Review of Madame X: The Story of ‘003’, the U.S. Army Cryptologic Bombe in World War II by Michael Barbakoff

Abstract

To people interested in cryptologic history, the word “Bombe” likely brings to mind Bletchley Park’s Turing-Welchman Bombe or, perhaps, the US Navy Cryptologic Bombe or the Polish Bomba, which was the predecessor of both. But there was another Bombe – the US Army Cryptologic Bombe which is sometimes called “Madame X” or “003.” In Madame X, Michael Barbakoff notes that “Knowledge of the Enigma challenge and some details of how Bletchley Park were approaching the problem was first brought to the [US Army’s Signal Intelligence Service (SIS)] in the spring of 1941 by Abraham Sinkov and Leo Rosen, following their trip to the [Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS) at Bletchley Park] in February of that year.” (28) Collin Burke (2002, 135 140) gives a brief description of this “other Bombe Program.” He notes that in 1942, SIS engineer Leo Rosen was given the task of producing a machine that would allow SIS to compete with the US Navy’s OP-20-G developing cryptologic Bombe program.