The actual process of code breaking was tedious, tiring and required use of complicated machinery. The Allies responded to the increasing challenge by capturing Enigma machines and code-books on German ships and growing their recruitment of women codebreakers. [1]
The Enigma machine, a product of German technological advances in the 1920s, scrambled messages that operators easily entered. The machines substituted letters in the message, which could only be decoded if the receiver knew the exact settings of the machine. [2]
A 1945 Enigma decryption. Beginning in 1933, the Allies were first granted access to the Enigma machine due to their close connections to the German engineering industry. [3]
A Japanese coding machiene in the National Cryptologic Museum. [4]
Many women were trained to use the bombe machine. At the Navals communication annex, women worked in shifts all day with the noisy, hot machine. [5]
A simulation of the US Navy Bombe in action. The turning of rotators creates a series of decryption codes that are produced on the slip of paper on the right. [6]
An outline of the code-breaking process of the enigma machine [7].
An example of a Japanese ship code and the process of breaking. [8]
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Footnotes:
1. Andrew Lycett, "Breaking Germany's Enigma Code," BBC, last modified February 17, 2011, accessed February 21, 2020, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/enigma_01.shtml.
2. "War of Secrets: Cryptology in WWII," National Museum of the United States Air Force, accessed February 21, 2020, https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/196193/war-of-secrets-cryptology-in-wwii/.
3. "War of Secrets," National Museum of the United States Air Force.
4. "War of Secrets," National Museum of the United States Air Force.
5. The N-530 Bombe, located on the second deck of building 4, photograph, National Security Agency, May 15, 1945, accessed February 23, 2020, https://www.nsa.gov/Portals/70/documents/about/cryptologic-heritage/historical-figures-publications/publications/wwii/sharing_the_burden.pdf.
6.
7. Linda Nylind, "How did the Enigma machine work?," The Guardian, accessed April 13, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/14/how-did-enigma-machine-work-imitation-game.
8. Decoding Japanese shipping codes was nearly impossible, but they were cracked by specially recruited women schoolteachers, photograph, accessed January 25, 2020, https://www.jasonfagone.com/woman-who-smashed.