Alfred Dillwyn "Dilly" Knox,
CMG (23 July 1884 – 27 February 1943) was a British
classics
Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...
scholar and
papyrologist at
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the cit ...
and a
codebreaker. As a member of the
Room 40 codebreaking unit he helped decrypt the
Zimmermann Telegram which brought the USA into the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
.
He then joined the
Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS).
As Chief Cryptographer,
Knox played an important role in the Polish-French-British meetings on the eve of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
which disclosed
Polish cryptanalysis of the
Axis Enigma to the
Allies
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
.
At
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...
he worked on the cryptanalysis of
Enigma ciphers until his death in 1943. He built the team and discovered the method that broke the Italian Naval Enigma, producing the intelligence credited with Allied victory at the
Battle of Cape Matapan. In 1941 Knox broke the
Abwehr
The ''Abwehr'' ( German for ''resistance'' or ''defence'', but the word usually means ''counterintelligence'' in a military context; ) was the German military-intelligence service for the ''Reichswehr'' and the '' Wehrmacht'' from 1920 to 1944. ...
Enigma.
By the end of the war, Intelligence Service Knox had disseminated 140,800
Abwehr
The ''Abwehr'' ( German for ''resistance'' or ''defence'', but the word usually means ''counterintelligence'' in a military context; ) was the German military-intelligence service for the ''Reichswehr'' and the '' Wehrmacht'' from 1920 to 1944. ...
decrypts,
including intelligence important for
D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...
.
Personal life and family
Dillwyn Knox, the fourth of six children,
was the son of
Edmund Knox, tutor at
Merton College
Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, ...
and later
Bishop of Manchester; he was the brother of
E. V. Knox,
Wilfred Knox
Wilfred Lawrence Knox (1886–1950) was an English Anglican priest and theologian, one of four brothers who distinguished themselves. After leaving Oxford with a first-class honours degree in classics, Knox soon began working with the poor of Lon ...
,
Ronald Knox,
Ethel Knox, and
Winifred Peck,
["Peck, Winifred Frances, (Lady Peck)"]
''Who Was Who'', online edition, Oxford University Press, 2014, retrieved 9 May 2014 and uncle of the novelist
Penelope Fitzgerald.
His father was a descendant of
John Arbuthnott, 8th Viscount of Arbuthnott
John Arbuthnott, 8th Viscount of Arbuthnott DL FRSE (16 January 1778 – 10 January 1860) was a Scottish peer and soldier. Known as "the rich Lord" he built the bridge in front of Arbuthnott House, Kincardineshire. He was the first member of the ...
.
Dillwyn—known as "Dilly"—Knox was educated at
Summer Fields School, Oxford, and then
Eton College
Eton College () is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI of England, Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. i ...
.
He studied classics at
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the cit ...
from 1903,
and in 1909 was elected a Fellow
following the death of
Walter Headlam
Walter George Headlam (15 February 1866 – 20 June 1908) was a British classical scholar and poet, perhaps best remembered for his work on the ''Mimes'' of Herodas. He was described as "one of the leading Greek scholars of his time."
Early ye ...
, from whom he inherited extensive research into the works of
Herodas
The first column of the Herodas papyrus, showing ''Mimiamb'' 1. 1–15.
Herodas or Herondas (Greek: or - the name is spelt differently in the few places where he is mentioned), was a Greek poet and the author of short humorous dramatic ...
. While an
undergraduate
Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-le ...
he was friends with
Lytton Strachey and
John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originally trained in ...
. He and Keynes were lovers at Eton.
Knox privately coached
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative statesman and politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Caricatured as " Supermac", ...
, the future
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...
at King's for a few weeks in 1910, but Macmillan found him "austere and uncongenial".
[
He married Olive Rodman in 1920, forgetting to invite two of his three brothers to his wedding.] The couple had two sons, Oliver and Christopher.
He was an atheist
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
.
Academic scholarship
Between the two World Wars Knox worked on the great commentary on Herodas
The first column of the Herodas papyrus, showing ''Mimiamb'' 1. 1–15.
Herodas or Herondas (Greek: or - the name is spelt differently in the few places where he is mentioned), was a Greek poet and the author of short humorous dramatic ...
that had been started by Walter Headlam
Walter George Headlam (15 February 1866 – 20 June 1908) was a British classical scholar and poet, perhaps best remembered for his work on the ''Mimes'' of Herodas. He was described as "one of the leading Greek scholars of his time."
Early ye ...
, damaging his eyesight while studying the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
's collection of papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to ...
fragments, but finally managing to decipher the text of the Herodas papyri. The Knox-Headlam edition of Herodas finally appeared in 1922.
Codebreaking
First World War
Soon after war broke out in 1914, Knox was recruited to the Royal Navy's cryptological effort in Room 40 of the Admiralty Old Building, where some of his work was done in the bath. He persuaded his superiors to have a bathtub installed in his office in the cryptanalysis section of the British Admiralty (in Room 53). In 1917, Knox followed Room 40 with its expansion into ID25
Room 40, also known as 40 O.B. (old building; officially part of NID25), was the cryptanalysis section of the British Admiralty during the First World War.
The group, which was formed in October 1914, began when Rear-Admiral Henry Oliver, the ...
.
Among other tasks, he was involved in breaking:
* the Zimmermann Telegram which brought the USA into the war.
* much of the German admiral's flag code by exploiting an operator's love of romantic poetry.
Between the wars
Government Code and Cypher School
During the First World War he had been elected Librarian at King's College, but never took up the appointment. After the war Knox intended to resume his research at King's, but was persuaded by his wife to remain at his secret work; indeed, so secret was this work that his own children had no idea, until many years after his death, what he did for a living, and his contribution to the war effort.[
]
Commercial Enigma
The Enigma machine became available commercially in the 1920s. In Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
in 1925, Knox bought the Enigma 'C' machine evaluated by Hugh Foss in 1927 on behalf of GC&CS. Foss found "a high degree of security" but wrote a secret paper describing how to attack the machine if ''cribs'' — short sections of plain text — could be guessed. When — a decade later — Knox picked up this work, he developed a more effective algebraic system (''rodding'') based on the principles described by Foss.
Spanish Enigma
Germany's Navy adopted Enigma in 1926, adding a plug-board ('stecker') to improve security. Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
supplied non-steckered machines to Franco's
Francisco Franco Bahamonde (; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general who led the Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War and thereafter ruled over Spain from ...
Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlism, Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebeli ...
. On 24 April 1937, Knox broke Franco's Enigma but knowledge of this breakthrough was not shared with the Republicans. Soon afterwards, Knox began to attack signals between Spain and Germany encrypted using steckered Enigma machines.
On the eve of the Second World War
=Polish-French-British meetings
=
GC&CS began to discuss Enigma with France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
's Deuxième Bureau in 1938, obtaining from the Bureau details of Wehrmacht Enigma supplied by Asché and signal intercepts, some of which must have been made in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...
. This led the French to disclose their links with Polish cryptographers
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
. Knox, Hugh Foss and Alastair Denniston represented GC&CS
Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Unit ...
at the first Polish-French-British meeting at Paris in January 1939. The Poles were under order to disclose nothing of importance at this time, leaving the British codebreakers disappointed. However Knox's description of his system of rodding impressed the Polish codebreakers, and they requested his presence at a second meeting.
Knox attended the second Polish-French-British conference, held on 25–26 July 1939 at the Polish Cipher Bureau facility (at Pyry, south of Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...
, Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
). Here, the Poles began to disclose to their French and British allies their achievements in solving Enigma decryption.
Although Marian Rejewski
Marian Adam Rejewski (; 16 August 1905 – 13 February 1980) was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist who in late 1932 reconstructed the sight-unseen German military Enigma cipher machine, aided by limited documents obtained by French mil ...
, the Polish cryptographer and mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems.
Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change.
History
On ...
who solved the plugboard-equipped Enigma used by Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, approached the problem through permutation theory (whereas Knox applied linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Ling ...
), a good personal relationship was quickly established at the conference. The good impression made by Rejewski on Knox played an important role in increasing recruitment of mathematicians to Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...
. Knox was chagrined — but grateful — to learn how simple was the solution of the Enigma's entry ring (standard alphabetical order
Alphabetical order is a system whereby character strings are placed in order based on the position of the characters in the conventional ordering of an alphabet. It is one of the methods of collation. In mathematics, a lexicographical order is t ...
).
After the meeting, he sent the Polish cryptologists a very gracious note in Polish, on official British government stationery, thanking them for their assistance and sending "sincere thanks for your cooperation and patience". Enclosed were a beautiful scarf featuring a picture of a Derby
Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby g ...
winner and a set of paper 'batons'.
These 'batons' were known as rods to the British and had been used to solve the Spanish Enigma. Knox's rodding method was later used to break the Italian Naval Enigma.
=Turing's bombe
=
Alan Turing
Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical ...
worked on Enigma during the months leading to the outbreak of the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
in September 1939, and occasionally visited GC&CS's London HQ to discuss this problem with Knox.
In the 1939 register
The National Registration Act 1939 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. The initial National Registration Bill was introduced to Parliament as an emergency measure at the start of the Second World War.
The Act provided for the est ...
Turing was recorded in Naphill, staying with Knox and his wife.
By November 1939 Turing had completed the design of the bombe — a radical improvement of the Polish bomba.
Second World War
Knox's rodding method
To break non-steckered Enigma machines (those without a plugboard), Knox (building on earlier research by Hugh Foss) developed a system known as 'rodding', a linguistic as opposed to mathematical way of breaking codes. This technique worked on the Enigma used by the Italian Navy
"Fatherland and Honour"
, patron =
, colors =
, colors_label =
, march = ( is the return of soldiers to their barrack, or sailors to their ship after a ...
and the German Abwehr
The ''Abwehr'' ( German for ''resistance'' or ''defence'', but the word usually means ''counterintelligence'' in a military context; ) was the German military-intelligence service for the ''Reichswehr'' and the '' Wehrmacht'' from 1920 to 1944. ...
. Knox worked in 'the Cottage', next door to the Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...
mansion, as head of a research section, which contributed significantly to cryptanalysis of the Enigma
Cryptanalysis of the Enigma ciphering system enabled the western Allies in World War II to read substantial amounts of Morse-coded radio communications of the Axis powers that had been enciphered using Enigma machines. This yielded military in ...
.
Knox's team at ''The Cottage'' used rodding to decrypt intercepted Italian naval signals describing the sailing of an Italian battle fleet, leading to the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941. Admiral John Godfrey, Director of Naval Intelligence credited the Allied victory at Matapan to this intelligence; Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, who had commanded the victorious fleet at Matapan, went to Bletchley to personally congratulate 'Dilly and his girls'.
Intelligence Services Knox
In October 1941, Knox solved the Abwehr Enigma. Intelligence Services Knox (ISK) was established to decrypt Abwehr
The ''Abwehr'' ( German for ''resistance'' or ''defence'', but the word usually means ''counterintelligence'' in a military context; ) was the German military-intelligence service for the ''Reichswehr'' and the '' Wehrmacht'' from 1920 to 1944. ...
communications. In early 1942, with Knox seriously ill, Peter Twinn took charge of running ISK and was appointed head after Knox's death. By the end of the war, ISK had decrypted and disseminated 140,800 messages.
Intelligence gained from these Abwehr decrypts played an important part in ensuring the success of Double-Cross operations by MI5 and MI6, and in Operation Fortitude, the Allied campaign to deceive the Germans about D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...
.
Death
Knox's work was cut short when he fell ill with lymphoma
Lymphoma is a group of blood and lymph tumors that develop from lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell). In current usage the name usually refers to just the cancerous versions rather than all such tumours. Signs and symptoms may include en ...
. When he became unable to travel to Bletchley Park, he continued his cryptographic work from his home in Hughenden, Buckinghamshire, where he received the CMG. He died on 27 February 1943. A biography of Knox, written by Mavis Batey
Mavis Lilian Batey, MBE (née Lever; 5 May 1921 – 12 November 2013), was a British code-breaker during World War II. She was one of the leading female codebreakers at Bletchley Park.
She later became a historian of gardening who campaigne ...
, one of 'Dilly's girls', the female codebreakers who worked with him, was published in September 2009.
Classified poetry
Knox celebrated the victory at Battle of Cape Matapan with poetry, which remained classified until 1978.
References
Notes
Citations
Works cited
* (Updated and extended version of ''Action This Day: From Breaking of the Enigma Code to the Birth of the Modern Computer'' Bantam Press 2001)
*
*
*
* (Updated and extended version of ''Action This Day: From Breaking of the Enigma Code to the Birth of the Modern Computer'' Bantam Press 2001)
*
*
* (Updated and extended version of ''Action This Day: From Breaking of the Enigma Code to the Birth of the Modern Computer'' Bantam Press 2001)
* (Updated and extended version of ''Action This Day: From Breaking of the Enigma Code to the Birth of the Modern Computer'' Bantam Press 2001)
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Description of rodding
at Frode Weierud’s CryptoCellar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Knox, Dilly
1884 births
1943 deaths
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
British cryptographers
Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George
People educated at Eton College
People educated at Summer Fields School
British papyrologists
Pre-computer cryptographers
Bletchley Park people
Fellows of King's College, Cambridge
Deaths from lymphoma
Deaths from cancer in England
Foreign Office personnel of World War II
People from Headington