Forget high-tech code breaking equipment, with a little luck and one
strange coincidence all of your enemies secrets may be revealed.
That is what the American military suspected was happening when 33 days before the 1944 invasion of Europe's top secret code words were in different editions of the London Daily Telegraph.
The invasion of Europe was planned with such secrecy that a leak was almost inconceivable. Still, The code words Omaha and Neptune names given to the French beaches where the troops were to land were in two separate puzzles. The code name, Mulberry, for the man made harbors used for beach supplies was the answer in yet another crossword.
Then four days before the operation the clue "some big-wig like this has stolen some of it at times" was in another puzzle. The answer to the clue was Overlord, the code name for the entire operation. Military security men ascended on the telegraph office like a swarm of bees. Each man was certain they would find a nazi spy ring which had blown the whole operation.
They found Leonard Dawe a school teacher that had been responsible for the crossword puzzle for the last 20 years. Dawe eventually managed to convince the military that he was the ill-fated victim of a Strange Coincidence.
(Mysteries of the Unexplained, p.74)