Bletchley Park
Background on Bletchley Park
In the summer of 1939, at a hidden location fifty miles outside London, a small team of codebreakers made their new home at Bletchley Park. They were tasked with the seemingly insurmountable job of breaking the backbone of German military and intelligence communications: the Enigma cipher.
During World War II, the German military used the Enigma and Lorenz machines to encode their secure messages. In the eyes of the Germans, the odds of the enemy breaking their new code were a staggering 150,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1. But breaking the code is what the codebreakers at Bletchley did; this accomplishment would later be known as one of the greatest intellectual achievements of the twentieth century.
Bletchley played host to a diverse group of codebreakers, including Alan Turing and Dilly Knox. The codebreakers devised methods to successfully read enemy codes, often within a few hours of the messages being received. New technology was invented to automate the deciphering of messages. Colossus, the world's first semi-programmable computer, was invented at Bletchley Park to aid the decoding of secret messages.
Britain's best-kept secret played a major role in winning World War II. Bletchley Park had some 10,000 people working around the clock, but managed to keep it a secret from almost everyone. Bletchley Park was the largest codebreaking establishment the world had ever seen. The full impact of Bletchley Park would not emerge for at least thirty years after the war had ended.
Why did we go there?
Being where the WWII codebreaking actually happened was a special experience, and I learned a great deal from the information provided by our guides.
Some of the weeks leading up to the memorable London trip were spent learning about the internal workings of Bletchley Park. We got a strong feeling of the urgency Bletchley held in the outcome of World War II. Being able to experience first-hand all that is Bletchley Park helped us form an appreciation for the dedication and perseverance of all those involved in the code breaking. Our world today, as we know it, would be completely different had the cryptologists failed in their attempt to foil certain encrypted communications.
Our tour guide, Frank Carter, was able to impart details to the group that only an expert on Bletchley Park would notice. While we learned a great deal in class, there were many good exhibits that imparted such great knowledge not possible to learn in a classroom. There was a thorough display about Winston Churchill which chronicled his life and included many of his possessions, influences, and passions.
We were able to take a close look at the machines used in the breaking of codes and our professor, Suzanne Gladfelter, even was able to bring back some vacuum tubes actually used in a Colossus machine. The organization in charge of the upkeep of Bletchley Park was so thorough in their meticulous efforts to show realism that there were even volunteers acting the part of Germans, in full uniform, at a full-sized diorama of a German communications bunker. The actors were happy to answer any questions we presented and even posed for a few pictures.
All in all, it was an informative and memorable trip that may be available only once in a life time, if at all.
- Dave Merson and Amanda Whittles
