Talk:Bomba (cryptography)

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Did Alan Turing attend the meeting in Poland in July 1939 ? Lysy 14:59, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No, there was Knox, Menzies and someone else, but not Turing. — Matt Crypto 15:14, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It would be interesting to reconstruct who actually was present from each of the parties. Do you think there might be anything available on the meeting in British archives ? I believe each of the teams had to make some reports that, although classified at that time, might be available in the archives today. Not the Polish one though, as they've destroyed everything because of the German invasion (well, some might still be buried somewhere in what then was Romania). Anyway, such notes could reveal what were their impressions after the meeting etc. Lysy 16:27, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Oops, no got that wrong; apparently Menzies wasn't there either. From [1] (summarising a Cryptologia article): 'According to Sexton, "Beesly identifies Humphrey Sandwich, not Stewart Menzies of SIS, as the third member" of the British group that met with the Poles in July 1939.'
  • Beesly, Patrick. "Who Was the Third Man at Pyry?" Cryptologia 11, no. 2 (Apr. 1987): 78-80
I would suppose that Sexton's article might contain some references to various relevant sources. Someday I really need to take a minibus trip and spend a day browsing back issues of Cryptologia... — Matt Crypto 17:48, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I wonder who the French were, apart of Gustave Bertand. It's a shame that old issues of Cryptologia aren't online. Lysy 18:13, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)


[edit] The July 1939 Warsaw meeting

The known participants at the trilateral July 25, 1939, Warsaw meeting included:

Poles: Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski, Jerzy Różycki (Cipher Bureau mathematician-cryptologists), Lt. Col. Gwido Langer (Cipher Bureau chief), Major Maksymilian Ciężki (Cipher Bureau German-section chief), Col. Stefan Mayer (General Staff intelligence chief);

French: Major Gustave Bertrand (French radio-intelligence chief), Capt. Henri Braquenié (of the French Air Force staff);

British: Alfred Dillwyn Knox (chief British cryptologist), Commander Alastair Denniston (chief of Britain's Government Code and Cypher School, or GCCS), Commander Humphrey Sandwith (chief of the Royal Navy's intercept and direction-finding stations).

Main source: Władysław Kozaczuk, 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, MD, University Publications of America, 1984.

logologist 06:59, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)


In July 1978, a year and a half before his death, Marian Rejewski told historian Richard Woytak about the working meetings at Pyry, just south of Warsaw, on July 25, 1939:

"[M]y colleagues [Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski] and I talked with the specialists, the cryptologists. We split things up so that … Zygalski and Różycki … explained things in English, as well as they could — they didn't speak English well, in fact hardly at all — but somehow they managed to make themselves understood. They talked with Knox, and I spoke in French with Braquenié. Since I knew some French, it was only natural … that I would take Braquenié. And [laughing] and since my colleagues knew neither French nor English, it was absolutely all the same whom they took, you see.… Just how much Braquenié understood, I don't know; but there's no question that Knox grasped everything very quickly, almost quick as lightning. It was evident that [the British] really had been working on … Enigma.… So they didn't require many explanations. They were specialists of a different kind — of a different class. Knox. Later Denniston also came by briefly — but as the chief [of the British cryptological organization]. And Bertrand would also come by.…

"[There was another person present.] But it isn't clear just who he was. There is a suspicion it was Menzies [then-Col. Stewart Menzies, deputy chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, from the end of 1939 the chief]. They said … his name was Sandwich.… But he only came in for a moment — made as if he wasn't even looking, just talked with Denniston [who] happened to be there. [H]e exchanged a few words with him, I don't know what [about]. That … Frenchman Braquenié nudged me with his elbow and said: 'Sandwich — his name is Sandwich.' [Laughing:] And the man left — a moment later he left. It's one of those mysteries. But — Mayer claims it was most certainly Menzies.… Mayer met him [again, after the war]. It's hard [to imagine Mayer] making this up. But, then again, Bertrand claims it wasn't [Menzies], that he knew this Sandwich well, [that] he was a radio expert, or something like that. It's hard to know what to make of this." (In Kozaczuk, Enigma 1984, p. 236.)

logologist 08:20, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)


"[At] the meeting … in July 1939, the first question that … Dillwyn Knox asked was: 'What are the connections in the entry drum?' … Knox's niece, Penelope Fitzgerald, states in her 1978 book, The Knox Brothers … that Knox was furious when he learned how simple it was. [The connections were in alphabetical order.]" (Marian Rejewski, in Kozaczuk, Enigma 1984, p. 257.)

logologist 09:21, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)


Hm, interesting. Thanks, I should've looked it up myself. Maybe Beesly's "Who Was the Third Man at Pyry?" in Cryptologia is based on some research of the British archives and confirms either version. It would be also interesting to learn what happened with the information gathered by Knox upon his return to Britain. He must have written a report of the meeting i presume (but obviously I don't know what the procedures were, so he may have not as well, or it was destroyed). Lysy 08:46, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It is generally accepted by serious historians (e.g., see David Kahn's Seizing the Enigma) that the third Briton at the July 1939 meeting was Commander Humphrey Sandwith (spelled with a "t", not a "c"). You won't find most of the above material in the Polish editions of Kozaczuk's 1984 book, which reprint only one of Rejewski's papers and don't contain Woytak's interview. The same, incidentally, may be said of Kozaczuk's posthumous 2004 Enigma, except that it doesn't include any of Rejewski's papers and actually perpetuates the Menzies-at-Warsaw myth. logologist 10:26, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wordage

I would think that any decent historical cryptanalyst would take issue with the wording on the caption on the German Army stecker board. The board's configuration added very little additional security (which primarily was thought to come from the changing configuration of the rotors). --enm 19:15, 27 Dec 2006 (UTC)

As I understand it, that was not the case, and the caption is correct. Which decent historical cryptanalysts do you have in mind? — Matt Crypto 20:50, 27 December 2006 (UTC)