An iconic machine used by Nazi Germany to encipher secret messages during the Second World War made its way to Salisbury this week – much to the delight of history enthusiasts.

Brought by guest speaker Dr Mark Baldwin, who is one of Britain’s most informed speakers on WWII intelligence, the German Enigma was the focus of the latest meeting of Salisbury Military Society at St John’s Place in Bemerton.

Known as Doctor Enigma, on Wednesday night, he entertained an audience of around 30 people with some remarkable wartime tales.

This world-famous machine was used extensively by Nazi Germany before and during the Second World War, he explained.

It was considered so secure that it was used to encipher the most top-secret of messages.

However, Poland cracked the Enigma prior to the start of the war in 1932.

Thanks to their intelligence gathering, they realised that they were about to be invaded.

They passed the information to Britain and France to make use of the enigma-enciphered messages.

This enabled the work at Bletchley Park, which became the principle centre for Allied code-breaking to get off to a good start.  

Dr Baldwin said: “The intelligence produced at Bletchley Park made a difference to the way the war was fought.

“Alan Turing’s machine known as The Bombe enabled the interception of millions of messages.”

The Salisbury Military History Society was founded in early 2019 and is designed to provide a community meeting place for those who have an interest in military history.

The presentation by Dr Baldwin was greeted with enthusiasm and about a dozen people stayed behind to operate the Enigma machine. 

Society Marketing Officer Dave Simons said: "I consider myself quite the generalist and so leave every talk having picked up some amazing new knowledge. I'm no engineer or mathematician, but when Dr Mark Baldwin began explaining the number of possible settings on a three-rotor then a four-rotor Enigma machine I began to think I was getting out of my depth, but then that's exactly the point!

"Enigma was supposed to be impossible to crack precisely because of that complexity. It made us appreciate just what those at Bletchley Park had to tackle to read German messages before everything was reset at midnight and the challenge began again."

The society meets on the fourth Wednesday of each month at St. John’s Place in Lower Road, Bemerton. More details can be found here: www.salisburymilhist.com

 

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