[kiwijimm]

I think the fact that the Turing-Welchman machine is called a Bombe in a nod towards the Polish blurs the connection a bit. The British Bombe and the Polish Bomba pretty much only have the name in common. The Polish machine wasn't usable by the British by the time the Poles told them about their techniques.

However... The Polish codebreakers are without doubt the first true heroes of the Enigma story during the war. Their genius, bravery and dedication opened up breaking enigma and saved a lot of time for the British codebreakers early on. As Welchman says, the Polish provided details of the machines that helped immensely in breaking into the military enigma. That said, the British were already working on it and had in parallel come up with some of the same methods as the Poles. The Turing-Welchman Bombe was designed from the ground up to attack the military enigma and used different principles than the Polish Bomba.

This is not to underplay the Polish role in all of this. They are without doubt in my mind as much the hero's in this as Welchman, Turing and the others at Bletchley. Without them the allies would have been way behind the game at the start of the war and therefore many additional lives would have been lost. The Polish codebreakers need more acknowledgement in this story. Glad to see the new Dermot Turing book out on this subject: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Real-Story-How-Enigma-Broken-ebook/...

Thanks, James