The bible was earmarked at the same passage that was used as a key to encrypt the earlier message sent by the Soviet spy. Hugh mentions that he decrypted the message and considered this key "too simple" for Turing.
Caincross' treachery was later confirmed by an incriminating note found in the house of fellow Soviet spy Guy Burgess after his defection to Moscow (ironically Burgess and his fellow spy Donald McClean were revealed by American deciphering of Soviet communications). Caincross confessed all and was allowed to retire, living out his life as an academic and working for the UN.
The information was circulated to a very small group within Britain/Commonwealth and America and tightly restricted, even allies such as the Free French and Soviet Union never being let in on the secret (partly for political reasons but also because it was feared their security was compromised). It was also used extremely sparingly, rather than engage in the wholesale sinking of U-boats it was used to route convoys away from them and reduce sinkings to an acceptable level. The only U-boats directly sunk as a result of Enigma were a number of the so called 'Milk Cows', supply submarines which could rearm and refuel other U-boats at sea, their destruction severely limiting German attacks whilst not raising losses to a suspicious number. Another theory is that some elements within the German high command did suspect their codes had been broken but by then the war was essentially lost and to admit their failings to Hitler could have resulted in their execution, encouraging them to keep silent. The Germans did regularly change their code books and update their code machines to try to prevent any Allied deciphering, posing huge problems for Bletchley Park. After the war German communications experts confessed that they knew Enigma could theoretically be broken but thought the time and effort involved would be prohibitive.
Yes and with some considerable success. With the aid of captured codebooks the German's B-Dienst organisation were able to read the communications of the Royal Navy, British Merchant Navy, British Army, US Navy and US Diplomatic Service for significant periods of World War 2 (the latter especially useful as it was used for the reports from US Army observers attached to the British high command).
The German's were also experts at eavesdropping and analysing low level uncoded communications picked up by listening posts in occupied France, Holland and Norway and their embassy in Dublin (the Irish Free State remaining neutral throughout the conflict, allowing the Germans to monitor virtually the entire British Isles and deep into the Atlantic). They were also able to tap supposedly secure telephone lines and unscramble conversations between the UK and US, even those between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin Roosevelt.
What the German's lacked however were the computer breakthroughs that allowed them to decipher the messages in time to make them useful for their war effort. Ironically these achievements may have served to convince the Germans that their own communications were still secure as they reasoned the Allies would have taken greater effort to secure their own radio traffic if they were deciphering German messages.
Both the Poles and French had made significant breakthroughs in deciphering German communications before the fall of their countries and had handed everything they knew over to Britain. Bletchley Park's innovative use of primitive computers allowed them to decode and cope with a volume of traffic that would simply have been impossible using traditional methods and to do so quickly enough that the information could be used effectively. This was greatly aided by the crews of Royal Navy destroyers HMS Bulldog and HMS Petard which recovered codebooks and Enigma components from captured U-boats (Petard losing 2 of her boarding party when the submarine they were exploring sank suddenly). The Royal Navy also launched a commando raid against German occupied Norway, capturing more codebooks and Enigma components from an armed German trawler sunk in the operation. Encouraged by such successes the Royal Navy also seized a pair of German weather ships in the Barents Sea, ships of little military importance in themselves but vitally equipped with the requisite communications gear. In truth breaking the code was fundamentally a group effort with many participants playing their part.
Hugely so, Dwight Eisenhower described it as 'decisive' in terms of the Allied victory. Whilst it is arguable that the Allies would have eventually won the Battle of the Atlantic anyway due to American mass ship production and the introduction of escort aircraft carriers and long range patrol aircraft the Enigma breakthrough significantly hastened the victory. In terms of allowing the liberation of Europe in 1944 and ending the Holocaust alone it may have saved literally millions of lives. Its value was underlined by the Battle of the Bulge in winter 1944 where the Germans were able to take the Allies by total surprise, largely because within Germany itself they used secure telephone cables rather than radios, blinding Bletchley Park. The enigma intercepts also allowed British intelligence to capture and turn virtually all German spies in Britain by tapping into their transmissions.
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- How long is The Imitation Game?1 hour and 54 minutes
- When was The Imitation Game released?December 25, 2014
- What is the IMDb rating of The Imitation Game?8 out of 10
- Who stars in The Imitation Game?
- Who wrote The Imitation Game?
- Who directed The Imitation Game?
- Who was the composer for The Imitation Game?
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- Who are the characters in The Imitation Game?Alan Turing, Joan Clarke, Hugh Alexander, Dilwyn 'Dilly' Knox, John Cairncross, Peter Hilton, Commander Denniston, Sir Stewart Menzies, Jack Good, Supt Smith, and others
- What is the plot of The Imitation Game?During World War II, the English mathematical genius Alan Turing tries to crack the German Enigma code with help from fellow mathematicians while attempting to come to terms with his troubled private life.
- What was the budget for The Imitation Game?$14 million
- How much did The Imitation Game earn at the worldwide box office?$234 million
- How much did The Imitation Game earn at the US box office?$91.1 million
- What is The Imitation Game rated?PG-13
- What genre is The Imitation Game?Biographical, Drama, Thriller, and War
- How many awards has The Imitation Game won?49 awards
- How many awards has The Imitation Game been nominated for?214 nominations
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