Bombe Gallery opens 23 June

On the afternoon of Saturday 23 June 2018, the new Bombe Gallery will be opened by two original Bombe operators. Thanks to the generosity of Crowdfunder donors, the Bombe's arrival was accomplished smoothly and quickly, so we hope many of them can come -- we’ll be open from 12 noon to 5pm.

The Bombe Gallery will be opened by one, or perhaps two, Bombe operator veterans. We even hope to have a Colossus operator veteran present so that they can exchange notes – something they could never do during the war!

Visitors will be able to see the world-famous Bombe reconstruction in action and learn how it broke Enigma messages – and compare it to the acclaimed working Colossus reconstruction and discover how it was the key to breaking Lorenz messages.

New virtual reconstructions of the wartime code-breaking as created by a TNMOC volunteer on a PC will also be on display.

Outside Block H, the home of The National Museum of Computing, wartime re-enactors will bring the history alive and give a sense of the wartime atmosphere.

The full museum will be open and visitors will have a chance to see how wartime ingenuity kick-started the British post-war computer developments that has led to today’s digital world.

And of course, there will be family fun features including retro computer games and quite a few other surprises in store -- including cream teas!

We hope you can come to celebrate the opening of the new Bombe gallery and to pay homage to those remarkable wartime codebreakers.

The 23 June 2018 is the 106th anniversary of Alan Turing's birth.

The 23 June 2018 is also International Women in Engineering day and there will be free entry to the museum on the day for women working in computing or engineering.