Editor’s Note:
List of Gullen’s Coded Letters
Throughout the war soldier’s letter writing was constrained by the military censorship system. For rank and file soldiers like Gullen, their immediate officers were responsible for reading and censoring the letters of the men under their command so as to ensure that they contained no information that might assist the enemy. Soldiers serving in the field (at or near the front lines) were specifically prohibited from identifying their location (hence the ubiquitous letter writer’s opening phrase “Somewhere in France”).
Gullen circumvented this by adding dots under various written characters to spell out place names. Interpreting these hidden messages is often challenging. Even clearly marked messages generally contain errors in spelling, and determining what ink spot is or isn’t an intentional code-type dot can at times be a frustratingly imprecise guessing game.
List of Gullen letters that are known to contain coded messages (see also the letter of 1916-08-02 in which Gullen writes of his intention to use the dot-code):
- 1916-10-05 (hidden words – not dot-code)
- 1916-10-14
- 1916-10-20
- 1916-10-21
- 1916-10-31
- 1916-11-02
- 1916-11-08_d01
- 1916-11-08_d02
- 1916-11-15
- 1916-12-08_d01 (unclear if code is used or not)
- 1916-12-08_d02
- 1916-12-09
- 1916-12-18
- 1916-12-21_d01
- 1916-12-21_d02
- 1916-12-22
- 1917-01-07
- 1917-01-19
- 1917-02-04
- 1917-02-11_d01
- 1917-02-11_d02
- 1917-02-12_d02
- 1917-03-15
