Never-before-seen footage of the computer that helped win World War II

The computer that helped the Allied countries win World War II looks like a huge block of buildings packed into a small room.

At least that can be seen in the footage the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) unveiled this week of ‘Colossus’, the computer used to decipher various codes that helped Allied countries maintain victory in World War II .

The images show the size of the computer, which celebrates its 80th anniversary in Britain this year.

And they are proof of how one of the devices considered by several experts to be the first digital computer in history was designed.

Although its existence has been suspected since wartime, the truth is that the British government only released full details about Coloso in the early 2000s.

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This computer began working in the first months of 1944 with the idea of ​​deciphering the encrypted codes intercepted by Nazi agents.

When the war ended, it was estimated that about ten computers were part of this work.

And it wasn’t just any computer: equipped with 2,500 valves and almost two meters high.

Getting it up and running required a team specialized in the new machine’s internal circuitry.

Most of the people who specialized in operating this computer belonged to the Women’s Naval Service (WRENS).

One of the images unveiled this week shows the women of WRENS working on Coloso.

In the dark

GCHQ also revealed plans on how Colossus was built, a letter referring to “alarming German instructions” intercepted by the computer, and an audio clip in which the computer could be heard.

Coloso’s figures show its importance: almost 63 million German messages were decrypted by 550 people working on this computer.

Perhaps one of the most important achievements was helping Hitler ‘take the bait’ with the lie that D-Day would take place in June 1944 over the French city of Calais and not in Normandy, where it would ultimately take place.

According to several historians, this computer reduced the scale of the war and saved many lives.

But beyond its impact, engineers and code breakers working on the Colossus program had signed confidentiality documents so its actual existence was unknown for decades.

The program was not officially unveiled by the British government until the beginning of the new century.

After the war, eight of the ten computers that made up the program were destroyed.

Tommy Flowers, the engineer who designed the computer, was even ordered to hand over all documentation about Colossus.

Efforts to keep it secret were so successful that Bill Marshall, a former GCHQ engineer who worked on Colossus in the 1960s, said he had no idea what role the computer had played in wartime.

Andrew Herbert, chairman of the board of the National Computing Museum, based in Bletchley Park, said the release of the images was another opportunity to celebrate the lasting impact Colossus had had.

“From an engineering perspective, Colossus was an important precursor to the modern electronic digital computer,” he said.

“Many of those who used it at Bletchley Park became important pioneers and leaders of British computing in the decades after the war, often leading the world in their work,” he added. (JO)