Ciphers from seventy years ago

I don't know how that "just" crept into the cipher. Ignore it.

I am sure you finished the first in a few minutes! Here is the second:-

200805 190503151404 151405 919 1618150201021225 10211920 0119 05011925

Done the first one! Do I get a prize

Yep!

No prize, but you get an Egghead badge and permission to do the other eight.

I'm off!

I want to go to bed reasonably early, so can I please post numbers three and four both at once?

Number three:-

MFNYVI GSIVV NZB YV Z ORGGOV NLIV WRUURXFOG KVISZKH

Number five :-
GNIH TFOD NIKS IHTH TIWE LBUO RTEL TTIL YREV EVAH DLUO HSOU YDNA

Typo - that should say Number four (I don't think I would have made it to Bletchley Park)

To all of you reading this thread........

Good luck, no point in me venturing here again

Just done the first one, but haven't a clue where to start with the next one...

( Elegran, thank you for sharing these brainteasers - lovely that we are enjoying them after all this time and to know that your father would be 'chuffed'.)

No maths or arithmetic ability needed for the second one, Joy if that is any help.

I have found it really nostalgic to be working at these puzzles - when I finally get one I can hear my father speaking. He was always interested in puzzles and ciphers, and other kinds of puzzles, and contributed to the church magazines wherever he lived, but I was not aware that he had written these as far back as 1945. It should not have been a surprise as he was sending and receiving messages in cipher in 1940, when he was in France.

Can I make a few suggestions without actually giving anything away? If you know all this already, then ignore it.

1) There are two types of cipher - ones where the same letters are used as are in the message, but juggled around in some kind of system, and ones where each letter is substituted for a different one in the alphabet. Sometimes the substitution is very simple, sometimes the pattern varies.

2) There are 26 letters in the alphabet. The first is A, the 26th is Z.

3) Some letters occur more often than others in any typical bit of text. for instance, E,A,I,T,O,N,S, are a lot more common than Q,X,J,G,B,F. The most common letter is E, so the most common letter in an encrypted message is likely to be an E (but not always!)

4) It may help to write out the alphabet to keep in front of you, either across the page or down one side.. Write it backwards as well, and the numbers 1 to 26. It saves a lot of counting backwards and forwards on your fingers.

Elegran Good to read the background info re your father, very interesting. I've always enjoyed this sort of puzzle and have solved the four brainteasers.

Time for the next, then, Joy I shall have to go and unearth it to post it. Back shortly.

PS - with the answers in front of you, you can see why my father was so well liked as a teacher.

Number five

CWW JH ZQX NCQELK UJLW PPH ZQX ICYI EQQI WGUC XGOP

Elegran Thank you! Just off for an early night, so I shall have to save this for tomorrow

Thanks Elegran, i'm going to save it for tomorrow as well.

Elegran Number 5 took a long time and I almost gave up... But the message it revealed made it worth the hard 'work'!

Just got number 4! (probably the easiest - don't think I'll get the rest)

Don't give up, Ana Each one you do gets your mind a bit more in tune with how to do them.

More general advice - If the same group of letters reappears more than once, chances are it is the same word, and if it is a short word (one, two or three letters) then there are not all that many words it can be. so a one-letter word could probably be I or A , a three-letter AND or THE a two-letter one IS or AT, and so on.
No guarantee that it is, of course, but worth trying whatever shift gave that result on the rest of the message.

Number 6 -

JOUP UIF VBMMFZ PG EFBUI SPEF UIF TJY IVOESFE

Elegran Think I have done number six, but am I right in thinking the first letter of the third word should be 'W'?