead in the communications war. In advance of next month's First World War centenary issue, we plot the birth of the secret intelligence unit, 'Room 40'. ACCORDING TO LEGEND, in the run-up to the First World War the head of the Royal Navy's intelligence department, Admiral Henry Oliver, was the recipient of a few intercepts of German wireless signals. They had been sent to the Admiralty by wealthy amateur radio enthusiasts who had plucked them out of the air - the dunderheads at the Admiralty not having thought of using any of their wireless sets to listen-in to the future enemy. As the intercepts piled up on his desk, Oliver wondered what to do with them. In the first few days of the war he had a lunch appointment with an old friend, engineer and physicist Sir James Alfred Ewing (1855-1935) - known as Alfred Ewing, an academic engineer who was then head of the Navy's education department. Oliver took the intercepts with him to the lunch, and handed them to Ewing, asking him to see if anything useful could be done with them.
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机译：在 1914 年 8 月敌对行动爆发之前，英国认识到电报和无线电将在冲突中发挥的作用，并采取措施在通信战争中保持领先地位。在下个月的第一次世界大战百年纪念刊之前，我们策划了秘密情报部门“40号房间”的诞生。据传说，在第一次世界大战前夕，皇家海军情报部门负责人亨利·奥利弗海军上将（Admiral Henry Oliver）曾多次截获德国无线信号。他们被富有的业余无线电爱好者送到了海军部，他们把他们从空中拉了出来——海军部的笨蛋们没有想过使用他们的任何无线设备来监听未来的敌人。当截获的碎片堆积在他的办公桌上时，奥利弗想知道该如何处理它们。在战争的最初几天，他与一位老朋友、工程师和物理学家詹姆斯·阿尔弗雷德·尤因爵士（1855-1935）共进午餐，他被称为阿尔弗雷德·尤因，他是一名学术工程师，当时是海军教育部门的负责人。奥利弗带着这些截获物去吃午饭，把它们递给尤因，让他看看能不能用它们做些什么有用的事情。
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