Pearl Harbor Day

Deciphering the Enigma:

The Bombe and its effects on the war.

complex machine, composed of a multitude of rotating drums and electronics. He inputs a certain

sequence of codes into the machine. The massive machine’s drums start turning, and the

ciphered codes that were put into the machine are deciphered into plain German text. The

machine had just cracked the infamous Enigma encryption machine’s convoluted code, and

helped the Allies figure out the message’s contents.

The Bombe, a British/Polish electro-mechanical deciphering tool, helped win WW2 by

deciphering the German Enigma cipher.

The Polish designed the BOMBA system, a predecessor of the Bombe, providing much-

needed inspiration and data for the British codebreakers.

The Polish mathematician Marian Rejewski recovered the wirings for the military variant

of the German Enigma machine. He was later assisted by two other mathematicians to help with

recovering the daily Enigma keys. These men were the very first to break the Enigma codes, a

very impressive feat (Bombe).

They used mathematical analysis at first, with data from a German spy. They later bought

a commercial Enigma machine and used gathered data and components to convert it to

commercial specifications. This achievement required a lot of technical skill and knowledge and

helped the effort on decoding the Enigma greatly. (Bombe)

The Germans changed their enciphering methods, making the catalog method the Poles

used, which contained the length and number of cycles to predict the keys, completely useless.

The Poles created the Bomba device, which used recurring patterns in the ciphertext to recover

the Enigma settings. If enough recurring patterns were found, the Bomba could find the Enigma
stings within two hours. Unfortunately, all were destroyed by the Poles to prevent their capture

by the Germans during the invasion of Poland. This device was greatly useful, and its design was

brought to Britain when the codebreakers fled there, giving a basis for the Bombe. (Bombe)

Alan Turing and the Bletchley Park codebreakers were given the momentous task of

creating a method to crack the ever-improving Enigma code.

Alan Turing created the first Bombe, an electro-mechanical device that was made to

break the Enigma code (Turing). The Bombe was based on earlier Polish data. The machine was

extremely complex, composed of around 100 rotating drums, 10 miles of wire, and about one

million soldered connections (Copeland). With Polish help Alan Turing and Bletchley Park

members beat the Enigma.

The Bombe used a completely different method from the earlier and far less complex

Bomba. It assumed that a known or guessed plaintext, or “crib”, is present at a certain position in

the message to figure out the settings. A radical change in the Enigma message indication

methods eliminated the loophole the Bomba utilized rendered it useless, and the British

codebreakers had to use a different method. Thanks to the Bombe’s versatility, it survived many

German changes in the Enigma settings, and kept on decoding messages effectively (Bombe).

The first version, “Victory”, was delivered on March 1940. British mathematician

Gordon Welchman also suggested improvements, which were implemented by August 1940.

Welchman created the diagonal board method, which greatly decreased the number of steps

needed to break the code. “Victory” was later upgraded with the diagonal board. The Bombe

was vital to the war effort, as they could decode the Enigma machines that encrypted many

crucial German reports and plans (Bombe).

a new version of the Enigma was produced, the Enigma M4, exclusively for the German

submarine communications along with a new codebook. The Enigma M4 had a fourth wheel, a

great problem for the Bletchley Park codebreakers, as the Bombes they had were only suited for

the 3-wheel Enigma machines. (Bombe) The original three-wheel machines were already

incredibly complex and used convoluted codes. (Turing) However, Turing figured out that the

Enigma M4 was somehow compatible with the old Enigma M3 machines that the rest of the

German Navy was using. He was right, as when the M4’s fourth wheel was set to “A”, the

machine would behave like the old M3, which was done when the submariners communicated

with the rest of the navy. Also, the 4th wheel never moved during encryption. However, even

after a four-wheel Bombe was made, it still took 9 months from the release of the new M4 to

capture the new codebooks and decrypt the M4 (Bombe).

The Bombe had a great effect on the war in favor of the Allies, as the Allies could know

what the Germans were up to. There were many upgrades and different versions of the Bombe,

made in places other than Bletchley park, and even a successor, Colossus, which was the first

digital computer ever made.

The US also built its own Bombes from British blueprints and instructions. At first the

Americans wanted a fully electronic version, but it would be far too complex. The Americans

settled for a version of the Bombe that was still electro-mechanical, but was more reliable, fast,

and effective. Overall, the Bombe, both American and British, helped save the lives of thousands

of Allied soldiers.
 The Bombes deciphered the data sent by the German submarines and Navy, as well as

data sent by the Army and Air Force. This data allowed Allied commanders to plan around

German sub routes, as well as plan attacks with knowledge of enemy strength, position, and

strategies. This helped foil many German U-boat attacks before the first torpedo was launched.

However, the German High Command started using a 12-wheel encryption machine

named the Lorenz SZ-40, later changed to SZ-42, codenamed TUNNY by Bletchley park

codebreaker. It was far too advanced for the Bombe, so an entirely new machine had to be

developed. After building an initial, less advanced coding machine, British electronics engineer

Tommy Flowers developed the Colossus decoding machine. It was massive, taking up an entire

room, and contained 1700 thermionic valves (vacuum tubes). It could, however, decode Tunny

messages five times faster than previous machines and could be programmed for specific tasks.

It was delivered on January 18, 1944 and decrypted its first message on February 5, 1944. Its

more complex successor with 2400 valves, Colossus Mark II, was delivered on June 1, 1944 and

started decrypting useful data immediately. The Colossus machines broke some of the most

secret messages of the Nazi military, while the Bombe only decrypted messages containing

information on individual tactical moves.

The Bombe, and decoding machines like it, were extremely important pieces of

technology in use during the Second World War. They decoded German messages, allowing the

Allies to plan around German strategies and tactics. This saved many Allied lives thanks to

Allied military strategies based on the information the Bombe and Colossus decrypted. The

Bombe was a multinational effort, involving Polish, British, and American effort to make the

machines that broke the Enigma. Thanks to these mathematical geniuses, the war was shortened,
and the techniques used in creating the Bombe could also be applied to making more complex

machines.

The Bombe and especially the Colossus would serve as future inspiration for machines

that used logic, such as computers like ENIAC, which was one of the first general-use

computers, built to calculate artillery tables. While Colossus had impact after the war, even after

all units were mothballed or destroyed after the war, the Bombe sadly was no longer relevant,

and all were destroyed shortly after the conflict had ended.
Bombe,11/27/18, www.cryptomuseum.com/crypto/bombe/.

Copeland, B.J. “Ultra.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 19 Sept. 2016,

11/27/18, www.britannica.com/topic/Ultra-Allied-intelligence-project#ref1073435.

Turing, Father of the Modern Computer, 11/27/18,