Cape Hatteras has a brand new museum which is being completed at the very tip next to the ferry service. The Graveyard of the Atlantic museum will house artifacts from both the land and sea of the Outer Banks area. The coolest find they have is a German Enigma Machine from a U-Boat which was sunk off Hatteras and the machines were used for sending and decoding messages. The acquisition of the machine by the Allies was an important piece to turning the tide in the war. The machine, as the local historian said, was able to generate over 400 million lines of code. The pinnacle of this exhibit, the Enigma Machine still mechanically works! After a few parts gets refurbished, due to the ocean dissolving them, the machine will be able to work by hand. Pretty impressive after surviving an attack and the sea. The type-writer is submerged in a solution to make it stable so it may eventually be placed in open air.
The exhibit when finished will be a great must stop for vacationers!
Very interesting, and did you know:
ReplyDeleteThis (Enigma) is an adaptation of a commercial device that the Nazis modified to make it absolutely secure (so they thought). The credit for breaking the enigma encryption scheme (it's not "code") goes to the Europeans, beginning with the Poles.
The US gets credit for breaking the Japanese high diplomatic and other cypher schemes -- but not for using the decrypts timely to avoid Pearl Harbour. Very fortunately our decrypts were crucial in the later Midway rout --the Navy sent a bogus message indicating that the fresh water situation was critical at Midway and then read Jap messages discussing same that identified where they were headed for the big carrier attack that cost them their main strength at sea (and the US Navy airedales were very lucky to boot).
The Spy Guy ("he's everywhere")
As with many other 'industrial war complex' entities the original manufacturer of the enigma survives today as International Business Machines or IBM.
ReplyDeleteInteresting to note another large Deleware Corporation sold gunpowder to both sides during WWI & WWII... DUPONT ... While the companies making the goods had different names and legal structure the stock was owned by the same family, whom for many years owned the State of Deleware...
Did you know that the first US ship sunk by a German U-Boat was taken down just 33-miles of our beloved Eastern Shore?
Operation Pakenshlag was very successful starting just of Chincoteague island with its first kill, working their way up the coast to New York...
Boss Hogg:
ReplyDeleteStick to your knitting sweetheart - IBM had nothing to do with the Enigma, which was invented by a German engineer named Scherbius in the early 20th century and later improved and marketed to businesses by German firms before being selected during the 1920's by the German Navy (which had examined and rejected the device in WWI); later it was being used by the German Army and Air Force. Over the years the two services developed different versions of the machine and usage protocols.
It was the Army's (air force)version that was first "cracked" by Allied intelligence (the Poles were first to do so, on a limited basis), early in WWII, but the Navy's version went unsolved until the early 1940's and was a key to the success of Nazi's subs for a few years in the Battle of the Atlantic.
Karl Donitz was the mastermind of that episode, and used Enigma to abandon the former prohibition on radio messages to and from subs at sea in order to direct them to convoys -- which was the basis for the wolfpack tactic.
Fortunately, the Brits were able to seize and acquire enough material from German ships that the Naval cypher was finally broken.
For a comprehensive history, read Seizing the Enigma by David Kahn (got my copy at Barnes & Noble in Salisbury).
BTW -- IBM did lend aid and assistance to Nazi Germany, and that's another matter worth discussing -- but not in respect of the Enigma cyphering device.
Former ONI swabbie.
PS for Nick:
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed this post a lot, as you may have guessed.
Did it say which U-boat and when & how it was killed. My guess -- because it appears to be 4-rotor model Enigma -- is late 1942 or 43-44.
Note the V key where Y is on the US keyboard -- which shows authenticity, as well as numerous other details shown in the photo's.
Those holes are where the decrypy/encrypy appeared -- probably a celluloid cover (to allow light-up) that was dissolved by the sea water whereas the keys (letters in glass-?) survived. The machine probably had the standard wooden case that no doubt is long gone.
Former ONI swabbie
Hey ONI guy:
ReplyDeleteNice handle. Reminds me of that used by Churchill in messages to FDR: "Former Naval Person".
Were you ever at Asmara (inland from Massawa) when we had "stuff" there?
Ain't it neat how that screening system at NSA picks up this chatter about Enigma and the like.
Keep the fleet to keep the peace!
Chow, Spook