Operation Primrose

Operation Primrose was a covert British Royal Navy mission during World War II resulting in the capture of the German submarine U-110 on May 9, 1941. After British destroyers HMS Bulldog and HMS Broadway forced the U-boat to the surface with depth charges, the German crew abandoned ship.A British boarding party led by Sub-Lieutenant David Balme quickly boarded the vessel before the crew could scuttle it. They swept the radio room and seized a priceless trove of top-secret materials, including a fully functioning Enigma cipher machine, charts, and naval codebooks.The entire operation was kept strictly classified. The captured intelligence was rushed to Bletchley Park, where cryptographers like Alan Turing used the codebooks to break previously uncrackable Nazi naval communication networks. This breakthrough, known as Ultra, allowed the Allies to track U-boats, protect merchant convoys, and gain a decisive advantage in the Battle of the Atlantic.