Naval Computing Machine Laboratory
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The United States Naval Computing Machine Laboratory (NCML) was a highly secret design and manufacturing site for code-breaking machinery located in Building 26 of 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 ...
(NCR) company in
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and operated by the
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
during
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. It is now on the List of IEEE Milestones, and one of its machines is on display at the
National Cryptologic Museum The National Cryptologic Museum (NCM) is an American museum of cryptologic history that is affiliated with the National Security Agency (NSA). The first public museum in the U.S. Intelligence Community, NCM is located in the former Colony Sev ...
.


History

The laboratory was established in 1942 by the Navy and
National Cash Register Company 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 ...
to design and manufacture a series of code-breaking machines (" bombes") targeting German Enigma machines, based on earlier work by the British at
Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...
(which in turn owed something to pre-war Polish cryptanalytical work).
Joseph Desch 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, a cryptanalytic mac ...
led the effort. Preliminary designs, approved in September 1942, called for a fully electronic machine to be delivered by year's end. However, these plans were soon judged infeasible, and revised plans were approved in January 1943 for an electromechanical machine, which became the
US Navy bombe The bombe () was an Electromechanics, electro-mechanical device used by British cryptologists to help decipher German Enigma machine, Enigma-machine-encrypted secret messages during World War II. The United States Navy, US Navy and United Sta ...
. These designs were proceeding in parallel with, and influenced by, British attempts to build a high-speed bombe for the German 4-rotor Enigma. Indeed,
Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical com ...
visited Dayton in December 1942. His reaction was far from enthusiastic: :It seems a pity for them to go out of their way to build a machine to do all this stopping if it is not necessary. I am now converted to the extent of thinking that starting from scratch on the design of a Bombe, this method is about as good as our own. The American Bombe program was to produce 336 Bombes, one for each wheel order. I used to smile inwardly at the conception of Bombe hut routine implied by this program. Their test (of commutators) can hardly be considered conclusive as they were not testing for the bounce with electronic stop finding devices. Nobody seems to be told about rods or offiziers or banburismus unless they are really going to do something about it. The American approach was, however, successful. The first two experimental bombes went into operation in May 1943, running in Dayton so they could be observed by their engineers. Designs for production models were completed in April, 1943, with initial operation starting in early June. All told, the laboratory constructed 121 bombes which were then employed for code-breaking in the US Navy's signals intelligence and cryptanalysis group OP-20-G in
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
Construction was accomplished in three shifts per day by some 600
WAVES Waves most often refers to: *Waves, oscillations accompanied by a transfer of energy that travel through space or mass. * Wind waves, surface waves that occur on the free surface of bodies of water. Waves may also refer to: Music * Waves (ban ...
(Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), 100 Navy officers and enlisted men, and a large civilian workforce. Approximately 3,000 workers operated the bombes to produce "
Ultra adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park. '' ...
" decryptions of German Enigma traffic. According to a contemporary US Navy report (dated April 1944), the bombes were used on naval jobs until all daily keys had been run; then the machines were used for non-naval tasks. During the previous six months, about 45% of the bombe time had been devoted to non-naval problems carried out at the request of the British. British production and reliability problems with their own high-speed bombes had then recently led to construction of 50 additional Navy units for Army and Air Force keys. The documentary, ″Dayton Codebreakers″, producer Aileen LeBlanc, was released in 2006 on American Public Television.


Building

The location in Dayton, Building 26 on the former National Cash Register Company, was an Art Deco design of Dayton firm
Schenck & Williams Schenck and Williams was an architectural firm in Dayton, Ohio. The firm's projects included the Hawthorn Hill home for Orville Wright and his sister and father, the Dayton Young Men's Christian Association Building, and the Engineers Club of D ...
and was located at Patterson Blvd and Stewart Street. The building was demolished by the University of Dayton in January 2008.


See also

*
Cryptanalysis of the Enigma Cryptanalysis of the Enigma ciphering system enabled the western Allies in World War II to read substantial amounts of Morse-coded radio communications of the Axis powers that had been enciphered using Enigma machines. This yielded military in ...
* Bomba (cryptography) * Bombe *
Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...
*
Ultra adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park. '' ...


Bibliography


History of the Bombe Project (US Navy memo, April 1944)
* John A. N. Lee, Colin Burke, and Deborah Anderson, "The US Bombes, NCR, Joseph Desch, and 600 WAVES: The First Reunion of the US Naval Computing Machine Laboratory", IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Volume 22, No. 3 July – September 2000.
Dayton Codebreakers

IEEE Global History NetworkIEEE History Center

Oral history interview with Robert E. Mumma
Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. Mumma recounts how NCR's war-time work on cryptanalytic equipment took all the company's effort, and how this shaped company policy resisting government contract work after the war.
Oral history interview with Carl Rench
Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. *


References

{{NCR Corp History of cryptography Locations in the history of espionage Signals intelligence of World War II NCR Corporation History of Dayton, Ohio