According to the newsletter of CRYPTOLOG, 18 year old Charley Rumsey was a US Navy radio intercept operator stationed in Brazil in 1943. He was picking up radio messages from U-boats and relaying them onward for the planes to go out and destroy them.

Also 18 years of age, Karl-Heinz Bähr was an engineer aboard U-858 patrolling off the east coast of Brazil in 1943.

Naturally, they didn’t know it at the time, but the messages Karl-Heinz was sending were being intercepted by Charley. U-858 was one of the lucky boats and survived the way, surrendering in the United States at the end of the War. In 2001, Karl-Heinz was invited to a meeting on the American east coast, and here the two former teen-age adversaries met for the first time.

Charley said: “He certainly was not person I envisioned back then as I searched for the familiar dit dit dah dit dit on the hour!”