Bletchley Park

[tree monkey]

I have only one thing to say about Bletchley Park:

 

 

Pigeons at War

 

 

That is all.

I loved the place, it's just so English run by volunteers who it appears are allowed almost free run to let their inner geeks out to play.

A shed full of model trains

a shed full of model ships

a shed full of toys

I am sure there was more geekery that I missed it is a lovely place

 

All of the above of course meant with warmth and no derision

 

Plus of course the whole code breaking history of the place was humbling

[Hawthorn]

For anyone who has been inspired to find out a bit more about the strategic importance of this part of England during WW2 you might enjoy a recent book by Paul Brown, The Secrets of Q Central: How Leighton Buzzard Shortened the Second World War. This book suggests that Bletchley Park was just an outpost, and that none of the top brass really expected that the secrets of enigma would be cracked, so the film probably got that bit right, in that Turig was tolerated rather than encouraged. If anyone has cruised the Wendover Arm, think how close that is to RAF Halton, the air base to which the US President flies. Just a few miles from Chequers. It's rumoured that there is a network of bunkers under the Chiltern hills in the Wendover area.

[Arthur Brown]

There is so much about Bletchley and codebreaking that wasn't mentioned in the film that the film wasn't realistic in any way, but it's still a good film.

 

Probably the only way to get a handle on the complexity of the establishment is to read several of the books by learned authors -which are usually to be found in the Bletchley gift shop. I don't think that the premise from the film that the codebreakers would determine which decrypts to diseminate was true, every piece of intelligence had a cover source before they used it -aircraft were sent out to look in an area where intel had already been found.

[LEO]

For anyone who has been inspired to find out a bit more about the strategic importance of this part of England during WW2 you might enjoy a recent book by Paul Brown, The Secrets of Q Central: How Leighton Buzzard Shortened the Second World War. This book suggests that Bletchley Park was just an outpost, and that none of the top brass really expected that the secrets of enigma would be cracked, so the film probably got that bit right, in that Turig was tolerated rather than encouraged. If anyone has cruised the Wendover Arm, think how close that is to RAF Halton, the air base to which the US President flies. Just a few miles from Chequers. It's rumoured that there is a network of bunkers under the Chiltern hills in the Wendover area.

 

Sorry, RAF Halton has a grass air strip and security at the base was/is a nightmare.

 

Chequers - very difficult to secure, has been visited by US presidents in post war years, and Bresnev (Russian premier) has visited and had a drink at a local pub (the Bernard Arms).

 

Bunkers (bonkers more like) near Wendover - no, there is however a large complex of Bunkers at RAF Naphill near High Wycombe, still operational.

 

I have lived in the Wendover area all my life and used to date Waafs at Halton and Chequers (when it was the RAF's time to provide cover) - gave up in the end as they were 'hard work'.

 

My Aunt worked at Bletchley during the war, but we never knew until a few years ago - such was the hold of the Official Secrets Act (which as a Civil Servant of 2 years standing 1968/70, I signed).

 

All good fun - Leighton Buzzard and Linslade found wartime fame as the railway tunnels there were bombed to try and block the West Coast line.

 

Bearing in mind the number of people employed at Bletchley Park it must have been some outpost.

 

L.

[kbarber]

I think both are right about the 'can't read after midnight' one. The rotors were changed at midnight and messages sent after that time couldn't be read until that days intercepts had been cracked. As much Enigma traffic was tactical, there was a need to read it ASAP and certainly much of it would have gone cold after a couple of days. Not that they wouldn't be able to read it if they'd a mind to, more that there was no longer any point, unless they struck lucky with a message that was still useful.

 

There is much about the film that is there purely for dramatic effect. Including the 'romance' between Turing and Joan Clarke. In reality, she knew about his homosexuality from the beginning and it was far from uncommon, in those days, for a gay man to marry and have children (that was his 'duty' done) then live whatever life he/they worked out. (That was obviously much easier for the well-to-do who could afford the pied-a-terre and needed to 'stay in town for work' than for the working class man who had nowhere to go but the local cottage.) In Turing's case the reality, as I understand it, was that having assumed for some time he would do his duty and started to set up a marriage accordingly, he changed his mind (perhaps decided he would be more comfortable not living that particular lie) and broke off the engagement.

 

It is certainly untrue to say that 'cracking Enigma was neither difficult nor significant...' Yes, early versions of the machine were commercially available. But the versions in use by 1939 were significantly improved. The 'routine and mundane' communications they were used for were in fact vital information - detailed orders for troop movements, Kreigsmarine orders to U-boats, complaints about what ammunition a unit was short of. So aerial photos that required huge amounts of interpretation and occasional snippets from an agent somewhere were replaced by a detailed picture of everything going on at a tactical level. You might not know, from Enigma intercepts, what the C-in-C's underlying thinking was. But you'd know exactly where he'd deployed every unit, down to platoon level, so could dispose your own forces accordingly.

 

It's true that the Poles did a huge amount of the early spadework on Enigma and their contribution (and heroism) should be remembered. But the (plans for the) Bombe only got things so far. It needed the Bletchley Park modifications and the breakthrough that is included in the film (the daily weather reports and always signing off 'Heil Hitler') for Enigma to be cracked, after which (as Hodges puts it), the allies had access to industrial quantities of intelligence information.

 

Lorenz wasn't part of Turing's work, it was dealt with by another group entirely. But that takes nothing form Turing's achievement or contribution. There can be no doubt that the approach he pioneered was used by the group working on Lorenz and certainly Colossus was the first electronic realisation of the 'Universal Machine' described in his paper of 1936.

 

The film is supposedly based on Andrew Hodges' book 'Alan Turing: The Enigma'. There were rumours that Hodges was on the verge of repudiating his connection with it as a result of the numerous inaccuracies, all of which were introduced purely for dramatic effect. I think he didn't do so in the end but there is a bit of a health warning - this is not history, it's drama. Hodges himself is a mathematician (now an Oxford don) and was an early gay activist. He acknowldges that the book emerges from his connection with the gay movement. But it doesn't overblow Turing's sexuality (though it doesn't hide it either) and I found it an excellent read. It's on sale in the Bletchley Park bookshop.

 

So far as Bletchley Park itself is concerned, I'd say allocate a whole day and go! It's an amazing place. It's full of stories of those desperate times and, quite frankly, they don't need to be overdramatised - in fact, to my mind, the real drama is the contrast between the dedicated academics in their ivory tower and the blood & thunder of the world outside. (Though I do acknowledge that doesn't make good cinematic blockbuster material.) We enjoyed every minute we had there and we'd happily go back and spend another full day there. Can't recommend it too highly.

[WJM]

This bit was correct- you have to know the daily rotor settings that are used before you can encipher a message- ........ These did change at midnight, and at times during the blackouts of various traffics it was impossible to discover the daily settings within the 24 hour period.

 

The movie suggests (says categorically) that at midnight all the preceding day's work was lost. Turing is shown going home dejected at midnight on an unsuccessful day. This is inaccurate, they could keep working as long as they like on the intercepted messages long after the midnight rotor change. Yesterday's rotor setting remained yesterday's setting and it was still possible to crack it days, weeks, months, years later. Detecting the rotor settings was not done 'live', in real time. It was done on a single intercepted transmission, and when it was cracked it gave access to that entire day's transmission.

 

It would be possible for someone to take a 1940s transmission and crack it today.

Edited April 1, 2015 by WJM

[Arthur Brown]

"useless at midnight" is a cinematic device! Geeks of the highest order used to take pages of code and work out the key by hand initially, most was outdated when cracked but there was a manual crack method.

 

After the solution of naval (four rotor) enigma, Alan Turing went on to develop the abstract theory behind the system used for decryption of the "fish" messages, leading to the theory that Tommy Flowers turned into the Collosus machine.

[DHutch]

As said, good FILM not DOCUMENTARY. Would have been nice for it to be a little closer to the facts, particularly as they are not that widely know. But that's life sadly.

 

Daniel

[WJM]

 

It is certainly untrue to say that 'cracking Enigma was neither difficult nor significant...'

 

 

Lorenz wasn't part of Turing's work, it was dealt with by another group entirely. But that takes nothing form Turing's achievement or contribution. There can be no doubt that the approach he pioneered was used by the group working on Lorenz and certainly Colossus was the first electronic realisation of the 'Universal Machine' described in his paper of 1936.

 

I should have appended that statement with 'relative to the Lorenz machine'

 

You are correct, in my mind I was attributing the cracking of Lorenz to the Bletchly Park team, and inaccurately including Turing. But Turing had set the scene, created the possibility.

 

 

 

I wish they had made the movie about an imaginary man called John Smith. Then there would not have been the challenge of trying to align the real Alan Turing with the total fantasy of the screen play. Or better still, if they were to use the Turing name then why not include some real stories about him!

"useless at midnight" is a cinematic device! Geeks of the highest order used to take pages of code and work out the key by hand initially, most was outdated when cracked but there was a manual crack method.

 

After the solution of naval (four rotor) enigma, Alan Turing went on to develop the abstract theory behind the system used for decryption of the "fish" messages, leading to the theory that Tommy Flowers turned into the Collosus machine.

Good comments Arthur.

 

What essentially happened at Bletchley Park was high speed automation of mental processes. At Bletchley the mental process of the codebreakers met with the mechanical skills of the Post Office - and machines that could do 'thinking tasks' were created.

[Arthur Brown]

Apart from classic codebreaking (informed guesswork!) the main entry point was the message start settings sent twice. If the rotors were set at ABC for the firs letters of the message, then ABCABC was coded and sent, and this could be any six letters BUT things could be found from the fact that letters MUST be encoded as a different letter.

 

Later messages were prefixed with the rotor order only sent once this was where the mechanised, electric and electronic methods came to the fore.

 

In the film someone is seen using "Banbury sheets" this was another method to get a foothold into messages, but it was never detailed in the film.

 

Messages were sometimes worked on for months because information could be tied to other intel received to tell where units were moving up to the front, or back for R&R,

 

LOTS of very good docus on youtube about enigma and collossus.