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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…

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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.
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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.
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More from The World Wars
1944

Marines and soldiers storm Guam's beaches, opening a three-week fight to retake it

Two and a half years after its surrender, the island is under American naval gunfire again.
1937

The Senate buries Roosevelt's plan to add justices, 70 to 20

Five months after the fight began, the bill goes back to committee and does not return.
1943

Palermo falls to Patton's Seventh Army

Nine days after landing in the dark, American tanks roll into a Sicilian capital the Italian garrison no longer has the will to defend.
1941

Washington cuts off Japan's oil; London and the Dutch follow within days

Tokyo's push into southern Indochina triggers an embargo that erases four-fifths of Japan's oil supply.
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