Dilly Knox Article Index for
Dilly
Website Links For
Knox
 

Information About

Dilly Knox





FAMILY AND EDUCATION

Dillwyn Knox, the fourth of six children, E. V. Knox and Wilfred. L. Knox . He was father of Oliver Arbuthnot Knox .

Dillwyn, known as "Dilly," Knox was educated at Summer Fields School , Oxford, and then Eton College . He studied classics at King's College , Cambridge , and was elected a fellow in 1909 .


CODEBREAKING

Knox was one of the British participants in the July 25 , 1939 , Polish-French-British conference held at the Polish Cipher Bureau facility at Pyry , south of Warsaw , Poland , in which the Poles disclosed to their French and British allies their achievements in Enigma Decryption . Knox was chagrined — but grateful — to learn how simple was the solution of the Enigma's entry ring (standard Alphabetical Order ). After the meeting, he sent the Polish cryptologists a very gracious note in Polish, on official British government stationery, thanking them for their assistance, and enclosing a beautiful scarf featuring a picture of a Derby race, and a set of paper ''batons'' that he had presumably used in his attempts to break the German Enigma.

To break non-steckered Enigma Machine s, Knox used a system known as Rodding , a linguistic as opposed to mathematical way of breaking codes. This technique was applied successfully against the Enigma used by the Italian Navy and the German Abwehr .

Knox's work was cut short as he fell ill with , where he received the CMG Fitzgerald, 1977, p. 249-250. He died on 27 February 1943.


REFERENCES

  • Penelope Fitzgerald , ''The Knox Brothers'', New York: Coward, McCann, & Geoghegan, 1977; revised edition, Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 2000.

  • David Kahn , ''Seizing the Enigma'', 1991, pp. 25-26, 84-85

  • Mavis Batey, "Marian and Dilly", pp. 67-74 in ''Marian Rejewski 1905–1980, Living with the Enigma Secret'', 2005.

  • , Frederick, MD, University Publications of America, 1984.




EXTERNAL LINKS