Cryptographic History of Work on the German Naval Enigma


22. Spring and Summer 1942 was rather a gloomy period in the hut's history. Dolphin was only two easy - although Banburismus remained an intellectual pastime which we never ceased to enjoy - and we all felt that we had lost what was by far the most valuable part of our traffic. Offizier supplied us with a lot of very good fun but still - things were definitely not what they had been.

23. During the first half of 1942 we lost two of the "founder members" of Hut 8, Twinn and Kendrick. The work was not now of a kind to justify the retention of a number of seniors, especially as all the newcomers were now fully trained and efficient. Twinn left in January 1942 to take over Mr. Knox's section working on the unsteckered Enigma and Kendrick left in July to take charge of cryptographic work in Canada. They had both made numerous contributions to theory and practice in the section - it was notorious in the section that anything suggested had been proposed by Kendrick at some earlier date - but it was clear that better use would be made of their all round knowledge of cryptographic work by this change.

24. The only other event I can recollect during this somewhat stagnant period is the introduction of the system of "Bombe Controllers". While the Naval problem was still a simple one so far as the bombes went - Dolphin and Oyster (Dolphin Offizier) - being the only keys to be broken - the Naval demands had to be fitted in with the very much more complicated situation existing in the Air and Army section, Hut 6. The German Air Force and Army adopted the policy of splitting keys much earlier and much more thoroughly than did the Navy; thus Hut 6 had already a large number of different keys to break, though fortunately for them they had far fewer W.O's to run since wheels 6, 7 and 8 were not used at all. A sudden demand by Hut 8 far a large number of machines - if, for instance, there was a "flap" in progress - would seriously disrupt their programme and the question how many bombes for Naval and how quickly was often a difficult one to answer satisfactorily. Moreover only the technicians could answer it; the intelligence sections could lay down

-37-


< previous

next >