Bletchley Park

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During World War II, codebreakers at Bletchley Park solved messages from a large number of Axis code and cipher systems, including the German Enigma machine. For this purpose, the Bletchley Park mansion, pictured here, was soon joined by a host of other buildings. The mansion's façade is an idiosyncratic mix of architectural styles.

Bletchley Park, also known as Station X, is an estate located in the town of Bletchley, now part of Milton Keynes, England. During World War II, Bletchley Park was the location of the United Kingdom's main codebreaking establishment. Codes and ciphers of several Axis countries were deciphered there, most famously the German Enigma. The high-level intelligence produced by Bletchley Park, codenamed Ultra, is frequently credited with aiding the Allied war effort and shortening the war, although Ultra's effect on the actual outcome of WWII is debated.

Bletchley Park is now a museum and is open to the public.

[edit] Early history

The lands of the Bletchley Park estate were formerly part of the Manor of Eaton, included in the Domesday Book in 1086. Browne Willis built a mansion in 1711, but this was pulled down by Thomas Harrison, who had acquired the property in 1793. The estate was first known as Bletchley Park during the ownership of Samuel Lipscombe Seckham, who purchased it in 1877. The estate was sold on 4 June 1883 to Sir Herbert Samuel Leon (1850–1926), a financier and Liberal MP. Leon expanded the existing farmhouse into the present mansion.^{[1] [2]}

The architectural style is a mixture of Victorian Gothic, Tudor and Dutch Baroque and was the subject of much bemused comment from those who worked there, or visited, during World War II. Leon's estate covered 581 acres (235 hectares), of which Bletchley Park occupied about 55 acres (22 ha). Leon's wife, Fanny, died in 1937,^[3] and in 1938 the site was sold to a builder, who was about to demolish the mansion and build a housing estate. Just in time, Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair, (Director of Naval Intelligence, head of MI6 and founder of the Government Code and Cypher School) bought the site with his own money, having failed to persuade any government department to pay for it.^[4] The fact that Sinclair, and not the Government, owned the site was not widely known until 1991 when the site was nearly sold for redevelopment. The first government visitors to Bletchley Park described themselves as Captain Ridley's shooting party.

The estate was conveniently located on the "Varsity Line" (now largely closed) between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which supplied many of the codebreakers, at its junction with the main West Coast railway line from London. It was also chosen for its proximity to a major road (the A5) to London and to a route for telephone trunk lines.

[edit] Wartime history

The cottages in the stableyard were converted from a tack and feed house. Early work on Enigma was performed here by Dilly Knox, John Jeffreys and Alan Turing. The windows at the top of the tower open into a room used by Turing.

The Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), the intelligence bureau responsible for interception and decryption of foreign transmissions amongst other things, moved into the main house in 1939. A wireless room was set up in the mansion's water tower and given the code name "Station X",^[5] a term now sometimes applied to the codebreaking efforts at Bletchley as a whole. The radio station was soon moved away from Bletchley Park, possibly to divert attention from the site.^{[citation needed]}

Listening stations - the "Y" Stations (such as the ones at Chicksands and Beaumanor Hall, the War Office "Y" Group HQ) - gathered raw signals for processing at Bletchley. Coded messages were taken down by hand and sent to Bletchley on paper or, later, by teleprinter. Bletchley Park is mainly remembered for breaking messages encyphered on the German Enigma cypher machine, but its greatest cryptographic achievement may have been the breaking of the German "Fish" High Command teleprinter cyphers.

The intelligence produced from decrypts at Bletchley was code-named "ULTRA". It contributed greatly to the Allied success in defeating the U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic, and to the British naval victories of Battle of Cape Matapanand the Battle of North Cape.

When the United States joined the war, a number of American cryptographers were posted to Bletchley Park.

The only direct action that the site experienced was a bomb exploding next to the dispatch riders' entrance, shifting the whole of Hut 4 (the Naval Intelligence hut) two metres on its base. The bomb was thought to have been intended for Bletchley railway station.

An outpost of Bletchley Park was set up at Kilindini, Kenya to break and decipher Japanese codes.^[1] With a mixture of skill and good fortune, this was successfully done: the Japanese merchant marine suffered 90 per cent losses by August 1945, a result of decrypts.

[edit] Cryptanalysis

Among the famous mathematicians and cryptanalysts working there, perhaps the most influential and certainly the best-known in later years was Alan Turing.

From 1943, a series of digital electronic computers was constructed in order to break a German teleprinter cipher known as TUNNY. Colossus was designed by Tommy Flowers, and built by the British Post Office's Dollis Hill facility. The machines, named Colossus, were operated at Bletchley Park.

Some 9,000 people were working at Bletchley Park at the height of the codebreaking efforts in January 1945,^[6] and over 10,000 worked there at some point during the war.^[7] A number were recruited for various intellectual achievements, whether they were chess champions, crossword experts, polyglots or great mathematicians. In one, now well known instance, the ability to solve The Daily Telegraph crossword in under 12 minutes was used as a recruitment test. The newspaper was asked to organise a crossword competition, after which each of the successful participants was contacted and asked if they would be prepared to undertake "a particular type of work as a contribution to the war effort". The competition itself was won by F H W Hawes of Dagenham who finished the crossword in less than eight minutes.^[8]

[edit] After the war

At the end of the war, much of the equipment used and its blueprints were destroyed. Although thousands of people were involved in the decoding efforts, the participants remained silent for decades about what they had done during the war, and it was only in the 1970s that the work at Bletchley Park was revealed to the general public. After the war, the site belonged to several owners, including British Telecom, the Civil Aviation Authority^[9] and PACE (Property Advisors to the Civil Estate). GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters), the post-war successor organisation to GC&CS, ended training courses at Bletchley Park in 1987.

By 1991, the site was nearly empty and the buildings were at risk of demolition for redevelopment. On 10 February 1992, Milton Keynes Borough Council declared most of the Park a conservation area. Three days later, on 13 February 1992, the Bletchley Park Trust was formed to maintain the site as a museum devoted to the codebreakers. The site opened to visitors in 1993, with the museum officially inaugurated by HRH the Duke of Kent, as Chief Patron, in July 1994. On 10 June 1999 the Trust concluded an agreement with the landowner, giving control over much of the site to the Trust.^[10]

The Trust is volunteer-based and relies on public support to continue its efforts. The current director of the Trust, Christine Large, was appointed in March 1998. On 1 March 2006, the Park Trust announced that Simon Greenish had been appointed Director Designate, and would work alongside Large in 2006,^[11] taking over on 1 May 2006.

In October 2005, American billionaire Sidney Frank donated £500,000 to Bletchley Park Trust to fund a new Science Centre dedicated to Alan Turing.^[12]

A team headed by Tony Sale has undertaken a reconstruction of a Colossus computer in H block.^[13] Another team has undertaken a rebuild of the bombe, led by John Harper.^[14] On 6 September 2006, the Trust demonstrated^[15] that the Bombe was back in action.

A scale model of a German World War II U-boat, used in the film Enigma and later donated to the Bletchley Park museum.

The Colossus rebuild project is undertaking a reconstruction of a Colossus Mk II computer.

A project to construct a working replica of a bombe is nearing completion.

[edit] Buildings

Hut 1 was the first hut to be constructed.

Hut 4, sited adjacent to the mansion, was used during wartime for naval intelligence. Today, it has been refurbished as a bar and restaurant for the museum.

Hut 6 in 2004.

The huts were designated by numbers; in some cases, the hut numbers became associated as much with the work which went on inside the buildings as with the buildings themselves. Because of this, when a section moved from a hut into a larger building, they were still referred to by their "Hut" code name.

Some of the hut numbers, and the associated work, are:

• Hut 1 — the first hut, built in 1939^[16]
• Hut 3 — intelligence: translation and analysis of Army and Air Force Enigma decrypts
• Hut 4 — Naval intelligence: analysis of Naval Enigma decrypts
• Hut 6 — Cryptanalysis of Army and Air Force Enigma
• Hut 8 — Cryptanalysis Naval Enigma
• Hut 10 — Meteorological section^[17]
• Hut 11 — The first Bombe building^[18]
• Hut 14 — main teleprinter building^[19]

[edit] See also

• List of people associated with Bletchley Park
• Y Service
• Arlington Hall
• National Cryptologic Museum
• Danesfield House

[edit] External links

• Bletchley Park Trust
• Bletchley Park — Virtual Tour — by Tony Sale
• Telecoms at Bletchley Park
• Photographs, history, maps and other information about Bletchley Park
• Codes and Ciphers Heritage Trust
• "New hope of saving Bletchley Park for nation" (Daily Telegraph 3 March 1997)
• 2366 (Bletchley Park)ATC Squadron

[edit] References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Bletchley Park

1. ^ Edward Legg, Early History of Bletchley Park 1235– 1937, Bletchley Park Trust Historic Guides series, No. 1, 1999
2. ^ Keith A. F. Woodward, Welcome to West Bletchley — The Birthplace of the Information Age, site retrieved 23 January 2006.
3. ^ Vaentin Foss "Bletchley Park"
4. ^ Smith, 1998, p. 20
5. ^ Bob Watson, "How the Bletchley Park Buildings Took Shape", Appendix in F. H. Hinsley & A. Stripp, Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park, 1993
6. ^ Smith, 1998, pp. 175-176
7. ^ Smith, 1998, pp. 175-176
8. ^ The Daily Telegraph, "25000 tomorrow" 23rd May 2006
9. ^ BellaOnline "Britain's Best Ket Secret"
10. ^ Bletchley Park Trust "Bletchley Park History"
11. ^ Bletchley Park® Trust Appoints Director Designate, Bletchley Park News, 1 March 2006
12. ^ Action This Day, Bletchley Park News, 28 February 2006
13. ^ Tony Sale "The Colossus Rebuild Project"
14. ^ John Harper "The British Bombe"
15. ^ The Guardian "Back in action at Bletchley Park, the black box that broke the Enigma code."
16. ^ Tony Sale "Bletley Park Tour", Tour 3
17. ^ David Kahn, 1991, Seizing the Enigma, pp. 189-190
18. ^ Tony Sale "Bletley Park Tour", Tour 4
19. ^ Beaumanor & Garats Hay Amateur Radio Society "The operational huts"

Other

• Ted Enever, Britain's Best Kept Scret: Ultra's Base at Bletchley Park, 3rd edition, 1999, ISBN 0-7509-2355-5.
• F. H. Hinsley and Alan Stripp, eds. Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park, Oxford University Press, 1993.
• Christine Large, Hijacking Enigma: The Insider's Tale, 2003, ISBN 0-470-86346-3.
• Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, Enigma: the Battle for the Code, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000.
• Michael Smith, Station X, Channel 4 Books, 1998. ISBN 0-330-41929-3.