Degree Name
MA (Master of Arts)
Program
History
Date of Award
5-2015
Committee Chair or Co-Chairs
Stephen G. Fritz
Committee Members
Andrew L. Slap, John Rankin
Abstract
The Enigma code was one of the most dangerous and effective weapons the Germans wielded at the outbreak of the Second World War. The Enigma machine was capable of encrypting radio messages that seemed virtually unbreakable. In fact, there were 158,900, 000,000,000 possible combinations in any given message transmitted. On the eve of the war’s outbreak, the British had recently learned that the Poles had made significant progress against this intimidating cipher in the early 1930s. Incensed and with little help, the British Government Code & Cipher School began the war searching for a solution. Drawing from their experiences from the First World War, and under the visionary guidance of Alan Turing, Gordon Welchman, and countless others, the British created a new, mechanical approach to breaking the seemingly impossible German code. By breaking the code, they could very well save Britain.
Document Type
Thesis - unrestricted
Recommended Citation
Avery, Andrew J., "All the King’s Men: British Codebreaking Operations: 1938-43" (2015). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 2475. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/2475