Bombe Rebuild Enters Commissioning Phase

On 6th September 2006 Bletchley Park’s WW2 code breaking Veterans returned to Bletchley Park to demonstrate how they cracked the Enigma code. For the first time in 60 years it was possible to stage a full demonstration using original equipment and people at Bletchley Park. The event was a unique media preview in advance of a special weekend on 23rd and 24th September at Bletchley Park.

 

Since Bletchley Park opened to the public as a museum a dedicated team of enthusiasts have been working on rebuilding a fully functioning British Turing Bombe. A task made more difficult due to the secrecy surrounding these machines for nearly fifty years. They have now completed the machine and starting the complex commissioning phase in preparation for the official opening by the British Computer Society in July 2007.

 

The Bombe was the brainchild of mathematical genius’ Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman, combined with the engineering skills of the British Tabulating Machine Company in Hertfordshire. The machines enabled Bletchley Park’s Cryptographers to decode over 3000 enemy messages a day and turn the course of World War Two. Without that information the Battle of Britain and the Battle of the North Atlantic could have been lost making a British surrender inevitable. Turing’s work also paved the way for the computer technology we are all so familiar with today.

 

The commissioning phase will be launched to the public at the Churchill and Enigma Reunion Weekend on 23rd / 24th September 2006. This will also be a reunion of Bletchley Park’s World War Two veterans. Special demonstrations by re-enactors in period dress will also be taking place.

The first time it has been possible for 60 years to re-create the way the “unbreakable” Enigma code was broken using functioning World War Two equipment at Bletchley Park.