Fiona Bruce was left amazed after coming face-to-face with an object which helped 'change the course of the war' on Antiques Roadshow. When the show visited Bletchley Park in 2010, it found itself at one of the most significant historic locations in Britain. Famous as the wartime base where codebreakers deciphered the German Enigma cypher during the Second World War, the site provided a fitting backdrop for the episode.
Fiona Bruce Meets the Enigma Machine
During a conversation with Bletchley Park director Simon Greenish, Fiona was introduced to an Enigma machine. The device was used by Nazi Germany's military and intelligence services to encrypt confidential communications, helping to protect vital wartime information throughout the conflict, reports the Express. Considered by its designers to be virtually unbreakable, its intricate code was ultimately deciphered by Allied cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park, including mathematician Alan Turing.
Expressing her amazement, Fiona said: 'We have here, in a sense, the star of the show, one of the Enigma machines. Simon Greenish you're the director here at Bletchley Park. Incredible to see the real thing! How did it work?' Simon replied: 'It's a wonderfully complex machine, despite the small size. It looks like a typewriter and in fact in many ways, it works like a typewriter. When you press these keys, you get an encoded letter which will then send through the Morse code system.'
Impact on D-Day and the War
Simon revealed some of the intercepted and decoded messages. At the time, by successfully decoding top-secret German communications, referred to as Ultra intelligence, the codebreakers at Bletchley Park obtained an unprecedented window into Nazi military strategy. This allowed Allied commanders to observe how the Germans were reading Allied plans and troop deployments. Consequently, they were able to gauge the success of Operation Fortitude, the sophisticated deception campaign intended to mislead the enemy about the location of the D-Day landings.
Fiona then stated that the device 'started the end of the war' and that it was 'incredible'. She said: 'And that was all because of this machine or machines like this one. Incredible!' Over the decades since its launch in 1979, Antiques Roadshow has showcased a wide range of wartime memorabilia, bringing the stories of both World Wars to life through personal artefacts and rare historical objects.
Antiques Roadshow airs Sunday evenings at 8:15pm on BBC One.
