Code Breakers: Uncovering German Messages
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Suggested levels for Guided Reading, DRA,™ Lexile,® and Reading Recovery™ are provided in the Pearson Scott Foresman Leveling Guide. Code Breakers: Uncovering German Messages by Rena Korb Comprehension Genre Text Features Skills and Strategy Expository • Graphic Features • Heads nonfiction • Main Idea and Details • Charts • Predict and • Captions Set Purpose • Glossary Scott Foresman Reading Street 4.4.4 ISBN-13: 978-0-328-51666-7 ISBN-10: 0-328-51666-X 9 0 0 0 0 9 780328 516667 51666_CVR.indd 1-2 31/10/12 9:14 PM Vocabulary Code Breakers: ancient Uncovering German link Messages scholars seeker by Rena Korb temple translate triumph uncover Word count: 2,141 Note: The total word count includes words in the running text and headings only. Numerals and words in chapter titles, captions, labels, diagrams, charts, graphs, sidebars, and extra features are not included. Glenview, Illinois • Boston, Massachusetts • Chandler, Arizona Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 51666_001-024.indd 1 11/29/12 8:11 PM World War II In the 1930s a new power had appeared and was rising in Europe. Under the leadership of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party, Germany had been growing stronger and stronger. The Nazis grew to be so powerful that Germany started to claim land that did not belong to it. German troops took over Austria and part of Czechoslovakia. The leaders of Europe allowed Germany to keep the new areas. They wanted to avoid war. Germany, however, took over the rest of Czechoslovakia. On September 1, 1939, the German army invaded Poland. Bomber planes Photographs streamed through the sky Every effort has been made to secure permission and provide appropriate credit for photographic material. The publisher deeply regrets any omission and pledges to correct errors called to its attention in subsequent editions. and tanks rolled across Unless otherwise acknowledged, all photographs are the property of Pearson the borders. Two days Education. later—even before Photo locators denoted as follows: Top (T), Center (C), Bottom (B), Left (L), Right (R), Background (Bkgd) Poland surrendered— Cover: The Imperial War Museum/©DK Images; 1 ©AP Images; 3 ©Library of Congress; Great Britain and 4 ©Library of Congress; 6 ©DK Images; 8 ©DK Images; 12 ©DK Images; 13 ©DK Images; 14–15 ©ACE STOCK LIMITED/Alamy; 16–17 ©Suzannmeer/Fotolia, ©Library of Congress; France declared 18–19 ©DK Images; 18 ©Science Source/Photo Researchers, Inc.; 20–21 ©AP Images; 23 Imperial War Museum/©DK Images war on Germany. ISBN 13: 978-0-328-51666-7 World War II had ISBN 10: 0-328-51666-X begun. Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc., or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is protected by copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. For information regarding permissions, write to Pearson Curriculum Rights & Permissions, One Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458. Pearson® is a trademark, in the U.S. and/or in other countries, of Pearson plc or its affiliates. Adolf Hitler, leader Scott Foresman® is a trademark, in the U.S. and/or in other countries, of Pearson of Nazi Germany Education, Inc., or its affiliates. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 V0G1 13 12 11 10 09 3 51666_001-024.indd 2 31/10/12 9:08 PM 51666_001-024.indd 3 31/10/12 9:08 PM More than twenty countries fought in World After the German armies captured Poland, War II. On one side were the Allied powers made they began their attack on the rest of Europe. up of Great Britain, Russia, the United States, and Within months, Germany had taken over much their supporters. On the other side were the Axis of the continent. By the summer of 1940, only powers, which included Germany, Italy, Japan, Great Britain stood against Germany. The other and their supporters. Only a few countries in the Allied powers joined Great Britain later. world did not take sides. By the time World War II The Germans bombed Britain. They ended in 1945, fighting had happened in parts of threatened them with invasion. They sent Europe, the Pacific, Asia, and North Africa. bomber planes to fly over the cities and countryside. German submarines, known as U-boats, sank ships taking supplies and soldiers to Britain. Germany sent thousands of war plans and messages each day by radio. All of these messages were in Germany’s secret code. British officials knew they could fight the Germans better if they could decode, or read, these secret messages. Then Britain could find out Germany’s next plan of attack. The British had known about this code for years, but they never thought they would be able to break it. Officers from the Allied powers of the United States and Britain shake hands. 4 5 51666_001-024.indd 4 11/27/12 5:21 PM 51666_001-024.indd 5 31/10/12 9:08 PM Secret Codes in History Other message systems would replace one letter with another. This was called a cipher, Since the invention of writing, people have or code, system. A key showed how the letters put their messages in codes to keep them safe were substituted so the message could be read. from opponents. For instance, some ancient In the late 1400s Leon Battista Alberti from Greeks used cylinders to help them read secret Italy thought of using a disk to put messages messages. The sender would write a message into code. This made cracking coded messages on a strip of paper that was wrapped around a difficult. Each letter of text was represented by cylinder. The receiver of the paper strip would several different letters in one message. In the wrap it around a cylinder of the exact same size early 1900s, inventors started to use machines to to read the secret message. help them create complicated codes. This is an example of an early cipher text. 6 7 51666_001-024.indd 6 11/27/12 5:21 PM 51666_001-024.indd 7 31/10/12 9:08 PM The Enigma The Enigma looked a bit like a typewriter. The Enigma operator typed a message on a regular Shortly after World keyboard. When the operator pressed the key War I, a German inventor for the letter A, for example, electrical signals developed a code machine were sent along a system of wires. These wires for business purposes. In connected to three wheels. At each wheel, the the 1920s the German letter A changed to a different letter. military used a version of Wires also connected the keyboard and the that machine, now called wheels to sockets that scrambled the letter an Enigma, to code military even more. Then an electrical current went to a messages. Enigma means lampboard with small windows that lit up. Each “mystery.” The machine window had a letter. When the electric current was made so that only reached the lampboard, the coded letter lit up. someone with an identical The operator would see that A had become machine could decode the another letter, such as D. message. After one key was pressed, the wheels turned in a pattern. When the operator pressed the key for A again, a new letter, something other than D, appeared on the lampboard. The code looked like random letters. Having more than one code for each letter disguised the message even more. This Enigma machine is ready to use. 8 9 51666_001-024.indd 8 31/10/12 9:08 PM 51666_001-024.indd 9 31/10/12 9:08 PM The Enigma was a very complicated machine. To send secret messages, an Enigma operator Each of the three wheels could be interchanged, typed in each letter of the message with one or switched, and each wheel had a ring of letters hand. With his other hand, he wrote down the that could be put in a different order. Also, the letter that lit up on the lampboard. He then gave wires on the lampboard swapped letters even the coded message to a radio operator, who more. With the wheels and the lampboard, the sent it to a receiver by Morse code. Morse code Enigma had more than 150 million different is a way of communicating letters and numbers settings! Today it would take a computer an through long and short signals. These letters entire year to test just one message on all the are printed out as dots and dashes. The receiver possible settings. No wonder the Germans typed in the coded message on his Enigma, and thought that their codes would not be cracked! the original letters appeared on the lampboard. The German military gave Enigma operators codebooks telling them how to set up their machines. Each day they had to put their wheels in order, set the wheels so that the correct letter appeared through the window, and plug in the wires. Codebooks gave the operators directions so that all Enigma machines were set exactly alike. These dots and dashes stand for letters and numbers in Morse code. 10 11 Polish Code Breakers Soon Enigma machines and codes became Even before World War II, a small group of more complicated. It was difficult for the Polish scholars in Poland was trying to learn the secrets people to figure out the messages. Shortly of the Enigma code. They didn’t know how the before World War II began, Polish machine worked. They couldn’t officials decided to tell the crack the code.