An email from Gordon Leith to Jiří Trojan  regarding the recoverd code table from the Spitfire. 

Dear Mr. Trojan,

Thank you for your enquiry received on 21 December regarding the code table discovered in the wreckage of Spitfire MJ558 which crashed in Belgium in April 1944.
I believe the code table you have found is a Standard Height and Place Name (“Caxton”) Code Card,
used on daytime fighter operations to prevent R/T messages from RAF Sector Controllers to RAF fighters being intercepted and relayed by the German radio monitoring service to enemy aircraft.

Messages like “Land and refuel at Manston” were encoded using this system to phrases such as “Go to C for Charlie Q for Queen”,
which would have been meaningless to the German radio operators. 

Similarly all references to “bandits” (enemy aircraft) were encoded to prevent enemy aircraft learning that they had been detected.
It was also important to prevent the position of allied shipping convoys and aircraft operating heights being passed to the enemy, hence the codes for both of these on the card.

These cards are described in “Fighter Command R/T Procedure Instruction and R/T Security Memorandum” (April 1943), but I have never seen one before.
It looks from the example you have found that they were issued for local areas rather than for the whole of the UK as the places on the card are all close to Appledram, where W/O Mrtvy was based.

Yours sincerely,

Gordon Leith
Curator
Department of Research & Information Services
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