Station X

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In 1939, the first of several hundred people -- students, professors, chess players, military officers, actresses, and debutantes -- quietly reported to a Victorian mansion outside London. This became "Station X", the Allies' top-secret center for deciphering enemy codes.Their task was to break the ingenious Enigma cipher, used by the Nazis for their high-level communications. The settings for the Enigma machine changed continually. The Nazi operators had 159 quintillion (159 followed by 18 zeroes) possibilities from which to choose. This gifted group achieved the impossible. Not only did these people shorten the war by years -- they were essential to the victories in the Atlantic and North Africa and to the planning of the D-Day landings -- Station X was also the birthplace of the world's first programmable computer and the successful Anglo-American intelligence partnership.