Introduction
The following article on Enigma's code breaking history and the effect it had upon progress of WWII was based upon well documented books, reports written by the involved individuals and statements made by the leading Allied leaders. Substantial effort was made to make this article as historically accurate as possible. To avoid confusion by the uninitiated readers the terminology used in this article was greatly simplified (apologies to the insiders of the intelligence craft). Due to the constraint on number of pages the article is limited to the most important facts and events as well as refrains from detailed descriptions. Those who wish to increase their knowledge and/or go into details are directed to the references given at the end of the article.

General references

1. Synopsis 2. Historical background 3. Breaking the Enigma code 4. Polish decrypting effort 1930-1939 5. Polish decrypting effort 1939-1945 6. English decrypting effort - the beginnings 7. England - Bletchley Park 8. United States in the secret war 9. Battle of Britain 10. Invasion of French N. Africa 11. Battle of Atlantic 12. Battle of the terror weapons V1 & V2 13. Conclusion 14. Epilogue 15. References

1. Synopsis
After WW1 Poland found itself squeezed between nationalistic Germany and communist Russia. The Treaty of Versailles, a mere slap on Germany's wrist, offered little security. Political, economic and social unrest gave rise to fascism and to rapid rearmament. Russia, after a bloody revolution, continued its imperialism by engaging in war with Poland and by annexing its Asian neighbors.
When the German army adopted an encrypting machine, called Enigma, for all its high level communication, this created a problem for Polish intelligence in decoding the intercepted German messages. Consequently, in 1932, Poland established a modern cryptology department at the University of Poznan. After few months, three young Polish mathematicians,
Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Rozycki & Henryk Zygalski, derived very smart methods and broke the Enigma code, believed by the Germans to be unbreakable.

For the next few years, before and during the war, Poland had the ability to decrypt intercepted coded German messages. As Enigma evolved into a more complex and sophisticated machine, so too did the Polish methods and techniques. Just before the beginning of WWII the Poles transferred all their know-how and equipment to the French and British Allies for the use in the coming war. When the war started, on September 1st 1939, the Polish cryptologists were quickly evacuated from Poland through Romania to France. By October 1939 the reorganized cryptology unit started to decrypt Enigma messages again. Until the fall of France on June 17th 1940 the Polish unit operated officially in France. After that they went underground in "Vichy" France, where they operated until November 1942 when the Germans occupied southern France. Their escape to neutral, but friendly with Germany, Spain was a disaster as they were apprehended and imprisoned in cruel interment camps. Two key cryptologists and three radio operators managed to escape and reach England, but most fared much worse. Two senior intelligence officers and three engineers were caught by the Gestapo and were sent to German concentration camps. The two officers were liberated by the US Army but the three engineers perished.

The British, using Polish decrypting methods, established a secret organization at Bletchley Park consisting of about 10,000 people to intercept, decrypt and disseminate German Enigma messages and intelligence. Selected Allied high ranking commanders received these decrypted German orders via the Ultra organization starting with the Battle of Britain, through the Battle of the Atlantic, the landing in Africa, the invasion of the Continent and the bombing of the V1 and V2 weapon sites.

The Polish effort in breaking Enigma's code shortened World War II in Europe by 6 to 12 months, sparing hundreds of thousand of casualties and saving Western Europe from occupation by the Red Army. This, however, did little to help Poland, which was abandoned to the mercy of communism by its allies. Fifty years of oppression brought economic disaster and personal suffering to its 35 million people. None of the Polish cryptologists received any recognition from the French, British or Americans.
In the year 2000 the Polish president, Mr. Aleksander Kwasniewski, made postmortem awards of the highest Polish military medals to Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Rozycki and Henryk Zygalski. The breaking of the Enigma code has been singled out by many war historians and great leaders as one of the greatest contributions to the war effort.