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not questioning significance of incident, merely dropping detail of specific kind of staff that was in shortage; doesn't matter /what/ shortage was being complained of (could have been pencils and erasers)--important point is Churchill's decisive response
Undid revision 604155757 by EEng (talk) Important contrast with those suitable for cryptanalysis
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Denniston recognized, however, that the enemy's use of electromech{{shy}}anical cipher machines meant that formally-trained mathematicians would increasingly be needed as well;<ref> {{Harvnb|Briggs|2011|pp=3-4}}</ref> Oxford's [[Peter Twinn]] joined GC&CS in February 1939;<ref> {{Harvnb|Twinn|1993|p=125}} </ref> Cambridge's [[Alan Turing]]<ref> {{Citation | last = Hodges | first = Andrew | author-link = Andrew Hodges | year = 1992 | title = Alan Turing: The Enigma | publication-place = London | publisher = Vintage | page = 148 | isbn = 978-0099116417}} </ref> and [[Gordon Welchman]]<ref> {{Harvnb|Welchman|1997|p=11}} </ref> began training in 1938 and reported to Bletchley the day after war was declared, along with [[John R.F. Jeffreys|John Jeffreys]]. Later-recruited cryptanalysts included the mathematicians [[Derek Taunt]],<ref> {{Citation | last = Taunt | first = Derek | author-link = Derek Taunt | title = Hut 6: 1941-1945 | pages = 101 }} in {{Harvnb|Hinsley|Stripp|1993|pp=100-112}} </ref> [[I.J. Good|Jack Good]]<ref> {{Citation | last = Good | first = Jack | author-link = I.J. Good | title = Enigma and Fish | pages = 154 }} in {{Harvnb|Hinsley|Stripp|1993|pp=149-166}} </ref> [[W. T. Tutte|Bill Tutte]]<ref> {{Citation | last = Tutte | first = William T. | authorlink = W. T. Tutte | year = 2006 | title = My Work at Bletchley Park }} Appendix 4 in {{Harvnb|Copeland|2006|pp=352{{ndash}}9}} </ref> and [[Max Newman]]; historian [[Harry Hinsley]], and chess champions [[Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander|Hugh Alexander]], and [[Stuart Milner-Barry]].<ref> {{Harvnb|Grey|2012|p=133}} </ref>
Denniston recognized, however, that the enemy's use of electromech{{shy}}anical cipher machines meant that formally-trained mathematicians would increasingly be needed as well;<ref> {{Harvnb|Briggs|2011|pp=3-4}}</ref> Oxford's [[Peter Twinn]] joined GC&CS in February 1939;<ref> {{Harvnb|Twinn|1993|p=125}} </ref> Cambridge's [[Alan Turing]]<ref> {{Citation | last = Hodges | first = Andrew | author-link = Andrew Hodges | year = 1992 | title = Alan Turing: The Enigma | publication-place = London | publisher = Vintage | page = 148 | isbn = 978-0099116417}} </ref> and [[Gordon Welchman]]<ref> {{Harvnb|Welchman|1997|p=11}} </ref> began training in 1938 and reported to Bletchley the day after war was declared, along with [[John R.F. Jeffreys|John Jeffreys]]. Later-recruited cryptanalysts included the mathematicians [[Derek Taunt]],<ref> {{Citation | last = Taunt | first = Derek | author-link = Derek Taunt | title = Hut 6: 1941-1945 | pages = 101 }} in {{Harvnb|Hinsley|Stripp|1993|pp=100-112}} </ref> [[I.J. Good|Jack Good]]<ref> {{Citation | last = Good | first = Jack | author-link = I.J. Good | title = Enigma and Fish | pages = 154 }} in {{Harvnb|Hinsley|Stripp|1993|pp=149-166}} </ref> [[W. T. Tutte|Bill Tutte]]<ref> {{Citation | last = Tutte | first = William T. | authorlink = W. T. Tutte | year = 2006 | title = My Work at Bletchley Park }} Appendix 4 in {{Harvnb|Copeland|2006|pp=352{{ndash}}9}} </ref> and [[Max Newman]]; historian [[Harry Hinsley]], and chess champions [[Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander|Hugh Alexander]], and [[Stuart Milner-Barry]].<ref> {{Harvnb|Grey|2012|p=133}} </ref>


This eclectic staff of "[[Boffin]]s and [[Débutante|Debs]]"<ref> {{Harvnb|Hill|2004|pp=62{{ndash}}71}} </ref> caused GC&CS to be whimsically dubbed the "Golf, Cheese and Chess Society",<ref> {{Citation | title = BBC News UK: Saving Bletchley for the nation | url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/358913.stm | accessdate =2 February 2011 | date=2 June 1999}} </ref> with the female staff in Dilwyn Knox's section sometimes termed "Dilly's Fillies".<ref> {{Harvnb|McKay|2010|p=14}} </ref> During a September 1941 morale-boosting visit, [[Winston Churchill]] reportedly remarked to Denniston: "I told you to leave no stone unturned to get staff, but I had no idea you had taken me so literally."<ref> {{Harvnb|Kahn1991|p=185}} </ref> (Six weeks later, on receiving a plea from Turing, Welchman, Alexander and Milner-Barry that red tape was hampering recruitment, Churchill directed, "Action this day make sure they have all they want on extreme priority and report to me that this had been done.")<ref> {{Harvnb|Copeland|2004|page=336}} </ref>
This eclectic staff of "[[Boffin]]s and [[Débutante|Debs]]"<ref> {{Harvnb|Hill|2004|pp=62{{ndash}}71}} </ref> caused GC&CS to be whimsically dubbed the "Golf, Cheese and Chess Society",<ref> {{Citation | title = BBC News UK: Saving Bletchley for the nation | url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/358913.stm | accessdate =2 February 2011 | date=2 June 1999}} </ref> with the female staff in Dilwyn Knox's section sometimes termed "Dilly's Fillies".<ref> {{Harvnb|McKay|2010|p=14}} </ref> During a September 1941 morale-boosting visit, [[Winston Churchill]] reportedly remarked to Denniston: "I told you to leave no stone unturned to get staff, but I had no idea you had taken me so literally."<ref> {{Harvnb|Kahn1991|p=185}} </ref> Six weeks later, having failed to get sufficient typing and unskilled staff to achieve the productivity that was possible, Turing, Welchman, Alexander and Milner-Barry wrote directly to Churchill. His response was "Action this day make sure they have all they want on extreme priority and report to me that this had been done."<ref> {{Harvnb|Copeland|2004|page=336}} </ref>


After initial training at the Inter-Service Special Intelligence School set up by [[John Tiltman]] (initially at an RAF depot in Buckingham and later in [[Bedford]]{{snd}}where it was known locally as "the Spy School")<ref name = "Smith89P205-6">{{Harvnb|Smith|1999|pp=79,82}} </ref>
After initial training at the Inter-Service Special Intelligence School set up by [[John Tiltman]] (initially at an RAF depot in Buckingham and later in [[Bedford]]{{snd}}where it was known locally as "the Spy School")<ref name = "Smith89P205-6">{{Harvnb|Smith|1999|pp=79,82}} </ref>

Revision as of 14:25, 14 April 2014

Bletchley Park
The Mansion
Map
Established1938 (as a code-breaking centre); 1993 (as a museum)
LocationBletchley, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire
DirectorIain Standen
Public transit accessBletchley railway station
Websitewww.bletchleypark.org

Bletchley Park, in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, was the central site of the United Kingdom's Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), which during the Second World War regularly penetrated the secret communications of the Axis Powers – most importantly the German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers. The official historian of World War II British Intelligence has written that the "Ultra" intelligence produced at Bletchley shortened the war by two to four years, and that without it the outcome of the war would have been uncertain.[1] The site is now an educational and historical attraction memorializing and celebrating those accomplishments.

Site

The stableyard cottages, where Dilly Knox, John Jeffreys, and Alan Turing made the first British attacks on Enigma. The tower windows open into a room used by Turing.

Fifty miles (80 km) northwest of London, the site appears in the Domesday Book as part of the Manor of Eaton. Browne Willis built a mansion there in 1711, but after Thomas Harrison purchased the property in 1793 this was pulled down. It was first known as Bletchley Park after its purchase by Samuel Lipscomb Seckham in 1877.[2] The estate of 581 acres (235 ha) was bought in 1883 by Sir Herbert Samuel Leon, who expanded the then-existing farmhouse[3] into the present "maudlin and monstrous pile"[4] combining Victorian Gothic, Tudor, and Dutch Baroque styles.

In 1938 the mansion and much of the site was bought by a builder planning a housing estate, but in May 1938 Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair, head of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) bought the mansion and 58 acres (23 ha) for use by GC&CS and SIS in the event of war.[5]

A key advantage seen by Sinclair and his colleagues (inspecting the site under the cover of "Captain Ridley's shooting party")[6] was Bletchley's geographical centrality. It was almost immediately adjacent to Bletchley railway station, where the "Varsity Line" between Oxford and Cambridge – whose universities were expected to supply many of the code-breakers – met the main West Coast railway line connecting London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Watling Street, the main road linking London to the north-west (now the A5) was close by, and high-volume communication links were available at the telegraph and telephone repeater station in nearby Fenny Stratford.

Bletchley Park was known as "B.P." to those who worked there.[7] "Station X", "London Signals Intelligence Centre", and "Government Communications Headquarters" were all cover names used during the war.[8] The formal posting of the many "Wrens" (members of the Women's Royal Naval Service) working there was to HMS Pembroke V.

Personnel

Stephen Kettle's 2007 statue of Alan Turing
The Enigma cipher machine
Enigma machine
Breaking Enigma
Related

Commander Alastair Denniston was operational head of GC&CS from 1919 to 1942, beginning with its formation from the Admiralty's Room 40 (NID25) and the War Office's MI1b.[9] Key GC&CS cryptanalysts who moved from London to Bletchley Park included John Tiltman, Dillwyn “Dilly” Knox, Josh Cooper and Nigel de Grey. These people had a variety of backgrounds  – linguists, chess champions, and crossword experts were common, and in Dilly Knox's case papyrology.

On the day Britain declared war on Germany Denniston wrote to the Foreign Office about recruiting "men of the professor type".[10] Personal networking drove early recruitments, particularly of men from the universities of Cambridge and Oxford. Trustworthy women were similarly recruited for administrative and clerical jobs.[11] In one 1941 recruiting stratagem The Daily Telegraph was asked to organise a crossword competition, after which promising contestants were discreetly approached about "a particular type of work as a contribution to the war effort".[12]

Denniston recognized, however, that the enemy's use of electromech­anical cipher machines meant that formally-trained mathematicians would increasingly be needed as well;[13] Oxford's Peter Twinn joined GC&CS in February 1939;[14] Cambridge's Alan Turing[15] and Gordon Welchman[16] began training in 1938 and reported to Bletchley the day after war was declared, along with John Jeffreys. Later-recruited cryptanalysts included the mathematicians Derek Taunt,[17] Jack Good[18] Bill Tutte[19] and Max Newman; historian Harry Hinsley, and chess champions Hugh Alexander, and Stuart Milner-Barry.[20]

This eclectic staff of "Boffins and Debs"[21] caused GC&CS to be whimsically dubbed the "Golf, Cheese and Chess Society",[22] with the female staff in Dilwyn Knox's section sometimes termed "Dilly's Fillies".[23] During a September 1941 morale-boosting visit, Winston Churchill reportedly remarked to Denniston: "I told you to leave no stone unturned to get staff, but I had no idea you had taken me so literally."[24] Six weeks later, having failed to get sufficient typing and unskilled staff to achieve the productivity that was possible, Turing, Welchman, Alexander and Milner-Barry wrote directly to Churchill. His response was "Action this day make sure they have all they want on extreme priority and report to me that this had been done."[25]

After initial training at the Inter-Service Special Intelligence School set up by John Tiltman (initially at an RAF depot in Buckingham and later in Bedford – where it was known locally as "the Spy School")[26] staff worked a six-day week, rotating through three shifts: 4 pm to midnight, midnight to 8 am (the most disliked shift), and 8 am to 4 pm, each with a half-hour meal break. At the end of the third week a worker went off at 8 am and came back at 4 pm, thus putting in sixteen hours on that last day. The irregular hours affected workers' health and social life, as well as the routines of the nearby homes at which most staff lodged. The work was tedious and demanded intense concentration; staff got one week's leave four times a year, but some "girls" collapsed and required extended rest.[27] A small number of men (e.g. Post Office experts in Morse code or German) worked part time.

In January 1945, at the peak of codebreaking efforts, some 9000 personnel were working at Bletchley;[26] over 12,000 different persons (some 80% of them women) were assigned there at various points throughout the war.

Secrecy

The German Enigma and Lorentz ciphers would have been virtually unbreakable had they been properly used, but flaws in German cryptographic procedures, and poor discipline among the personnel carrying them out, created vulnerabilities which made Bletchley's attacks just barely feasible. These vulnerabilities, however, could have been remedied by relatively simple improvements in enemy procedures,[28] and such changes would certainly have been made had the Germans any hint of Bletchley's success; thus the intelligence it produced was considered wartime Britain's "Ultra secret" – higher even than the normally-highest classification Most Secret [29] – and security was paramount. All staff signed the Official Secrets Act (1939) and a 1942 security warning emphasized the importance of discretion even within Bletchley itself: "Do not talk at meals. Do not talk in the transport. Do not talk travelling. Do not talk in the billet. Do not talk by your own fireside. Be careful even in your Hut ...[30]

In addition, before any piece of Ultra intelligence was shared with commanders in the field a cover story was devised credibly attributing the information to some source other than Ultra; at times sham scouting missions – intentionally visible to the enemy – were dispatched to "discover" the location of German forces whose position was in fact already known from Ultra intelligence.[citation needed] In some cases it was impossible to act on Ultra intelligence at all, because to do so might suggest to the enemy that their communications had been penetrated.[citation needed][clarification needed] However, certain claims that the British high command refused, for this reason, to take steps to protect civilians from harm have been vigorously disputed (see, for example, Coventry Blitz).

Early work

Flow of information from an intercepted Enigma message[31]

The early work of Turing, Knox, and Jeffreys was carried out in Number 3 Cottage. (Number 2 Cottage was occupied by Bletchley Quartermaster[clarification needed] Robert George Budd and his family.)

The first wave of the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) moved to Bletchley Park on 15 August 1939. Pending completion of the prefabricated wooded huts the main body of GC&CS (including its Naval, Military, and Air Sections) was on the ground floor of the mansion, together with a telephone exchange, a teleprinter room, a kitchen, and a dining room; the top floor was allocated to MI6. Soon Elmers School, a neighbouring boys' boarding school, was acquired for the Commercial and Diplomatic Sections.[32]

After the United States joined the war a number of American cryptographers were posted to Hut 3, and from May 1943 onwards there was close co-operation between British and American intelligence.[33] In contrast the Soviet Union, whose war effort would have greatly benefited from Ultra intelligence, was never officially told of Bletchley Park and its activities – a reflection of Churchill's distrust of the Soviets even during the US-UK-Soviet alliance imposed by the Nazi threat.

The only direct enemy damage to the site was done by three bombs (likely intended for Bletchley railway station) dropped on 20–21 November 1940, one of which shifted a portion of Hut 4 two feet on its base; work inside continued uninterrupted as the structure was winched back into position.[34]

Intelligence reporting

Signals to Commands Abroad[clarification needed] [35]

Non-naval Enigma messages were deciphered was performed in Hut 6, followed by translation, indexing and cross-referencing, in Hut 3. Only then was it sent out to the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), the intelligence chiefs in the relevant ministries, and later on to high-level commanders in the field.[36]

Naval Enigma deciphering was in Hut 8, with translation in Hut 4. Verbatim translations were sent only to the Naval Intelligence Division (NID) of the Admiralty's Operational Intelligence Centre (OIC), supplemented by information from indexes as to the meaning of technical terms and cross-references from a knowledge store of German naval technology.[37]

Hut 4 also decoded a manual system known as the dockyard cipher, which sometimes carried messages that were also sent on an Enigma network. Feeding these back to Hut 8 provided excellent "cribs" for Known-plaintext attacks on the daily naval Enigma key.[38]

Listening stations

Original listening equipment in the 'Station X' room

Initially, a wireless room was established at Bletchley Park. It was set up in the mansion's water tower under the code name "Station X",[39] a term now sometimes applied to the codebreaking efforts at Bletchley as a whole. The "X" is the Roman numeral "ten", this being the Secret Intelligence Service's tenth such station. Due to the long radio aerials stretching from the wireless room, the radio station was moved from Bletchley Park to nearby Whaddon Hall to avoid drawing attention to the site.[40][41]

Subsequently, other listening stations – the Y-stations, such as the ones at Chicksands in Bedfordshire, Beaumanor Hall, Leicestershire (where the headquarters of the War Office "Y" Group was located) and Beeston Hill Y Station in Norfolk – gathered raw signals for processing at Bletchley. Coded messages were taken down by hand and sent to Bletchley on paper by motorcycle couriers or (later) by teleprinter. Bletchley Park is mainly remembered for breaking the German Enigma cypher, but its greatest cryptographic achievement may have been[citation needed] the breaking of the German on-line teleprinter Lorenz cipher (known at GC&CS as Tunny).

Additional buildings

Huts

Hut 1
Hut 4, adjacent to the mansion, is now a bar and restaurant for the museum.
Hut 6 in 2004

Often a hut's number became so strongly associated with the work performed inside that even when the work was moved to another building it was still referred to by the original "Hut" designation.[42][43] are:

  • Hut 1 – The first hut, built in 1939[44] used to house the Wireless Station for a short time,[39] later administrative functions such as transport, typing, and Bombe maintenance. The first Bombe, "Victory" was initially housed here.[45]
  • Hut 2 – A recreational hut for "beer, tea, and relaxation".[46]
  • Hut 3 – Intelligence: translation and analysis of Army and Air Force decrypts[47]
  • Hut 4 – Naval intelligence: analysis of Naval Enigma and Hagelin decrypts[48]
  • Hut 5 – Military intelligence including Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese ciphers and German police codes.[49]
  • Hut 6 – Cryptanalysis of Army and Air Force Enigma[50]
  • Hut 7 – Cryptanalysis of Japanese naval codes and intelligence.[51][52]
  • Hut 8 – Cryptanalysis of Naval Enigma.[37]
  • Hut 9 – ISOS (Intelligence Section Oliver Strachey).
  • Hut 10 – Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) codes, Air and Meteorological sections.[53]
  • Hut 11 – Bombe building.[54]
  • Hut 14 – Communications centre.[55]
  • Hut 15 – SIXTA.[clarification needed]
  • Hut 16 – ISK (Intelligence Service Knox) Abwehr ciphers.
  • Hut 18 – ISOS (Intelligence Section Oliver Strachey).
  • Hut 23 - Primarily used to house the engineering department. After February 1943, Hut 3 was renamed Hut 23 (the reason it was not named Hut 13 in a similar way to the other huts, was due to the belief that the number 13 was unlucky).[citation needed]

Blocks

In addition to the wooden huts there were a number of brick-built "blocks".

  • Block A – Naval Intelligence.
  • Block B – Italian Air and Naval, and Japanese code breaking.
  • Block C – Stored the substantial punch-card index.
  • Block D – Enigma work, extending that in huts 3, 6, and 8.
  • Block E – Incoming and outgoing Radio Transmission and TypeX.
  • Block F – Included the Newmanry and Testery, and Japanese Military Air Section. It has since been demolished.
  • Block G – Traffic analysis and deception operations.
  • Block H – Tunny and Colossus (now The National Museum of Computing).

Work on specific countries' signals

Bletchley's Polish Memorial, commemorating "the [prewar] work of Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski, mathematicians of the Polish intelligence service, in first breaking the Enigma code. Their work greatly assisted the Bletchley Park code breakers and contributed to the Allied victory in World War II."
The working rebuilt bombe, built by a team led by John Harper[56] and switched on by the Duke of Kent, patron of the British Computer Society, on 17 July 2008
A Mark 2 Colossus computer. The ten Colossi were the world's first (semi-) programmable electronic computers, the first having been built in 1943

German signals

See also: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma and Cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher

Most messages analyzed at Bletchley were produced by one or another version of the Enigma cipher machine. Five weeks before the outbreak of war, in Warsaw, Poland's Cipher Bureau revealed its achievements in decrypting German Enigma ciphers to astonished French and British personnel.[28] The British used the Poles' information and techniques, and the Enigma clone sent in August 1939, to greatly increase their (previously very limited) success in decrypting Enigma.[57]

The bombe was an electromech­anical device whose function was to discover some of the daily settings of the Enigma machines on the various German military networks.[58][59][60] Its functional design was by Alan Turing (with an important contribution from Gordon Welchman) and its engineering was by Harold 'Doc' Keen of the British Tabulating Machine Company. Each machine was about 7 feet (2.1 m) high and wide, 2 feet (0.61 m) deep and weighed about a ton.[61]

At its peak, GC&CS was reading approximately 4,000 messages per day.[62] As a hedge against enemy attack[63] most bombes were dispersed to installations at Adstock and Wavendon (both later supplanted by installations at Stanmore and Eastcote), and Gayhurst.[64][65]

Luftwaffe messages were the first to be read in quantity. The German navy had much tighter procedures, and the capture of code books was needed before they could be broken. When, in February 1942, the German navy introduced the four-rotor Enigma for communications with its Atlantic U-boats, this traffic became unreadable for a period of ten months.[66] Britain produced modified bombes, but it was the success of the US Navy bombe that was the main source of reading messages from this version of Enigma for the rest of the war. Messages were sent to and fro across the Atlantic by enciphered teleprinter links.

The Lorenz on-line teleprinter cipher (SZ40/42), codenamed Tunny at Bletchley Park, was even more complicated than Enigma. It was introduced in mid-1942 for messages between German High Command and field commanders. With the help of German operator errors, the cryptanalysts in the Testery (named after Ralph Tester, its head) worked out the logical structure of the machine despite not knowing its physical form. They devised automatic machinery to help with this, which culminated in Colossus, the world's first programmable digital electronic computer. This was designed and built by Tommy Flowers and his team at the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill. The first was delivered to Bletchley Park in December 1943 and commissioned the following February. Enhancements were developed for the Mark 2 Colossus, the first of which was working at Bletchley Park on the morning of D-day in June. Flowers then produced one Colossus a month for the rest of the war, making a total of ten with an eleventh part-built. The machines were operated mainly by Wrens in a section named the Newmanry after its head Max Newman.

Bletchley's work was essential to defeating the U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic, and to the British naval victories in the Battle of Cape Matapan and the Battle of North Cape. In 1941, Ultra exerted a powerful effect on the North African desert campaign against German forces under General Erwin Rommel. General Sir Claude Auchinleck wrote that were it not for Ultra, "Rommel would have certainly got through to Cairo". While not changing the events, "Ultra" decrypts featured prominently in the story of Operation SALAM, László Almásy's daring mission across the Libyan Desert behind enemy lines in 1942.[67] Prior to the Normandy landings on D-Day in June 1944, the Allies knew the locations of all but two of the fifty-eight German divisions on the Western front.

Italian signals

See also: Cryptanalysis of the Enigma

Italian signals had been of interest since Italy's attack on Abyssinia in 1935. During the Spanish Civil War the Italian Navy used the K model of the commercial Enigma without a plugboard; this was solved by Dilly Knox in 1937. When Italy entered the war in 1940 an improved version of the machine was used, though little traffic was sent by it and there were "wholesale changes" in Italian codes and cyphers. Knox was given a new section to work on Enigma variations, which he staffed with women, 'Dilly's girls' who included Margaret Rock, Jean Perrin, Clare Harding, Rachel Ronald, Elisabeth Granger; and Mavis Lever[68] – who made the first break into the Italian naval traffic. She solved the signals revealing the Italian Navy's operational plans before the Battle of Cape Matapan in 1941, leading to a British victory. Although most Bletchley staff did not know the results of their work, Admiral Cunningham visited Bletchley in person a few weeks later to congratulate them.[69]

On entering World War II in June 1940, the Italians were using book codes for most of their military messages. The exception was the Italian Navy, which after the Battle of Cape Matapan started using the C-38 version of the Hagelin rotor-based cipher machine, particularly to route their navy and merchant marine convoys to the conflict in North Africa.[70] As a consequence, JRM Butler recruited his former student Bernard Willson to join a team with two others in Hut 4.[71][72] In June 1941, Willson became the first of the team to decode the Hagelin system, thus enabling military commanders to direct the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force to sink enemy ships carrying supplies from Europe to Rommel's Afrika Korps. This led to increased shipping losses and, from reading the intercepted traffic, the team learnt that between May and September 1941 the stock of fuel for the Luftwaffe in North Africa reduced by 90%.[73] After an intensive language course, in March 1944 Willson switched to Japanese language-based codes.[74]

A Middle East Intelligence Centre (MEIC) was set up in Cairo in 1939. When Italy entered the war in June 1940, delays in transferring intercepts to Bletchley via congested radio links resulted in cryptanalysts being sent to Cairo in July and August. A Combined Bureau Middle East (CBME) was set up in November, though the Middle East authorities made "increasingly bitter complaints" that GC&CS was giving too little priority to work on Italian cyphers. However, the principle of concentrating high-grade cryptanalysis at Bletchley was maintained.[75] John Chadwick started cryptanalysis work in 1942 on Italian signals at the naval base 'HMS Nile' in Alexandria. Later he was with GC&CS; in the Heliopolis Museum, Cairo and then in the Villa Laurens, Alexandria.

Russian signals

Russian (Soviet) signals had been studied since the 1920s. In 1939–40 John Tiltman (who had worked on Russian Army traffic from 1930) set up two Russian sections at "Wavendon" (a country house near Bletchley) and at Sarafand in Palestine. Two Russian high-grade army and navy systems were broken. Tiltman spent two weeks in Finland, and got Russian traffic from Finland and Estonia in exchange for radio equipment. In June 1941 when the Soviet Union became an ally, Churchill ordered a halt to intelligence operations against her. In December 1941 the Russian section was closed down, but in late summer 1943 or late 1944 a small GC&CS Russian cypher section was set up in London overlooking Park Lane then in Sloane Square.[76]

Japanese signals

An outpost of the Government Code and Cypher School had been set up in Hong Kong in 1935, the Far East Combined Bureau (FECB). The FECB naval staff moved in 1940 to Singapore, then Colombo, Ceylon, then Kilindini, Mombasa, Kenya. They succeeded in deciphering Japanese codes with a mixture of skill and good fortune.[77] The Army and Air Force staff went from Singapore to the Wireless Experimental Centre at Delhi, India.

In early 1942, a six-month crash course in Japanese, for 20 undergraduates from Oxford and Cambridge, was started by the Inter-Services Special Intelligence School in Bedford, in a building across from the main Post Office. This course was repeated every six months until war's end. Most of those completing these courses worked on decoding Japanese naval messages in Hut 7, under Col. J. Tiltman.

By mid-1945 well over 100 personnel were involved with this operation, which co-operated closely with the FECB and the US Signal intelligence Service at Arlington Hall, Virginia. Because of these joint efforts, by August of that year the Japanese merchant navy was suffering 90% losses at sea.[citation needed] In 1999, Michael Smith wrote that: "Only now are the British codebreakers (like John Tiltman, Hugh Foss, and Eric Nave) beginning to receive the recognition they deserve for breaking Japanese codes and cyphers".[78]

Post war

Continued secrecy

Much of Bletchley's equipment and documents were destroyed at the end of the war,[clarification needed] and the secrecy imposed on Bletchley staff remained in force, so that most relatives never knew more than that a child, spouse, or parent had done some kind of secret war work,[79] or were told a cover story about clerical or statistical work.[citation needed] Churchill referred to the Bletchley staff as "The geese that laid the golden eggs and never cackled".[80]

With the publication of F. W. Winterbotham's The Ultra Secret (1974)[81] public discussion of Bletchley's work finally become possible (thought even today some former staff still consider themselves bound to silence)[82] and in July 2009 the British government announced that Bletchley personnel would be recognised with a commemorative badge.[83]

Site

After the war the site passed through a succession of hands,[84] and saw a number of uses, including as a teacher-training college and local GPO headquarters. By 1991, the site was nearly empty and the buildings were at risk of demolition for redevelopment.

In February 1992 the Milton Keynes Borough Council declared most of the Park a conservation area, and the Bletchley Park Trust was formed to maintain the site as a museum. The site opened to visitors in 1993, and was formally inaugurated by HRH The Duke of Kent, as Chief Patron, in July 1994. In 1999 the Trust concluded an agreement with the landowner, giving control over much of the site to the Trust.[clarification needed][85]

Museum

The rebuilt Bombe (rear)[86]

The Block-B Exhibition Centre houses the main collection relating to the wartime codebreaking efforts, including the rebuilt bombe[87] and the Enigma machine collection, extensive displays relating to wartime codebreaking and espionage generally, and Stephen Kettle's life-size statue (2007) of Alan Turing,[88]

The park is also home to a number of other exhibits.[89]

  • The Mansion
  • Projected Picture Trust – collection of vintage cinema equipment and a small theatre showing World War II-era movie shorts.
  • Toy & Memorabilia Collection – 1930s period toy soldiers, model trains, model vehicles, William Britain's lead farm and garden,[clarification needed] and other toys.
  • Bletchley Park Garage – cars include two 1930s Austins.
  • Bletchley Park Post Office – a re-creation of the 1940s post office used as cover for mail delivered to Bletchley personnel.
  • Diplomatic Wireless Service – original wireless and landline communications equipment as used at Bletchley.
  • Home Front Display exhibits include rationing, evacuation, the Blitz, war-time wash day, and "Make Do & Mend".
  • Maritime Display – features models of both naval and commercial vessels.
  • The American Garden Trail – celebrates the continuing links between the UK and the US which were so important to victory
  • 65th Nachrichten Abtellung – a German World War II Signals Group, depicting a receiving and transmitting station with many items of original equipment, including an Enigma machine.
  • Pigeons at War – tells of the important role played by Britain's 250,000 homing pigeons during the war.
  • Children's Corner

The National Museum of Computing

Main article: The National Museum of Computing
Tony Sale with the rebuilt Colossus computer

The National Museum of Computing, is housed in Block H which it rents from the Bletchley Park Trust. It is an independent voluntary organization that is governed by its own board of trustees. The aim of the museum is “To collect and restore computer systems particularly those developed in Britain and to enable people to explore that collection for inspiration, learning and enjoyment.” [90]

Though its many exhibits,the museum displays the story of computing through the mainframes of the 1960s and 1970s, and the rise of personal computing in the 1980s. Its collection of historic computers includes a working reconstruction of a Colossus computer.[91] The Colossus and Tunny galleries tell an important part of allied breaking of German codes during World War II.

RSGB National Radio Centre

In April 2008 the General Manager of the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) announced that the society was moving its "public headquarters", including its library, radio station, museum and bookshop, to Bletchley Park.[92] Although the RSGB intended to open the "RSGB Pavilion" at the Park in late summer to early autumn 2008, the building allocated to them was beyond economical repair and they decided to construct a new building at a different location in April 2010. The National Radio Centre was officially opened on 11 July 2012[93][94] by Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communication, and Creative Industries.

Funding

In October 2005, American billionaire Sidney Frank donated £500,000 to Bletchley Park Trust to fund a new Science Centre dedicated to Alan Turing.[95] On 24 July 2008 more than a hundred academics signed a letter to The Times condemning the neglect being suffered by the site.[96][97] n September 2008, PGP, IBM, and other technology firms announced a fund-raising campaign to repair the facility.[98] On 6 November 2008 it was announced that English Heritage would donate £300,000 to help maintain the buildings at Bletchley Park, and that they were in discussions regarding the donation of a further £600,000.[99]

In October 2011, the Bletchley Park Trust received a £4.6m Heritage Lottery Fund grant to be used "to complete the restoration of the site, and to tell its story to the highest modern standards.", on the condition that £1.7m of 'match funding' is raised by the Bletchley Park Trust.[100][101] By June 2012 it had successfully raised £2.4m to unlock the grants to restore Huts 3 and 6, as well as develop its exhibition centre in Block C.[102]

Additional income is raised by renting Block H to the National Museum of Computing, and some office space in various parts of the park to private firms.[103][104][105]

German U-boat model used in the film Enigma
  • Bletchley featured heavily in Enigma and its 2001 film adaptation; although filming was done at Chicheley Hall.
  • The Second World War code-breaking sitcom pilot "Satsuma & Pumpkin" was recorded at Bletchley Park in 2003 and featured Bob Monkhouse OBE in his last ever screen role. The BBC declined to produce the show and develop it further before creating effectively the same show on Radio 4 several years later, featuring some of the same cast, entitled Hut 33. Parts of the unseen pilot are to be shown on documentaries about Bob Monkhouse on both ITV & BBC in 2010.[106]
  • The BBC Radio 4 sitcom Hut 33[107] and the play Breaking the Code were also set at Bletchley.
  • The ITV television serial Danger UXB featured the character Steven Mount who was a codebreaker at Bletchley, and was driven to a nervous breakdown (and eventual suicide) by the stressful and repetitive nature of the work.
  • In the BBC's Torchwood series, the character Toshiko Sato is revealed to have had a grandfather who worked at Bletchley Park up until the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan. Whether he continued working there after Japan declared war on the Allies is unknown.
  • A fictionalised version of Bletchley Park is featured in the novel Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.
  • Bletchley came to wider public attention with the 1999 documentary series, Station X.
  • Bletchley Park plays a significant role in the Connie Willis book "All Clear".
  • A mission in the Russian video game Death to Spies: Moment of Truth is called "Bletchley Park". It is set in a partial reconstruction of the actual estate, with certain landmarks and huts carefully reproduced. However, the plot doesn't involve Enigma, which is ironic, since in another mission of the same game the player is tasked with stealing an Enigma machine from a German submarine.
  • The Bletchley Circle (ITV, 2012) is a murder mystery set in 1952, telling a story of how four female former Bletchley code breakers use their skills to track down a serial killer. The opening scene of part one was filmed on-site, and the set was asked to remain there for its close adaption of historiography.[108][109]

See also

References

Notes
  1. ^ Hinsley 1996 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFHinsley1996 (help)
  2. ^ Morrison, p. 89
  3. ^ Edward, Legg (1999), "Early History of Bletchley Park 1235–1937", Bletchley Park Trust Historic Guides, no. 1
  4. ^ Morrison
  5. ^ Morrison, pp. 102–103
  6. ^ McKay 2010, p. 11 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFMcKay2010 (help)
  7. ^ Briggs 2011, p. 1
  8. ^ Aldrich 2010, p. 69
  9. ^ Erskine & Smith 2011, p. 14
  10. ^ Budiansky 2000, p. 112
  11. ^ Hill 2004, pp. 13–23
  12. ^ McKay, Sinclair (26 August 2010), "Telegraph crossword: Cracking hobby won the day – The boffins of Bletchley cut their teeth on the Telegraph crossword", The Telegraph
  13. ^ Briggs 2011, pp. 3–4
  14. ^ Twinn 1993, p. 125
  15. ^ Hodges, Andrew (1992), Alan Turing: The Enigma, London: Vintage, p. 148, ISBN 978-0099116417
  16. ^ Welchman 1997, p. 11
  17. ^ Taunt, Derek, Hut 6: 1941-1945, p. 101 in Hinsley & Stripp 1993, pp. 100–112
  18. ^ Good, Jack, Enigma and Fish, p. 154 in Hinsley & Stripp 1993, pp. 149–166
  19. ^ Tutte, William T. (2006), My Work at Bletchley Park Appendix 4 in Copeland 2006, pp. 352–9
  20. ^ Grey 2012, p. 133
  21. ^ Hill 2004, pp. 62–71
  22. ^ BBC News UK: Saving Bletchley for the nation, 2 June 1999, retrieved 2 February 2011
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  24. ^ Kahn1991, p. 185
  25. ^ Copeland 2004, p. 336
  26. ^ a b Smith 1999, pp. 79, 82 Cite error: The named reference "Smith89P205-6" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
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  42. ^ Some of this information has been derived from The Bletchley Park Trust's Roll of Honour.
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  93. ^ "National Radio Centre Official Opening", RadCom, 88 (8), Radio Society of Great Britain: 12, August 2012
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  95. ^ Action This Day, Bletchley Park News, 28 February 2006
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  98. ^ PGP, IBM help Bletchley Park raise funds
  99. ^ "New lifeline for Bletchley Park", BBC News.
  100. ^ "Bletchley Park wins #pound;4.6m Heritage Lottery Fund grant", BBC News, 5 October 2011
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Bibliography
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