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WWII - U-Boats. Preface. A British convoy made it’s way from England to Nova Scotia because, it needed to protect supply ships from the ever present threat of German U-boats.
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WWII - U-Boats Preface A British convoy made it’s way from England to Nova Scotia because, it needed to protect supply ships from the ever present threat of German U-boats. David Balme had no clue he was heroism would give British intelligence what they needed to decipher the secret code of the third Reich-Hitler’s “enigma” encryption machine.
The Unbreakable Code • Onboard Lemp’s ship was a small, portable encryption device. It was used by U-boats so they could communicate with the high command of the Germans. • U-Boats were on the prowl looking for another ship to sink and they ended up finding British supply ships and destroyed them, killing a lot of men and supplies. All of this caused a huge strain on Britain's war efforts. • An encryption device was invented by Arthur Scherbius in 1923 to help businesses conduct secure overseas communication. His company was called Chiffriermaschinen Aktiengesellschaft.
U-Boats • One of Hitler’s best weapons which lead him to success was the U-Boat. • The Unterseebooten were German submarines that attacked at will. • U-Boats are different from the submarines from today because they can stay underwater for months. • WWII submarines were more like regular boats with diving capability. • The people on the subs lived in cramped spaces and they could only take a shower once a week.
U-110 in Trouble • Sometimes the U-Boats would launch their torpedoes but remain undetected. • But the battle on May 9, 1941 ultimately belonged to the Royal Navy, despite the loss of three convoy ships. • After a lookout on HMS Aubretia saw U-110's periscope, she raced toward the spot where her crew dropped depth charges (large bombs). • They thought that when they first fired the depth charges they missed so they fired another.
U-110 Captured • The U-110 was about to make history and so was David Balme. What happened was David Balme and his boarding crew went aboard the U-110 and found what no one had found before: a working Enigma machine and a sealed envelope with the code of June. • From there he would send it to Bletchley Park where a mathematical genius and his team were already working on a method to crack Hitler’s “unbreakable” code.
U-110 Sinks • Thinking their ship sank, none of the U-110’s survivors knew about Balme’s boarding party. • Four hundred men from the British Royal Navy knew, but not one said a word about U-110’s treasure until after the war was over. • Initially towing U-110 back to Iceland, the Royal Navy crews knew their find would be useless if Germany learned U-110 had been captured, not sunk.
U-Boat Codes are broken • Even when Bletchley Park began to decipher encrypted Nazi messages, the U-Boat version of Enigma proved to be much more difficult. • But not until 1943, after British sailors drowned trying to recover an enigma machine were U-Boat codes broken on a regular basis.
Enigma Today • There are Enigma encryption machines that exist today. • Brits’ were annoyed that the capture of the Enigma machine was turned solely into a American story. • And many people like Jonathan Mostow made movies about the Enigma encryption devices.
