The real Enigma machine capture from U110

William Marchant was born in 1920 in Brighton. He left school at 14 years old and became a printer's apprentice/ His family had a background of going to sea as fishermen and William, or Bill as he was known, volunteered as a naval reservist in 1938, the following year he joined up as a regular.

He didn't speak about his part in the war for many years, until 1991, when there was correspondence about a film being made and his family finally heard some of his story.
He was a Signalman on HMS Bulldog, a warship escorting conveys across the North Atlantic. On 9th May 1941 his ship became involved in Operation Primrose. They were in Convoy ON318, a westbound convoy of 38 ships, they sailed from Liverpool on 2nd May bound for North America, they were escorted by 3rd Escort Group, a force of 8 warships led by HMS Bulldog, commanded by Commander Joe Baker-Cresswell.

On the 7th, 8th and 9th May the convoy was attacked by several U-boats, one of which was U110, commanded by Kapitanleutnent Fritz-Julius Lemp. On the 9th May U110 attacked, sinking two ships. HMS Aubretia spotted its periscope and located U110 with ASDIC, an early form of Sonar named after the Anti-Submarine Detection Investigation Committee. HMS Aubretia dropped a pattern of depth charges, U110 dived and survived the initial attack, but HMS Aubretia was joined by HMS Bulldog and HMS Broadway and their combined attack forced Kapitanleutnent Lemp to surface. Commander Baker-Cresswell gave the order for HMS Bulldog to ram U110. Kapitanleutnent Lemp saw what was happening and gave the order to abandon ship. Spotting this Commander Baker-Cresswell decided to try to capture U110 instead. Kapitanleutnent Lemp, realising what was happening tried to swim back to U110 to destroy equipment and papers etc., sadly for him he died in the attempt.

HMS Bulldog pulled alongside U110 and Sub-Lieutenant David Balme led a boarding party, including Signalman Bill Marchant and Telegraphist Alan Long, who made their way onto U110 and made a search. They found everything just as the German sailors had left it; nothing had been hidden or destroyed. They took valuables including codebooks, charts, ciphers and most significantly, a complete and undamaged Kriegsmarine (naval) Enigma machine.

Sub-Lieutenant David Balme, in his official report, wrote:

'Meanwhile the telegraphist went to the W/T office, just forward of the control room on starboard side. This was in perfect condition, apparently no attempt having been made to destroy any books or apparatus. Here were found C.B.'s, Signal Logs, Pay Books, and general correspondence, looking as if this room had been used as a ship's office. Also the coding machine was found here, plugged in and as though it was in actual use when abandoned. The general appearance of this machine being that of a typewriter, the telegraphist pressed the keys and finding results peculiar sent it up the hatch. This W/T office seemed far less complicated than our own - sets were more compact and did not seem to have the usual excess of switches, plug holes, knobs, 'tally's' etc on the outside.
Plenty of tinned ham, corned beef, cigars, Players cigarettes (German printing on the packets) and a plate of shrimps were all found in the W/room. Magnificent galley forward of W/room.
No signs of voice-pipes but I think loud-speakers and telephones were used definitely a telephone in the conning tower.
1 Tommy gun was found in officers clothes drawer; other L.C.T. with anti-tank type of rifle. Officer gear consisted of very good clothing including well designed anti-weather garments.
In engine room I noticed a plate of mashed potatoes as if action stations had been sounded suddenly while dinner was being taken from galley to after crew's space. Escape chamber was in C.R. just abaft the upper hatch (see plate diagram).'

Commander Baker-Cresswell took U110 in tow, but it sank within hours due to the damage it had sustained. Kapitanleutnent Lemp had been lost along with 14 of his crew, but a war correspondent, 4 officers and 28 men were rescued and taken to Scapa Flow as POWs.

Experts from Bletchley Park were also waiting at Scapa Flow, and were exceptionally surprised with what they collected and took back to Bletchley Park. Alan Turing led the team of cryptanalysts who cracked the code of the Enigma machine.

The seizing of the Enigma machine was kept secret, Commander Baker-Cresswell realised it was imperative that the Germans didn't realise it had fallen in our hands as they would have changed the codes. The crew were led to believe that U110 had sunk before the boarding party arrived. Their mail home was checked by
cryptanalysts to make sure they weren't passing on that it may have been captured, in some cases misinformation was added in.

This was an incredibly significant moment with a number of implications, the landing party hadn't realised the importance of this 'peculiar' typewriter but:
- This find was the first fully functioning naval Enigma machine and significantly assisted work at Bletchley Park in breaking German naval codes
- Thanks to this find, Bletchley Park were able to inform the Royal Navy and thus steer convoys away from U-boat packs
- The difference was substantial; in June 1941 Allied shipping losses were 432,000 tons, by August it was less than 80,000 tons
- Another important find was the Reservehandverfahren cipher which was solved by means of documents captured from U110
- King George VI told Baker-Cresswell the capture of the U110 cipher material had been 'the most important single event in the whole war at sea'
- A naval historian (unknown) allegedly told Baker-Cresswell that the find had shortened the war by 2 years.

Signalman Bill Marchant's son is very proud of his father's involvement in such an important operation.

As a result Commander Joe Baker-Cresswell was awarded the DSO (Distinguished Service Order) and promoted to Captain. Sub-Lieutenant David Balme was awarded the DSC (Distinguished Service Cross) and Telegraphist Alan Long, who found the Enigma machine, was awarded the DSM (Distinguished Service Medal)

This story was only told by Bill Marchant to his son after some correspondence he had with David Balme and Joe Baker-Cresswell about a film being made about this Operation. Sadly the Hollywood film makers, having asked David Balme to be the historical adviser for the making of the film U-571, not only renamed the vessel but recast the capture and boarding of U110 as an American victory. Tony Blair (Prime Minister at the time) called it an affront to British sailors. David Balme pointed out that it was a great film, that it would not have been financially viable without being Americanised, that the credits acknowledged the Royal Navy's role in capturing Enigma machines and code documents, and that the story had been told in tribute to all the men involved.

After leaving the Navy Bill got married, worked in telephony for the Post Office and then Inspector of Taxes with the Civil Service. He still went sailing and was also involved with the RNLI, he hadn't lost his love of the sea.