Compute for Victory!

A PC group hug (to coin a phrase) is being used to crack a WWII Enigma machine cipher unreadable by the boffins (man, I love that word) at Bletchly Park. One of three has been cracked by the M4 project. I have only one criticism. It's a little late for our boys on liberty ships at sea.

"NCZW VUSX PNYM INHZ XMQX SFWX WLKJ AHSH NMCO CCAK UQPM KCSM HKSE INJU SBLK IOSX CKUB HMLL XCSJ USRR DVKO HULX WCCB GVLI YXEO AHXR HKKF VDRE WEZL XOBA FGYU JQUK GRTV UKAM EURB VEKS UHHV OYHA BCJW MAKL FKLM YFVN RIZR VVRT KOFD ANJM OLBG FFLE OPRG TFLV RHOW OPBE KVWM UQFM PWPA RMFH AGKX IIBG"

"Forced to submerge during attack. Depth charges. Last enemy position 0830h AJ 9863, [course] 220 degrees, [speed] 8 knots. [I am] following [the enemy]. [barometer] falls 14 mb, [wind] nor-nor-east, [force] 4, visibility 10 [nautical miles]."

TAKE THAT, Kapitanleutnant Hartwig Looks, commander of the German navy's U264 submarine! (25 November 1942)!

This all fits nicely into one of my favorite WWII movies, Action in the North Atlantic!, which just as a title shares the essential virtue of the upcoming Snakes on a Plane. In particular, the action and effects show something like the total panic and chaos I imagine real war is like.

With some of the best guy's guys in movie history: Bogart, of couse, Raymond Massey, and the ubiquitous Alan Hale. What kind of cheney would you have to be not be cheered when the great gregarious Alan Hale shows up? As far as the movies go, you couldn't go to sea between 1920 and 1950 without Alan on board. AND he was the inventor of the folding theater seat, as well as hand fire extinguishers.

What is wrong with our modern, laze-about Hollywood celebrities?

Not only were our movie stars acting their socks off in dozens and dozens of movies, they were making important contributions to knowledge, witness again, the supremely beautiful Hedy Lamar: who got a key patent - this IMBD quote understates her work and her intelligence, but it is exciting.

Hedy's credited invention was for a radio guiding system for torpedoes which was used in WWII. She supposedly gained the knowledge from her first husband, Fritz Mandl, A Viennese munitions dealer who sided with the Nazis. Hedy drugged her maid to escape her husband and homeland.

Someone should make a movie.