From 'Naval Warfare in the English Channel 1939-1945' by Peter C Smith (Pen and Sword Maritime 2007)

The Battle for CW9:

CE8 got through with no losses and no opposition. It looked good for the return convoy, CW9, which assembled off Southend on 6 August. At the time it was not known that the Germans had carefully plotted the progress of the eastbound convoy for the whole of its tedious passage and drew up their plans accordingly. Night was really no protection from the all-seeing eye of Freya.

The first intelligence that the British got relating to the Freya radar system was brought to the UK by a young Danish Naval Flight Lieutenant Thomas Sneum, who, at great risk to his life, photographed radar installations on the Danish island of Fanø in 1941 and then escaped to Britain in a derelict de Havilland Hornet that he and a friend secretly repaired. The escapade was used by the author Ken Follet in his book Hornet Flight.

Not knowing about Freya would mean that on two occasions the British could only assume that the Germans had got lucky. After CW-9 I believe that channel convoys were stopped. To attempt to lay blame for what happened on the Admiralty and infer that it was done purely as a matter of pride to portray a non-existent callousness is grossly unfair and insulting, especially as both the song and the music were written in retrospect by people who were never there. Songs written at the time by people who were there are one thing, but if you are writing about an event retrospectively and you have all the information at your finger tips, you have a duty to at least get it right. If you cannot do that then you shouldn't bother as you are only doing a disservice to the subject, the memory of the people concerned and to history.

Both Allied and Axis sides went to great lengths to mask the technological and scientific break-throughs that gave them any sort of "edge". One well known example being the RAF's early airborne interception radar sets: The success of night fighter pilots was reportedly put down to diet and the old-wives tales about carrots being good for night vision - most successful of those pilots with 20 victories credited to him was John Cunningham,nick-named "Cats Eyes" Cunningham, who survivied the war and became de Havillands Chief Test pilot.