Special Post: Dilan Shah (Y8): Breaking WW2 Codes at Lunch

Cryptography is encoding and decoding messages, such as when Alan Turing (one of our house heroes) worked at Bletchley Park to create the Bombe machine. This machine decoded the famed Enigma Code. However, we decided that a WW2 code that was used to carry out mass killings was perhaps a tad too gruesome, so we went towards the slightly less well known Pigpen Cipher. A difficult, yet simple concept, shown to the right. A letter is represented by the lines that encompass the letter in this diagram. For example, _| would represent ‘A’, and the same symbol with a black dot in the middle would represent a ‘J’. We had 2 paragraphs to decode, both being from WW2 in fact. It wasn’t very easy, but we had around 30-40 students across every single year group who gave it their all for 35  minutes each. Some students even volunteered to help with setting up, and with showing other students how to solve the messages. Not only students, but teachers also gave the cryptography challenge a good go! 

But what did the message end up saying? The answers are at the end, in case anybody would like to try and solve the message first. The messages are shown to the left.

Is cryptography your traditional kind of mathematics? Possibly not, but I’d say that is what made it such a hit with the participants. A chance for them to step outside of their comfort zone, and try something new to them. And as long as everyone had some good fun, and learned something new, that’s a win.

Answer:

1 - OPERATION ULTRA HAS BEEN SET UP BLETCHLEY PARK TO BREAK GERMAN CODES AND LOCATE THEIR U BOATS.

2 - THE SITUATION IS CRITICAL. U BOATS ARE HUNTING OUR SHIPS IN GROUPS CALLED WOLF PACKS.

Dilan Shah (Y8)