雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第5章:解謎接力賽(59)
Traditionally, the Royal Navy expected autonomy.
As possessor of the world's largest fleet, the Admiralty might be supposed capable of organising warfare for itself.
作爲世界上最大艦隊的擁有者，海軍認爲自己有能力控制戰爭。Yet it had signally failed to learn the lesson that navies depended not only upon force but upon information, for guns and torpedoes were impotent unless in the right place at the right time.
但它實際上卻失敗了，它們沒有學會這一點：海軍不僅要依賴力量，還要依賴信息，因爲槍炮和魚雷必須在正確的時間打到正確的地方，否則打了就是白打。
Like the giant Cyclops, 'Our Fighting Navy' was decidedly one-eyed.
我們英勇的海軍，實際上就像獨眼巨人一樣。Naval Intelligence was embodied in an organisation that anyone of the new generation would find absurdly Victorian, if not criminally incompetent.
海軍的情報組織，在新生代的任何人看來，都是維多利亞時代的落後產物。Only in the First World War had any Naval Intelligence Division been set up, and this had declined in peacetime into Kafkaesque fantasy.
海軍在第一次世界大戰時成立了情報部門，到了和平時期，這個部門基本上成了擺設。In 1937, the NID was11 '… neither interested in nor equipped to collect or disseminate information about the organization, dispositions, and movements of foreign fleets …
在1937年，海軍情報部門既沒有興趣、也沒有能力來收集或宣傳關於外國艦隊的組織、部署與行動信息，the situation was very little better than it had been … in 1892….
這個情況比1892年好不到哪裏去，Large old-fashioned ledgers were used in which to enter in longhand the last known whereabouts of Japanese, Italian and German warships….
他們使用過時的大量捲紙來記錄日本、印度和德國戰艦的行動……These reports were often months old, and only once a quarter were the supposed dispositions of foreign navies … issued to the Fleet.'
這些報告經常是滯後好幾個月，而且只有四分之一是真實可靠的。
