The Code Breaker

Scottish Country Dance Instruction

1- 8 1s dance down round 4s, cast back to places and ½ turn 2H to face down while 2s stand for 2 bars and dance down round 4s and cast to place while 3s stand for 4 bars and dance down round 4s and cast to place while 4s stand for 6 bars and ½ turn 2H to face up (similar to square set)
9-16 All circle 8H round and back. Finish as at end of bar 8
17-24 1M+2L and 3M+4L turn LH 1¼ times while 1L+2M and 3L+4M turn RH 1¼ times [all now on sides 2 (1)(4) 3], 1s+4s dance ½ R&L to end 2413
25-32 2s+4s also 1s+3s dance RH across, 4s+1s dance LH across

(MINICRIB. Dance crib compiled by Charles Upton, Deeside Caledonian Society, and his successors)

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Dance Information

Hugh Rose Foss (1902 - 1971) was a British cryptanalyst. At Bletchley Park during World War II he made significant contributions both to the breaking of the German Enigma code and headed the section tasked with breaking Japanese Naval codes.

Foss was born in Kobe, Japan, one of five children of the Rt Revd Hugh Foss, Bishop of Osaka and his wife Janet Ovans. As a child of a missionary family stationed in Japan he developed fluency in Japanese from an early age. Foss was later educated at Marlborough College and graduated from Christ's College, Cambridge in 1924.

In December 1924 he joined the Government Code and Cipher School. He recalled learning of two models of the Enigma machine in 1926: the large non-reciprocal typing B model, and the small index C model.

In 1927 Edward Travis gave him a small (reciprocal) machine to examine, and he wrote a paper, "The Reciprocal Enigma", on solving the non-plugboard Enigma. The small Enigma was developed by the German services; the standard World War II British Typex machine was also developed from it.

In September 1934 Foss and Oliver Strachey broke the Japanese naval attaché cipher.

In May 1940 he was working with Alan Turing in Hut 8 using a statistical procedure for ruling out certain code-wheel orders.

In November 1940 he was the first person to break a day's worth of the German Enigma code, deciphering 8 May 1940 by the method of Banburismus.

Banburismus was a cryptanalytic process developed by Alan Turing at Bletchley Park in Britain during the Second World War. It was used by Bletchley Park's Hut 8 to help break German naval messages enciphered on Enigma machines. The aim of Banburismus was to reduce the time required of the electromechanical Bombe machines by identifying the most likely right-hand and middle wheels of the Enigma. Hut 8 performed the procedure continuously for two years.

At Bletchley Park in World War II, Foss headed the Japanese Naval Section (Hut 7) from 1942 to 1943.

In December 1944 he went to Washington and worked with U.S. Navy cryptographers on Japanese ciphers.

Hugh Foss retired in 1953 to live at Glendarroch in St. John's Town of Dalry, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland. He died in 1971 and is buried with his wife Alison in Dalry Kirkyard.

Hut 8, Bletchley Park,

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