162
Which are all multiples of 33. This indicated that the letters should be divided into groups of 33 and not 34 as I had been doing. So I tried filling up each block by putting groups of 33 letters in columns rather than 34 letters in rows as I had done previously. I then ran my program to rearrange the 34 columns using the keyword made up of the names and looked at the output. There on the screen in front of me I saw the words 'war' and 'Japan'. I suddenly realised that I was looking at text which I could read! I sat there for a moment, hardly believing that I had at last cracked this 'simple' code.
Translation. I quickly translated the first few blocks of numbers which I had already put on the computer. I had to put in spaces between words and full stops were marked by an ‘x', (Note that the letter 'x' is two places higher up the frequency list from the diary compared with the standard list because of this.) The unfolding story was gripping. I borrowed a computer to take home so that I could type in more numbers during the evenings and then brought the disk in to work in the mornings, impatient to read the next chapter of the story. Finally the task was complete, and in 11 pages, a fascinating story of life in war-torn Hong Kong and as a prisoner of war was revealed for the first time in 55 years.
The work did not quite end there though. The last page of the diary contained an incomplete block. Because of the way it had been written, when this partial block was translated, it gave text with letters and blanks intermingled. Could the gaps be filled in to reveal more of the story? It is very difficult to guess at words which are incomplete. However, there was a dictionary on the computer that could be searched for particular strings which could include wildcards for the missing letters. This provided a very effective, systematic method for filling in the blanks. Some parts came together easily while others took more time but eventually, the gaps were filled in and the story told.
The Family. Mrs Hill was very pleased to have the diary translated after so many years. She said that reading it was like finding the missing jigsaw piece in her husband's life.
Afterthoughts. The names on the front page and the boxes around the numbers on the first page were done by Donald when he once tried to show his son Christopher how to translate the diary. However, since
162
Which are all multiples of 33. This indicated that the letters should be divided into groups of 33 and not 34 as I had been doing. So I tried filling up each block by putting groups of 33 letters in columns rather than 34 letters in rows as I had done previously. I then ran my program to rearrange the 34 columns using the keyword made up of the names and looked at the output. There on the screen in front of me I saw the words 'war' and 'Japan'. I suddenly realised that I was looking at text which I could read! I sat there for a moment, hardly believing that I had at last cracked this 'simple' code.
Translation. I quickly translated the first few blocks of numbers which I had already put on the computer. I had to put in spaces be- tween words and full stops were marked by an ‘x', (Note that the letter 'x' is two places higher up the frequency list from the diary compared with the standard list because of this.) The unfolding story was gripping. I borrowed a computer to take home so that I could type in more num- bers during the evenings and then brought the disk in to work in the mornings, impatient to read the next chapter of the story. Finally the task was complete, and in 11 pages, a fascinating story of life in war torn Hong Kong and as a prisoner of war was revealed for the first time in 55
years.
The work did not quite end there though. The last page of the diary contained an incomplete block. Because of the way it had been written, when this partial block was translated, it gave text with letters and blanks intermingled. Could the gaps be filled in to reveal more of the story? It is very difficult to guess at words which are incomplete. However, there was a dictionary on the computer that could be searched for particular strings which could include wildcards for the missing letters. This provided a very effective, systematic method for filling in the blanks. Some parts came together easily while others took more time but eventually, the gaps were filled in and the story told.
The Family. Mrs Hill was very pleased to have the diary trans- lated after so many years. She said that reading it was like finding the missing jigsaw piece in her husband's life.
Afterthoughts. The names on the front page and the boxes around the numbers on the first page were done by Donald when he once tried to show his son Christopher how to translate the diary. However, since
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