Enigma cogs are reunited with machine

A SET of cogs from a Second World War Enigma encryption machine has been discovered after languishing in a cupboard for up to 30 years.

The three rotors were found at the Royal Navy training establishment HMS Collingwood in Fareham, Hampshire.

At first, Chief Petty Officer Craig Read and Petty Officer Dan Powditch thought they were imitations and put them back into the store in the old HMS Mercury building, only to re-examine them several weeks later.

It is now believed the items were spares for an Enigma machine which used to be kept at the centre and which was donated to the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) at Portsmouth in 1983.

Now the box of three rotors is to be reunited with the machine when they are donated to the NMRN on Wednesday – the 71st anniversary of the Royal Navy’s first capture of a fully functioning Enigma machine.

Richard Noyce, curator of artefacts at the NMRN, said: “The number M15653 on the machine matches the number on the box of rotors and the box is stamped with Kommando der Marine Sation Der 021. With both items originating from HMS Mercury there can be no doubt the Enigma machine and its spare rotors were originally together. We are thrilled to be reuniting them.”

The Nazi military used the Enigma cipher machine to keep communications secret. It uses a series of rotating wheels to scramble messages into incoherent cipher text with billions of combinations possible.