Balme’s Enigma Grab – Heroism in Perspective
LETTER OF THE MONTH
Dear Sirs, Sadly, I must disagree with my old friend Captain Peter Hore in his lead article in the November issue. The boarding of U-110 was an exceptionally brave achievement that cannot be belittled in its own terms, however, it was not a major codebreaking breakthrough.
British cryptanalysts had been given the wiring from Enigma by the Poles before the war, and Alan Turing had already designed his electromechanical ‘Bombe’ that simulated Enigma to find its settings, and this had been made more effective in 1940 by Gordon Welchman.
The first significant secret capture had been the wheels from a naval Enigma that a survivor of U-33 failed to throw into the sea when it was sunk in February 1940. This included two of the three wheels used by the German Navy that made their codes particularly strong. It was still necessary, however, to capture actual codes to break Enigma. These were provided when the armed trawler Polares (Schiff 26) was captured off Norway by HMS Griffin in April and the captured papers allowed the first naval Enigma signals to be decoded at Bletchley Park that…
