Hugh Foss

Dances Devised By The Scottish Country Dance Deviser - H. Foss

Keith Rose's Crib Diagrams For Dances Devised By H. Foss

Dance Instruction Videos For Dances Devised By H. Foss

Given this achievement, it is likely he was born before the First World War. During the Second World War, he continued his work at Bletchley Park, focusing on Japanese codes and achieving many significant breakthroughs, some of which were related to the German Enigma machine.

Foss was a tall, elegant, and urbane Scot, known for his good-humoured and approachable nature. An exceptional Scottish dancer, he organised the Bletchley Park Scottish Dance Group, which held regular meetings and staged "more elaborate dances every three to six months". In the summer, they often danced on the croquet lawn.

Foss also created over 130 Scottish country dances. One of their favourites, the Circassian Circle, was so popular that they wore out the record and had to purchase a replacement for him.

Further information may be found in the book "The Secret Life Of Bletchley Park" by Sinclair McKay and on the Wikipedia page Hugh Foss, from which the following was extracted...

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 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.

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.

Foss retired from GCHQ 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.