MontImageMedia - In Memoriam
"The Turing Bombe" Breaking the Enigma cipher at the Bletchley Park museum 2015.
Turing designed the British Bombe in 1939. Compared to the Polish Bomba, it used a completely different approach. It was based on the assumption that a known (or guessed) plaintext, a so-called crib, is present at a certain position in the message. The Bombes were built by the British Tabulating Company (BTM, later ICL) at Letchworth (UK) under the supervision of Harold 'Doc' Keen . The first machine, called 'Victory', was delivered at Bletchley Park on 18 March 1940.
The Bombe was further enhanced with the so-called diagonal board, an invention of fellow codebreaker Gordon Welchman, that greatly reduced the number of steps needed for the codebreaking effort. A second Bombe, with Welchman's diagonal board present, was installed on 8 August 1940. It was named 'Agnus Dei', later shortened to 'Agnes' or 'Aggie'. The first machine (Victory) was later modified with a diagonal board as well.
During the course of the war, over 200 Turing-Welchmand Bombes were built. To avoid the risk of losing them in case of a bomb attack, they were spread between Bletchley Park and its so-called Outstations in Wavendon, Adstock, Gayhurst, Eastcote and Stanmore, where they were operated by WRNS, RAF-technicians and civillian personnel.
"The Turing Bombe" Breaking the Enigma cipher at the Bletchley Park museum 2015.
Turing designed the British Bombe in 1939. Compared to the Polish Bomba, it used a completely different approach. It was based on the assumption that a known (or guessed) plaintext, a so-called crib, is present at a certain position in the message. The Bombes were built by the British Tabulating Company (BTM, later ICL) at Letchworth (UK) under the supervision of Harold 'Doc' Keen . The first machine, called 'Victory', was delivered at Bletchley Park on 18 March 1940.
The Bombe was further enhanced with the so-called diagonal board, an invention of fellow codebreaker Gordon Welchman, that greatly reduced the number of steps needed for the codebreaking effort. A second Bombe, with Welchman's diagonal board present, was installed on 8 August 1940. It was named 'Agnus Dei', later shortened to 'Agnes' or 'Aggie'. The first machine (Victory) was later modified with a diagonal board as well.
During the course of the war, over 200 Turing-Welchmand Bombes were built. To avoid the risk of losing them in case of a bomb attack, they were spread between Bletchley Park and its so-called Outstations in Wavendon, Adstock, Gayhurst, Eastcote and Stanmore, where they were operated by WRNS, RAF-technicians and civillian personnel.