updated 2008 February 12

Crusty old Joe's

Little Known And Marginally Useful Information

On 25 October 1999, I visited the National Cryptological Museum, Center for Cryptologic History, National Security Agency, at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland. My visit coincided with two other visitors who allowed me to participate in conversations for about an hour. One person was a lady who worked in one of the huts at Bletchley Park, England. She didn't know much about the whole picture while she was working there because of the high security. She was learning more about the story fron Phil Bochicchio who was also at the museum that day. Phil had worked on the construction and operation of the BOMBEs at Dayton Ohio and had set up the display model at the museum. I was accompanied on this visit by my friend Bob Weeks of Columbia MD.

The Enigma code had over 3 x 10114 combinations for a "normal" three-rotor machine. For the four-rotor naval machine the combinations rise to over 2 x 10145.

Phil Bochicchio and lady from Bletchley Park Me and the three rotor Enigma The BOMBE on display at the museum

Recommended reading list from a booklet at the museum about the BOMBE:
Atha, Robert I. "Bombe! 'I Could Hardly Believe It'." Cryptologia 9:4 (1985) 332-226.
Bennett, Ralph F. Ultra in the West: The Normandy Campaign of 1944-1945. New York: Charles Schribner, 1980.
__________. Ultra and Mediterranean Stratgey. New York: Morrow, 1989.
Deavours, C.A., and James Reeds. "The Enigma - Historical Perspective." Cryptologia (Oct. 1977) 381-391.
Erskine, Ralph. "Naval Enigma: The Breaking of Heimisch and Triton." Intelligence and National Security Vol. 3 (1988) 162-.
___________. "The Soviets and Naval Enigma: Some Comments." Intelligence and National Security 4:3 (July 1989) 503-511.
___________. "Naval Enigma: A Missing Link." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 3:4 (Winter 1989) 493-508.
Garlinski, Joseph. Intercept: The Enigma War. London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1979.
Good, J.I. "Early Work on Computers at Bletchley." Cryptologia 3:2 (April 1979) 65-77.
Hinsley, Francis H., and C.A.G. Simkins. British Intelligence in the Second World War (abridged version). New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Hinsley, Francis H., and Alan Stripp, eds. Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park. Oxford University Press, 1993.
Hodges, Andrew. Alan Turing: The Enigma. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983.
Kahn, David. The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing. New York: Macmillan, 1967.
__________. Seizing the Enigma: The Race to Break the German U-Boat Codes, 1939-1943. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1991.
Kozaczuk, Wladyslaw. Enigma: How the German Machine Cipher Was Broken, and How It Was Read by the Allies in World War Two. Edited and translated by Christopher Kasparek. Frederick, Maryland: University Publications of America, inc., 1984.
Kruh, Louis. "An Armchair View of the Smithsonian Institution Cipher Machine Exhibit." Cryptologia 9:1 (1985) 38-51.
__________. "Unlocking Enigma's Secrets." Cryptologia 14:4 (1990) 366-369. [Exhibits at Smithsonian Museum.]
Lewin, Ronald. Ultra Goes to War. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1978.
References from the booklet on The Cryptographic Mathematics of Enigma by Dr. A. Ray Miller
Erskine, Ralph, and Frode Weierud. Naval Enigma: M4 and its Rotors. Cryptologia, Volume XI, Number 4, October 1987, 235-44.
Hinsley, F.H. British Intelligence in the Second World War. 2 volumes. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1979, 1981.
Kahn David. Seizing the Enigma. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991.
Kozaczuk, Wladyslaw. Enigma: How the German Machine Cipher Was Broken, and How It Was Read by the Allies in World War Two. Edited and Translated by Christopher Kasparek. Frederick, Maryland: University Publications of America, Inc., 1984.
Office of the Chief of Naval Operations CNC-OP-20. Enigma Series: Volume 1. Click Process. On file at the Smithsonian American History Museum. RIP 603, Reg. No. 9, Communications Intelligence Technical Paper TS-10/E-1, filed 2 December 1980.
Woytak, Richard. A conversation with Marian Rejewski. Transcribed and translated by Christopher Kasparek. Cryptologia, Volume 6, Number 1, January 1982, 50-60.
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