Sunday · September 27, 2026
Get the app
Edited daily
American history, reported as it happened
Made for the 250th
The events of May 9 · Read the full edition → · More from May 9 →
19411776 Club

Royal Navy boards U-110 and seizes a German Enigma machine with its codebooks

British warships forced the submarine to the surface in the Atlantic; what is inside may open Nazi naval communications to Allied codebreakers.

On May 9, 1941, British warships forced German submarine U-110 to the surface and seized the most closely guarded secret of the Nazi war machine—an Enigma cipher device and its codebooks. This capture gave Allied codebreakers at Bletchley Park the keys they desperately needed to crack German naval communications. The intelligence bonanza that followed, codenamed Ultra, shortened the war by years and saved countless lives, yet remained one of the most closely held secrets until the 1970s…

1776 Club

This story is held for members.

Members read every story of the day — and tomorrow's, and the next.

Join the 1776 Club
$17.76 your first year · then $39.99/yr · cancel anytime
More from May 9
2020

Unemployment hits 14.7 percent; 20 million jobs vanish in seven weeks

The April rate is the highest since the Great Depression, as pandemic shutdowns bring entire industries to a halt.
2022

Biden signs Lend-Lease revival on Soviet Victory Day; weapons pipeline to Ukraine widens

The law cuts red tape on arms shipments to Kyiv, reviving the same World War II program that once armed Britain and the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany.
1955

West Germany joins NATO; a former enemy is now the alliance's eastern front against Moscow

Bonn gains full sovereignty and enters the Atlantic pact today, putting Western troops and nuclear guarantees on the Soviet Union's doorstep.
18651776 Club
With Lee already gone, the general rides into Gainesville, Alabama, and lays down his arms rather than fight on for a cause with no government left to serve.
Read this as a member →
Read the full May 9 edition →Everything that happened on May 9 →
More from The World Wars
1941

Fourteen freighters hit the water at once; Roosevelt calls them Liberty ships

At Baltimore's Bethlehem-Fairfield yard, the President borrows Patrick Henry's own words to name a fleet still unbuilt.
1934

Roosevelt signs the Securities Exchange Act; a federal watchdog now stands over Wall Street

Kennedy, a multimillionaire who thrived in unregulated markets, is named the SEC's first chairman to police the very customs he knows best.
1942

In six minutes of dive-bombing, three Japanese carriers are ablaze; a fourth burns by afternoon

Nimitz, tipped by broken codes, springs an ambush near Midway atoll and the Kidō Butai loses four fleet carriers in a single day.
1944

160,000 troops cross the Channel; Allied forces land on five Normandy beaches under fire

Paratroopers went in past midnight, 5,000 vessels follow at dawn, and by nightfall a contested beachhead holds at a cost of at least 10,000 casualties.
The Daily Record · free by email

Tomorrow's edition in your inbox — one featured story, one quote, and today's flag status. Free, every morning.

The full experience

Read every story, narrated, in the app.

Take this story with you.

The complete daily edition, the deep-cut narration, and a library that's yours — the 1776 Club lives in the app.

Your membership comes with you — every event, narrated, with flag alerts, CarPlay, and your saved library.

Download on the App Store