The machine used by Hitler to send coded messages to generals, met supercomputer that revealed the secrets on Frida, watched the veteran operatives whose painstaking helped to end the World War II. At Bletchley, the scientists in southern England the WWII code breaking headquarters valves are fired up whirring wheels how German military chiefs sent some secret messages.
The ingenuity of engineer Tommy flowers was able to deduce the operation of the machine and build a machine to work out Lorenz`s rotors settings. “Colossus” is the world`s first programmable electronic digital computer gathered little attention as it is the secret for decades.
Those who are watching at the National Museum of Computing called Margaret Bullen who helped to build Colossus and other remaining fed encrypted German messages into the machine which includes Irene Dixon in nineties.
“We found out we were intercepting coded messages sent by Hitler to his generals,” she told AFP.
“Hitler would’ve been furious if he had known, we were decrypting the messages even before his generals were”.
From Royal Navy women’s branch Dixon and Wrens and other workers are not aware of this machine at Bletchley Park which took the whole room,
“We said ‘Thank you very much, how much was it again?’ She said ’50 pounds’, so we said ‘Here’s a 10-pound note — keep the change,” he said.
“Some of the Wrens did ask why it was so hot (close to the Colossus room), and some used to dry their washing next door,” recalled Dixon.
“I’m glad that my late husband’s dream is being carried forward. The last 25 years, life has been Bletchley Park. Quite a lot of people said it was an impossible task,” his wife Margaret told AFP.