VAlENTINE | 125
this manual gave examples of menus containing three or more loops.^80 The codebreakers are
known to have recorded precise information about the number of intercepted messages that
contained three or more loops, but if this information has survived, it seems that it is yet to be
declassified.^81 In its absence, we cannot reach a final judgement on the question of how success-
ful the bombes would have been without the diagonal board. It seems fair to say, however, that
bombes with simultaneous scanning but no diagonal board would still have played a vital part
in the Allied struggle, although they would necessarily have provided more limited access to the
Enigma traffic than was actually the case.
Between them, Rejewski, Turing, Keen, and Welchman produced a new breed of machine;
and their bombe forged a new and enduring connection between warfare and high-speed auto-
mated information processing.
A wren’s eye view
This chapter concludes with Jean Valentine’s recollections of her bombe training at Eastcote in
1943, her arrival at Bletchley Park, and a visit to the Bombe factory at Letchworth.
I got instructions to report to a training depot for new Wrens, a place in Scotland called
Tullichewan Castle. With about forty or fifty other people I was taught to salute and to march—
skills that I seldom used again, because Bletchley Park was the most unmilitary place you could
ever come across. At the end of our training, we were called in one at a time and told where our
futures lay. There were about three or four Wren officers sitting behind a table, and one small
hard chair facing them.
I was instructed to sit on the hard chair, which I did. They looked me up and down and said
‘Stand up, Valentine!’. I stood up, stood to attention, eyes forward. The officers shuffled some
papers around and chatted among themselves, leaving me standing there thinking ‘What’s all this
about?’. Finally they said ‘Sit down!’. So I sat down again. ‘We’re going to ask you to do something
figure 12.12 Jean Valentine.
Reproduced with permission of
Jean (Valentine) Rooke.