The Engima machine is an iconic device in the history of cryptography. The breaking of the Enigma ciphers by cryptographers working at Bletchley Park - "Station X", as it was called - is one of the most remarkable stories of World War II. This and other efforts by the staff of Station X shortened the war by an estimated two years, saving a great many lives.

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The Enigma machine had three or four rotors which could be replaced to vary the encryption. Three-rotor machines typically came with a set of five rotors, three of which would be selected by the operator according to agreed procedures. The versions of Enigma used by the German navy came with sets of six, seven or even eight rotors.

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Circuitry inside a reconstruction of a bombe - the electromechanical device designed by Alan Turing to determine the settings of German Engima machines, thereby allowing messages encrypted by the machines to be decrypted successfully.

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In the late 19th and early 20th century, Bletchley Park Mansion was home to Sir Herbert Leon, London financier and friend of Lloyd George. Following the death of Sir Herbert and his wife, the building and its land fell into the hands of a property developer, from whom it was acquired in 1938 by the Government Code and Cypher School as a safer venue for their operations. Before long, the Bletchley Park site became the most important communications centre in the history of modern warfare.

(Pseudo-HDR from a single RAW, tonemapped in Photomatix with some postprocessing using Topaz Adjust.)

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The success that Bletchley Park had in breaking the German Enigma machines' encryption during World War II was only possible thanks to the initial groundbreaking work of three young Polish mathematicians: Jerry Rozycki, Marian Rejewski and Henryk Zygalski. A memorial - situated beside Bungalow 3, where the first Enigma message of World War II was decrypted - commemorates their vital contribution.

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