Joseph Raymond Desch (23 May 1907 – August 3, 1987) was an American electrical engineer and inventor. During World War II, he was Research Director of the project to design and manufacture the US Navy version of the

bombe The bombe () was an electro-mechanical device used by British cryptologists to help decipher German Enigma-machine-encrypted secret messages during World War II. The US Navy and US Army later produced their own machines to the same functi ...

, a cryptanalytic machine designed to read communications enciphered by the German

Enigma Enigma may refer to: *Riddle, someone or something that is mysterious or puzzling Biology *ENIGMA, a class of gene in the LIM domain Computing and technology * Enigma (company), a New York-based data-technology startup * Enigma machine, a family ...

Early life

Desch was born in

Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater D ...

, in 1907 into a family of German descent whose livelihood was blacksmithing and wagon-making. He attended the Catholic elementary school of his neighborhood

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...

, then won a

scholarship A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need. Scholars ...

to the preparatory (high) school of the

University of Dayton The University of Dayton (UD) is a private, Catholic research university in Dayton, Ohio. Founded in 1850 by the Society of Mary, it is one of three Marianist universities in the nation and the second-largest private university in Ohio. The univ ...

. While attending college at

, Desch worked evenings as an inspector at Day-Fan Electric in Dayton, supervising radio testing and production.

Career

After graduation in 1929 he began to work at General Motors Radio where he supervised radio testing, and met Robert E. Mumma, who quickly began a friendship which lasted over 50 years. After supervising the liquidation of General Motors Radio in 1933, he conducted teleprinter

communications Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...

research for Telecom Laboratories, a company financed by

Charles Kettering Charles Franklin Kettering (August 29, 1876 – November 25, 1958) sometimes known as Charles Fredrick Kettering was an American inventor, engineer, businessman, and the holder of 186 patents. For the list of patents issued to Kettering, see, Le ...

of automotive pioneering fame through General Motors and Delco. Two years later he was hired by Harry Williams to be foreman on the Process Laboratory at the Frigidaire Division of General Motors, once again in Dayton. He then followed Williams to the

National Cash Register NCR Corporation, previously known as National Cash Register, is an American software, consulting and technology company providing several professional services and electronic products. It manufactures self-service kiosks, point-of-sale termin ...

Company in 1938 to form the innovative Electrical Research Laboratory at the direction of Edward A. Deeds, then president of the company. At Deeds' direction he conducted research to implement pioneering ideas regarding the use of tubes and circuitry in counting devices, with the idea of developing high speed

mathematical Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

computing

machines A machine is a physical system using power to apply forces and control movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to natural biological macromolecul ...

to augment or replace the Company's mechanical machines. The idea of applying electronic counting to calculating mechanisms occurred to him when reading of a

thyratron A thyratron is a type of gas-filled tube used as a high-power electrical switch and controlled rectifier. Thyratrons can handle much greater currents than similar hard-vacuum tubes. Electron multiplication occurs when the gas becomes ionized, p ...

(gas-filled tube) counting ring of five places (5 digits, not five orders) developed by British scientist Dr C. E. Wynn-Williams. As a result Desch's lab received an introduction to and work with the

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

Electrical Engineering Department led by

Vannevar Bush Vannevar Bush ( ; March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all warti ...

Inventions during WWII

Beginning in 1940, Desch's lab was awarded several contracts by the

National Defense Research Committee The National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) was an organization created "to coordinate, supervise, and conduct scientific research on the problems underlying the development, production, and use of mechanisms and devices of warfare" in the Un ...

. These contracts made use of Desch's research into fast-firing vacuum tubes, including a high-speed

Desch developed. This tube was used in a counter capable of millisecond speed for the University of Chicago

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

. This was followed by a contract with the

OP-20-G OP-20-G or "Office of Chief Of Naval Operations (OPNAV), 20th Division of the Office of Naval Communications, G Section / Communications Security", was the U.S. Navy's signals intelligence and cryptanalysis group during World War II. Its mission ...

section of the Office of Naval Communications. In 1942 his research in the area of electronic counting made him a candidate to evaluate the design for a totally electronic deciphering device created by a group of MIT academics. He gave the opinion that the implementation of the design was not possible, primarily because of the large number of tubes necessary. Believing that the American version of the

decryption machine could be built using mechanical and electronic components, and recognizing the National Cash Register Company's capabilities, the Navy moved ahead with a contract. Desch's lab became the United States Naval Computing Machine Laboratory. In 1943 Desch's team, working in NCR's Building 26, began delivery of completed machines to OP-20-G in Washington. Desch's department was immediately asked to research the problems of breaking Japanese communications. The pressure of cryptanalytic work and the continuing toll of the loss of life in the Pacific theater led to Desch's withdrawal from the project in late 1944. He returned to assist in 1945.

Electronic calculator

In 1946 Desch filed an application for a

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

on an

electronic calculator An electronic calculator is typically a portable electronic device used to perform calculations, ranging from basic arithmetic to complex mathematics. The first solid-state electronic calculator was created in the early 1960s. Pocket-sized ...

designed by him and Bob Mumma, as part of an application initiated in March 1940. This brought about three interferences filed in the US Patent Office between their application and one by Arthur Dickinson of IBM. Eventually these were settled in favor of Desch, in part because he proved Dickinson's design unworkable, and gave Desch and Mumma the first patent on the modern digital computer. His career after this point was noteworthy, and he was especially proud in later years of his work with Bob Mumma in the development of the NCR 304, the first completely solid state computer. He continued to be an integral part of NCR until his retirement in 1972.

Awards

Desch was awarded the

Medal for Merit The Medal for Merit was, during the period it was awarded, the highest civilian decoration of the United States. It was awarded by the President of the United States to civilians who "distinguished themselves by exceptionally meritorious conduct i ...

by President Harry S. Truman July 16, 1947. Desch was a 2011 inductee to the NSA/CSS Hall of Honor. Desch was a 2017 recipient of the University of Dayton Distinguished Alumnus Award.

IEEE Joe Desch Innovation Award

This Award was instituted by the Engineers Club in 2008 to honor Desch's legacy. The next year its stewardship was handed over to Deborah Anderson, Desch's daughter. Since 2013 she has been coordinating the award process with the Dayton Section of the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operat ...

to bring an added importance to the Award. The recipients so far are: * 2008: John Janning * 2009: Dr. Peter T. Brody * 2010: Drs. Ken Jordan and John Birden * 2011:

Whitfield Diffie Bailey Whitfield 'Whit' Diffie (born June 5, 1944), ForMemRS, is an American cryptographer and mathematician and one of the pioneers of public-key cryptography along with Martin Hellman and Ralph Merkle. Diffie and Hellman's 1976 paper ''New Dir ...

* 2013: Dr. Jacek M. Zurada * 2015: Dr. George B. Purdy * 2017: Dr. Daniel Both

Patents

* 2,177,133. Measuring Instrument. Filing date: Nov 25, 1936. Issue date: Oct 24, 1939. Inventor: Joseph. R. Desch, Dayton, Ohio. Assignee: Commonwealth Engineering Co. * 2,399,473. Electronic Devices. Filing date: Aug 20, 1941. Issue date: Apr 30, 1946. Inventors: Joseph R. Desch and Robert E. Mumma, assignors to The National Cash Register Company * 2,401,621. Electronic Accumulator. Filing date: Dec 31, 1941. Issue date: Jun 1946. Inventors: J. R. Desch and Lawrence D. Kilheffer, assignors to The National Cash Register Company * 2,404,697. Calculating Device. Filing date: Mar 21, 1942. Issue date: Jul 23, 1946. Inventors: J. R. Desch and Robert E. Mumma, assignors to The National Cash Register Company * 2,451,812. Electron Tube Variable Impulse Transmitter. Filing date: Sep 16, 1942. Issue date: Oct 19, 1948. Inventors: Joseph R. Desch, Ernest V. Gulden and Robert E. Mumma, assignors to The National Cash Register Company * 2,462,613. Communication System. Filing date: Sep 16, 1942. Issue date: Feb 22, 1949. Inventors: J. R. Desch, Ernest V. Gulden, and Robert E. Mumma, assignors to The National Cash Register Company * 2,419,485. Electronic Device. Filing date: Jun 3, 1943. Issue date: Apr 22, 1947. Inventors: Joseph B. Desch and Robert E. Mumma, assignors to The National Cash Register Company * 2,467,257. Electronic Remote Control Device. Filing date: May 11, 1944. Issue date: Apr 12, 1949. Inventors: J. R. Desch and Ernest V. Gulden, assignors to The National Cash Register Company * 2,595,045. Calculating Machine. Filing date: March 20, 1940. Issue date: Apr 29, 1952. Inventors: J. R. Desch and Robert E. Mumma, assignors to The National Cash Register Company * 2,644,087. Electronic Impulse Generator. Filing date: Dec 4, 1951. Issue date: Jun 30, 1953. Inventor: J. R. Desch, assignor to The National Cash Register Company * 2,644,110. Filing date: Feb 20, 1952. Issue date: Jun 30, 1953. Inventor: Joseph R. Desch, assignor to The National Cash Register Company * 2,717,334. Filing date: Apr 21, 1953. Issue date: Sept. 6, 1955. Inventor: Joseph R. Desch, assignor to The National Cash Register Company * 2,871,408. Filing date: Apr 21, 1953. Issue date: Jan 27, 1959. Inventor: Joseph R. Desch, assignor to The National Cash Register Company

References

External links

* Dayton Daily News
Dayton's Code Breakers
* Jim DeBrosse and Colin Burke, The Secret in Building 26: The Untold Story of America's Ultra War Against the U-boat Enigma Codes, 2004, . * Dayton Codebreakers Web site
DaytonCodebreakers.org
Information about Desch, personnel of the US Naval Computing Machine Laboratory, declassified documents. * National Security Agency 2011 Cryptologic Hall of Hono

{{DEFAULTSORT:Desch, Joseph 1907 births 1987 deaths American people of German descent People from Dayton, Ohio University of Dayton alumni Medal for Merit recipients NCR Corporation people 20th-century American inventors