Colossus Mark 1

Colossus Mark 1
12/08/1943 AD invented

Flowers and his team of some fifty people in the switching group spent eleven months from early February 1943 designing and building a machine that dispensed with the second tape of the Heath Robinson, by generating the wheel patterns electronically. Flowers used some of his own money for the project.

This prototype, Mark 1 Colossus, contained 1,600 thermionic valves (tubes).

It performed satisfactorily at Dollis Hill on 8 December 1943 and was dismantled and shipped to Bletchley Park, where it was delivered on 18 January and re-assembled by Harry Fensom and Don Horwood.

It was operational in January and it successfully attacked its first message on 5 February 1944.

It was a large structure and was dubbed 'Colossus', supposedly by the WRNS operators. However, a memo held in the National Archives written by Max Newman on 18 January 1944 records that 'Colossus arrives today"

Bletchley, England

Lattitude: 51.994° N
Longitude: 0.732° W
Region: Europe

Modern Day United Kingdom

Events in 1943 MORE