Did you know Dayton played a big part in World War II? Local electric engineer and inventor Joseph Desch was the Research Director of the Navy’s program to design and build a bombe – a machine to read coded communications from Germany (coded by the Enigma).

Desch and his team worked in one of NCR’s buildings decoding the messages using the American Bombe Machine and would then send the messages to Washington D.C. as intelligence. While working with the American Bombe Machine, Alan Turing – known for cracking Germany’s Enigma code – visited Joseph Desch in Oakwood and at the NCR building.

Retired RAF Captain Andrew Lloyd, along with the organization he founded, Oakwood Unsung Heroes, have been working to showcase this piece of history by having a City of Oakwood proclamation for the month of May to be Codebreaker Month, and they have an exhibit on display at Wright Memorial Public Library in collaboration with the National Cryptologic Museum.

On May 8th, the nephew of Alan Turing, Sir Dermot Turing, will be speaking at the Dayton International Peace Museum and at Carillon Park. For both events, tickets are free, but limited.

• May 8th at 11am @ Dayton International Peace Museum
• May 8th at 7:30pm @ Carillon Park

If you’re interested in reading more about this topic:

• X, Y & Z by Sir Dermot Turing
• The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park: The Secret Intelligence Station that Helped Defeat the Nazis by Sir Dermot Turing
• The Enigma Story: The Truth Behind the ‘Unbreakable’ World War II Cipher by Sir Dermot Turing
• Reflections of Alan Turing: A Relative Story by Sir Dermot Turing
• The Secret in Building 26: The Untold Story of America’s Ultra War Against the U-boat Enigma Codes by Jim Debrosse