The Battle of Britain

Enciphering Equipment, Converter M-209-B Hagelin Cipher Machine, American

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All Rights Reserved except for Fair Dealing exceptions otherwise permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised.

Catalogue number
  • COM 380
Display status
IWM Duxford
Production date
1943
Materials
  • paper
  • plastic
  • steel
  • textile
Dimensions
  • Machine: Height 94 mm
  • general: Width 200 mm
  • general: Depth 142 mm
  • general: Weight kg
  • Booklet (x 2): Height 152 mm
  • general: Width 117 mm
  • general: Depth 3 mm
Alternative Names
  • FULL NAME: Enciphering Equipment, Converter M-209-B Hagelin Cipher Machine, American
  • SIMPLE NAME: Cipher Machine, American
Category
equipment

All Rights Reserved except for Fair Dealing exceptions otherwise permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised.

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History note

In 1934 the Swedish cryptographer Boris Hagelin (1892-1983) designed a cipher machine for the French Army. He developed the machine and it was adopted by the United States Army as the Converter M-209 Cipher Machine. By 1942, 400 Hagelin machines a day were being produced at Groton, New York. Eventually, more than 140,000 were manufactured during the Second World War. The M-209 was used by the United States Army as late as the Korean War (1950-1953)

Physical description

The Converter M-209-B was a small, compact, hand-operated, tape printing, cryptographic mechanical device. It used a series of rotors to encipher and decipher radio transmitted tactical messages rapidly. When properly set and operated it enciphered a plain text message of any length and automatically printed the enciphered text on a plain tape in five-letter groups.The M-209-B also deciphered transmitted messages that had been previously enciphered on another Converter. The Converter printed the plain text on a paper tape with proper spacing between the words.

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