8 | 1 lIfE AND wORk
Starts work on German Naval Enigma. Deduces the special method of
protection used for transmissions to and from North Atlantic U-boats.Invents the ‘Banburismus’ method of attacking U-boat messages.
Completes the preliminary design for his Enigma-breaking machine, the ‘bombe’.
1940 Travels to Paris and is present when Polish codebreakers decrypt the first
Enigma message to be broken since the start of the war.
Breaks the Enigma key codenamed Light Blue, but this turns out to be only
a training key.Hut 8 is established at Bletchley Park, with Turing in charge (Fig. 1.4). His
goal: to break into naval messages on a daily basis.His first bombe, ‘Victory’, is installed in Hut 1.
Cycles to and from work wearing a gas mask to ward off hay fever.
Joins the Home Guard and learns to shoot.
German bombs fall close to his lodgings in the village of Shenley Brook End.
figure 1.4 Reconstruction of Turing’s desk and office in Hut 8 at Bletchley Park.
Copyright Shaun Armstrong/mubsta.com. Reproduced with permission of Bletchley Park Trust.