have just told them. Only one decent encryption device existed in the Cabinet War Rooms still viewable today where Churchill would shout at Roosevelt before the signal was injected with TV-like interference prior to transmission. I suspect that this was the only form of encryption the Germans didn't break because no-one could, not even the Americans who were the intended recipients. Hence all of Winston's mid-Atlantic meetings and witty repartee at Capitol Hill. Winston was obsessed with Bletchley and with small wonder, the Poles had gifted us a life line and like all shrewd politicians he took a personal interest so as not to squander the advantage while the Establishment tried its darned best.

Polish intelligence didn't just turn Thilo and get their 'in' to German Military Communications but they also played Thilo like a Beethoven symphony. Thilo was pressured and bribed to hand over the crown jewels of Military Intelligence while Hitler was just beginning to play out his 14 year drama entitled Mein Kampf. Thilo gifted the Poles with setting's details for the Enigma in response to their bluff that he was not worth his salt as a paid spy. With the settings, the Poles were able to tell so much about the encryption being used. Stealing the march on the West, Poland spent 10 pre-war years recreating their own mock-ups of the Enigma typewriters, slowly perfecting and experimenting with techniques to break the code using semi-automated methods to deal with the huge probabilities involved in the machine's settings. In the end, they devised a semi-automated system where hole punched printed cards would identify the encryption settings by transmitting light through the packs of cards when stacked in a pile.

Of course, the British and French Gentlemen's clubs called Intelligence were eager to co-operate with the Poles. Brilliantly the Poles deduced that their good work was best left unshared with the Marseille promenade strolling haberdashery bedecked Agents of Allied Command Intelligence.

By the outbreak of WWII the Poles had done enough to decipher German comms to know what was coming. Even more brilliantly they saw the writing on the walls for their own freedom and spirited to Britain and France one replica each of the enigma