David Balme and the U110

[Tony P]

David Balme's early career started at the age of 13 at Dartmouth in 1933. In 1938 after taking his sub-lieutenant's course he joined H.M.S.Berwick, and was sent for active service in the Mediterranean. In 1940 Berwick was assigned to escort a convoy of supply ships coming from Australia, after a major battle Berwick being severely damaged and was sent for repair, this is when David Balme joined H.M.S.Bulldog, in 1941 she was the lead ship of the escort group, the group consisted of three destroyers, three or four corvettes, a couple of armed trawlers and a rescue boat. No escort vessel could stop to pick up survivors, which is why the rescue boat would come up behind the convoy.

On the 9th May 1941 two enormous explosions sent columns of water high into the air, two ships had been torpedoed. The Bulldog went off to the expected area of the U-boat, but one of the corvettes, the (Aubretia) had got contact with the U-boat first, and had fired depth charges. The Bulldog
got to the scene just as the (Aubretia) had fired her second load of charges.
What happed next was dream of all destroyers, the U-boat came to the surface, The Bulldog opened fire with every gun she had, there must have been absolute panic on the U-boat as shell after shell hit the conning tower.
Some were killed or jumped into the water.

Why did the crew of the U-boat not set the detonating charges, the U-boat just stayed on the surface, David Balme was sent by the captain to the seaboat with a crew of seven men, after handing out revolvers they set off to board the U110. Looking down the hatch a hole some two feet in diameter, he wondered if there was anybody still down there, this was his worst moment. Once inside, and still no sign of any crew he walked along the U110, and once the all clear had been given, the word was sent to remove all they could, books, maps, charts, coding books, anything and everything was taken, then one of the crew called out sir, what about this, David Balme could not believe his eyes for on the desk was the famous enigma machine.

All this was sent back to Bletchley Park, and the crew of the Bulldog were sworn to secrecy. David Balme was awarded the DSC and King George VI made the presentation personally.

So what happend to the captain of the U110, well this can only be speculation, did he think the Bulldog was on a ramming course and ordered her crew to "Abandon ship" or had he committed suicide.

[Drone_pilot]

intersting story that.

[Bombardier]

Good stuff Tony :)

[Bombardier]

Anticipating enemy attempts to intercept radio signals, the German navy developed codes and cipher machines to cloak the text of radio messages. Transmitted in standard Morse, German naval signalsmen used the Spruchschlüsselmaschine-M (cipher machine-naval) to encrypt the text of their radio messages. Best known by its commercial name "Enigma," this innovative cipher machine was a uniquely complex device. Typing a given alphabetical character on the Enigma typewriter keyboard, subjected that letter to an extremely complicated electromechanical process leading from the keyboard input, out through the plug and wire connections below the keyboard, and into the rotating wheels at the top of the machine. As the rotors turned, the electrical circuit connections changed. Once a given electronic letter was processed through the rotating wheels, the character was reflected back through the rotors. The encrypted Enigma letter would then appear on the lighted output panel between the rotors and the keyboard. Thus, when one presses the letter "A," the letter is processed through the Enigma and may appear as the letter "Z" on the output panel. Pressing the letter "A" again would once again process the letter through the Enigma, but as the rotors turned, the electrical circuit would change. As a result, the letter "A" may appear as any one of the twenty-six letters in the alphabet.

The complexity of the Enigma system convinced ranking German naval leaders that the cipher was essentially unsolvable by enemy cryptanalysts. For the first years of the war, the German military was primarily equipped with the three-rotor model (M3) Enigma, which was capable of producing more than 150 thousand trillion variations of a single character. Shortly after German forces seized Poland and France, the German navy adopted a more complex version of Enigma. In 1941, selected German capital ships were equipped with a four-rotor model (M4) Enigma. Featuring an additional rotor port, the M4 Enigma vastly increased the ratio of possibilities for enciphering alphabetical characters. However, the improved M4 Enigma was only available on a highly restricted basis, and the U-boat fleet continued using the standard M3 version throughout 1941. As U-boat operations intensified in the North Atlantic, extending to African and American waters, U-boat signalsmen were equipped with the improved M4 Enigmas by February 1942. Further complicating the Enigma cipher, the fourth rotor port in the M4 models accommodated the improved "Greek" rotors known as BETA and GAMMA , which had a unique circuitry and were different from the standard issue Enigma rotors already in use.

German naval leaders generally remained confident in the Enigma system throughout the war. Nevertheless, the security of their codes and ciphers was periodically brought into question by those fighting on the warfronts. From the conning tower perspective, Allied naval and air power seemed increasingly overwhelming. In some cases, U-boat sailors were convinced that their codes and ciphers were compromised when Allied forces suddenly appeared in the remotest of locations in the vastness of the open sea. Complaining about their suspicions to the German navy strategists ashore, U-boat sailors were compelled to continue using the Enigma system despite their concerns. In response, German naval leaders periodically ordered minor changes in their communications and cipher protocols, hoping that these changes would sufficiently complicate the Enigma system. Nevertheless, as various components of the Enigma system fell into Allied hands, Anglo American cryptanalysts cooperated to solve Enigma with relative consistency.

Solving the Enigma system remains one of the great Allied triumphs of World War II. During periods when Allied cryptanalysts were unable to solve Enigma, U-boats caused great damage to Anglo American commerce. For example, Allied cryptanalysts were largely unable to solve U-boat messages enciphered on the M4 Enigma during the Drumbeat crisis, widely known as the codebreaking "blackout" of 1942. Solving the encrypted text of German navy radio messages became more complex when the Germans introduced the fourth rotor. Moreover, German naval leaders intensified the campaign against Allied shipping by dispatching more U-boats to sea. As a result of increased U-boat radio traffic, German naval leaders created a new network known as TRITON. Sometimes used as a general reference to the M4 Enigma, TRITON was, in fact, a designation for one of the "code-circle" or "communication circuit" groups used by U-boat signalsmen.

Initially, Allied cryptanalysts adapted to the TRITON network after the Germans created it in October 1941. However, they were unable to compensate when the Germans simultaneously changed Enigma plug-rotor settings and introduced the M4 Enigma on a broad scale aboard U-boats in early 1942. Consequently, the U-boat TRITON network was largely inaccessible to Anglo American cryptanalysts, and Allied losses increased—especially in American coastal waters in the spring and summer of 1942. With losses mounting, Anglo American leaders agreed to work together more closely to solve the Enigma system in order to safeguard Allied shipping with intelligence.

[Zofo]

There is a great book that deals with this event and the whole history of the Enigma and the Battle of The Atlantic. We discussed this subject with Polar, mainly concerning the overiding importance played by the Polish cryptanalysts before and during WW2.

The book is "Seizing The Enigma" by David Khan and can be found here:
http://www.amk.ca/books/h/Seizing_Enigma