Hut 8 was a section in the

Government Code and Cypher School 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 ...

(GC&CS) 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 ...

(the British

World War II 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 opposin ...

codebreaking Cryptanalysis (from the Greek ''kryptós'', "hidden", and ''analýein'', "to analyze") refers to the process of analyzing information systems in order to understand hidden aspects of the systems. Cryptanalysis is used to breach cryptographic sec ...

station, located in

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

) tasked with solving German naval (

Kriegsmarine The (, ) was the navy of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official branches, along with the a ...

)

Enigma Enigma may refer to: *Riddle, someone or something that is mysterious or puzzling Biology *ENIGMA, a class of gene in the LIM domain Computing and technology *Enigma (company), a New York-based data-technology startup * Enigma machine, a family o ...

messages. The section was led initially by

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 com ...

. He was succeeded in November 1942 by his deputy, Hugh Alexander. Patrick Mahon succeeded Alexander in September 1944. Hut 8 was partnered with

Hut 4 Hut 4 was a wartime section of the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park tasked with the translation, interpretation and distribution of '' Kriegsmarine'' (German navy) messages deciphered by Hut 8. The messages were largely ...

, which handled the translation and intelligence analysis of the raw decrypts provided by Hut 8. Located initially in one of the original single-story wooden huts, the name "Hut 8" was retained when Huts 3, 6 & 8 moved to a new brick building, Block D, in February 1943. After 2005, the first Hut 8 was restored to its wartime condition, and it now houses the " HMS Petard Exhibition".

Operation

In 1940, a few breaks were made into the naval "Dolphin" code, but

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

messages were the first to be read in quantity. The German navy had much tighter procedures, and the capture of code books was needed (see ) before they could be broken. In February 1942, the German navy introduced "Triton", a version of Enigma with a fourth rotor for messages to and from Atlantic U-boats; these became unreadable for a period of ten months during a crucial period (see Enigma in 1942). Britain produced modified

bombe The bombe () was an electro-mechanical device used by British cryptologists to help decipher German Enigma-machine-encrypted secret messages during World War II. The US Navy and US Army later produced their own machines to the same functiona ...

s, but it was the success of the

US Navy bombe The bombe () was an Electromechanics, electro-mechanical device used by British cryptologists to help decipher German Enigma machine, Enigma-machine-encrypted secret messages during World War II. The United States Navy, US Navy and United Sta ...

that was the main source of reading messages from this version of Enigma for the rest of the war. Messages were sent to and from across the Atlantic by enciphered teleprinter links.

Personnel

In addition to the

cryptanalysts Cryptanalysis (from the Greek ''kryptós'', "hidden", and ''analýein'', "to analyze") refers to the process of analyzing information systems in order to understand hidden aspects of the systems. Cryptanalysis is used to breach cryptographic sec ...

, around 130 women worked in Hut 8 and provided essential clerical support including punching holes into the Banbury sheets. Hut 8 relied on

Wrens Wrens are a family of brown passerine birds in the predominantly New World family Troglodytidae. The family includes 88 species divided into 19 genera. Only the Eurasian wren occurs in the Old World, where, in Anglophone regions, it is common ...

to run the bombes housed elsewhere at Bletchley.

Code breakers

Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander (19 April 1909 – 15 February 1974), known as Hugh Alexander and C. H. O'D. Alexander, was an Irish-born British cryptanalyst, chess player, and chess writer. He worked on the German Enigma machine at ...

Michael Arbuthnot Ashcroft Michael Arbuthnot Ashcroft (1920–1949) was a code breaker at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, working in Hut 8 under Alan Turing. Early life Ashcroft was born in 1920 to parents of German descent. He was the fourth child of Frederick N ...

Joan Clarke Joan Elisabeth Lowther Murray, MBE (''née'' Clarke; 24 June 1917 – 4 September 1996) was an English cryptanalyst and numismatist best known for her work as a code-breaker at Bletchley Park during the Second World War. Although she did not ...

Joseph Gillis Joseph E. Gillis (3 August 1911 – 18 November 1993) was a British-Israeli mathematician and one of the founders of the Faculty of Mathematics at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where he served as a Professor of Applied Mathematics. He made n ...

Harry Golombek Harry Golombek OBE (1 March 1911 – 7 January 1995) was a British chess player, chess author, and wartime codebreaker. He was three times British chess champion, in 1947, 1949, and 1955 and finished second in 1948. He was born in Lambeth t ...

I. J. Good Irving John Good (9 December 1916 – 5 April 2009)The Times of 16-apr-09, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6100314.ece was a British mathematician who worked as a cryptologist at Bletchley Park with Alan Turing. Afte ...

Peter Hilton Peter John Hilton (7 April 1923Peter Hilton, "On all Sorts of Automorphisms", '' The American Mathematical Monthly'', 92(9), November 1985, p. 6506 November 2010) was a British mathematician, noted for his contributions to homotopy theory and ...

, January 1942 to late 1942 *

Rosalind Hudson Rosalind Audrey Clare Hudson ( née Latham; 31 July 1926 – 7 July 2013) was a British codebreaker and architectural model maker. Early life Rosalind was educated at Adcote School, Shropshire. In her early years she developed a love for archit ...

* Charlie Bierman * F Anthony Kendrick *

Leslie Lambert Leslie Harrison Lambert (11 November 1883 – 13 December 1941), known in public as A. J. Alan, was an English magician, intelligence officer, short story writer and radio broadcaster. At the beginning of World War II he worked in naval intell ...

(aka "A. J. Alan") * Patrick Mahon *

Rolf Noskwith Rolf Noskwith (19 June 1919 – 3 January 2017) was a British businessman who during the Second World War worked under Alan Turing as a cryptographer at the Bletchley Park British military base. Early life and education Noskwith's parents, Ch ...

* Richard Pendered *

John H. Plumb Sir John (Jack) Harold Plumb (20 August 1911 – 21 October 2001) was a British historian, known for his books on British 18th-century history. He wrote over thirty books. Biography Plumb was born in Leicester on 20 August 1911. He was educat ...

, moved from

Hut 3 Hut 3 was a section of the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park during World War II. It retained the name for its functions when it moved into Block D. It produced military intelligence codenamed ULTRA from the decrypts o ...

; (later a historian) Briggs (2011) p.52 *

Shaun Wylie Shaun Wylie (17 January 1913 – 2 October 2009 * Leslie Yoxall devised ''Yoxallismus'' technique * Judith Irene Bloomfield

References

* * * Rolf Noskwith, ''Hut 8 from the Inside'' - pages 197-210 of ''Action this Day'', edited by Michael Smith & Ralph Erskine (2001, Bantam London) * (Updated and extended version of ''Action This Day: From Breaking of the Enigma Code to the Birth of the Modern Computer'' Bantam Press 2001) {{DEFAULTSORT:Hut 08 Cryptography organizations Bletchley Park Buildings and structures in Milton Keynes

Operation

Personnel

Code breakers

See also

References