Systems

The Bombe

Early Computer

Citation Formats

General Reference

Computing Atlas. "The Bombe." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://dev-computing.interactiveatlas.org/systems/the-bombe.

APA Style

Computing Atlas. (n.d.). The Bombe. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://dev-computing.interactiveatlas.org/systems/the-bombe

BibTeX

@misc{computingatlas-the-bombe,
  author = {Computing Atlas},
  title = {The Bombe},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-computing.interactiveatlas.org/systems/the-bombe},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

An electromechanical codebreaking machine used at Bletchley Park to find daily settings for the German Enigma cipher machine. Alan Turing produced the initial design in 1939, and Gordon Welchman devised an important refinement, the diagonal board, in 1940; the design itself built on the Polish Cipher Bureau's earlier bomba kryptologiczna, developed by Marian Rejewski. The first machine, code-named Victory, was installed in March 1940. Roughly 700 members of the Women's Royal Naval Service (Wrens) operated about 70 Bombes at the war's peak; the same wartime secrecy that protected Bletchley Park's work is why so few of them were individually named or credited for decades afterward.

Facts

Year

1940 1

Significance

Developed from, not independent of, the Polish Cipher Bureau's own bomba kryptologiczna; Marian Rejewski's earlier Polish design is the machine's direct ancestor, a debt the British effort is on record as building from rather than originating. 1

Cross-Tradition Connections