11/06/2022
I knew about the enigma machine but didn’t realize the dumped them into the sea!
Development and Operation of the Enigma
After World War I, the Enigma machine was developed in Germany as a business machine to foil industrial espionage. This machine was an advanced cipher machine used by all the branches of the German military for secure wireless communications until the end of World War II. Used for the encryption and decryption of secret messages, the operating procedure of the Enigma machine was fairly simple. To send an encrypted message, the operator set the Enigma’s electric and mechanical settings (the plug wirings and the rotor wheels) to a predetermined initial combination known to him and to the receiving operator. He then typed the message text on the Enigma’s keyboard. For each typed letter, a different letter was illuminated in the upper board. The operator wrote down each illuminated letter, so that when the completed original message was typed on the Enigma, a meaningless stream of letters produced the encrypted message. The encrypted message was then sent with a standard Morse code radio transmitter. The receiving operator wrote the received encrypted message, set his Enigma machine to the same pre-determined combination, and then typed the message at the machine’s keyboard. Typing the encrypted message on his Enigma machine, with the same combination of settings, deciphered it, so that the operator read the original text message by the letters illuminated in the upper board as he typed.
Before digitation and computers, breaking the messages produced by the Enigma was almost impossible as long as the operator did not know the combination of the original settings. These settings were changed frequently.
In the event its vessels were boarded by the enemy, the top secret Enigma machines were to be quickly removed and thrown into the sea. The German Navy made removal of the machines from vessels uncomplicated to ensure they were not captured by the enemy, thus compromising classified or restricted information. Pictured here is diver Jim Bunch who helped recover the enigma machine from U-85, the first U-Boat to sink during the Battle of the Atlantic. Jim Bunch has done more than 1,000 dives on U-85 and has written two books - one on U-85 and another on U-boat battles off our coast. Photo courtesy of Jim Bunch and the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum.
