Running a Bombe Job

Introduction

A real Bombe produced many stops. Most were false. The operator took each stop, set a real Enigma to it, and decoded a few letters.

When the letters became German — or English, in our practice cases — the stop was the day key. Every other message that day could now be read.

Key ideaA Bombe stop is only a candidate. The operator verifies it by decoding the whole intercept and checking for readable text.