John R.F. Jeffreys

Who was John R.F. Jeffreys?

John R.F. Jeffreys was a British mathematician and World War II codebreaker.

A research fellow at Downing College, Cambridge, Jeffreys joined the codebreaking efforts at Bletchley Park in September 1939 alongside fellow Cambridge mathematicians Gordon Welchman, with whom he had previously worked closely, and Alan Turing. These three, together with Peter Twinn and working under Dilly Knox, formed the research section working on the German Enigma machine, and were housed in "The Cottage" at Bletchley Park.

Jeffreys was put in charge of a small section manufacturing perforated sheets for use in the cryptanalysis of the Enigma, a task which took over three months, completed on 7 January 1940. One type were the Zygalski sheets, known as Netz at Bletchley Park, a technique revealed to the British by Polish cryptologists. Another type, named "Jeffreys sheets", were different, and were a "catalogue of the effect of any two Enigma rotors and the reflector". Jeffreys's perforated sheets were used by Polish cryptologists in exile in France to make the first wartime decryption of an Enigma message on 17 January 1940.