Talk:Bletchley Park

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Contents 1 troubling claims 2 status of Colossus as first xxx computer, esp in re Zuse 3 hut, hut, hike 4 Rumours 5 Link error?

[edit] troubling claims

There are rather a lot of errors in some recent edits. I have corrected some of these, but am merely suspicious about others (such as the tunnel claims). Someone with direct knowledge of Bletchley should review some of the statements made. As of this date, this is an unsatisfactory article due to the (possibly) erronious content which remains.

ww 13:56, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

ww -- could you point out the statements about which you have suspicions (perhaps copying them to this talk page)? Even if they turn out to be completely accurate, it would be good to have sources... — Matt 09:55, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Matt, Wilco. As below, noted with **xyz** -- from article.

Bletchley Park has been credited variously with shortening the war by two years (possible due its contributions during the Battle of the Atlantic, but distinctly controversial), with **ending the bombing of Pearl Harbour** (impossible) by sending information of the **location of Yamamoto the head of the Japanese Combined Fleet ** (quite a dubious claim as the information which led to his death came from breaks into JN-25 largely by USN cryptanalysts). **Montgomery would often talk of how the code-breaking efforts of Bletchley Park enabled him to 'know what the Jerries [Germans] are having for breakfast'.**

Strongly suspect none of these stand up apart from the Battle of the Atlantic where the contribution of BP was critical; it's arguable it legthened the war because otherwise the Germans would have won! The main identifiable other credits to BP are the sea battles of Matapan and the north Cape. Chris R 23:24, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

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 Park in 1939. The radio station that was constructed in the park for its use was given the codename "Station X", a term often erroneously applied to the code-breaking efforts at Bletchley as a whole. Station X was soon moved south to Whaddon Hall, to divert attention from the Bletchley site itself. **To further the disguise of Bletchley Park, it was built to appear as a hospital from above to deter bombing by German planes. However, a bomb was dropped next to the despatch 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.

Hate the heading "Before Station X" as I've never seen any serious reference to BP as "Station X" until the TV series of that name (UK). Where does the stuff about the X coming from the Roman numeral come from? I always assumed it was related to the "Y" stations (intercept stations) that collected the encrypted messages and passed them to BP, but I've no confirmation for that. I've not heard the hospital story before (what would you do to make a complex like BP look like a hospital from the air) and the "however" is a non-sequitur - the bomb did not hit because of the failure of the hospital disguise. Chris R 23:24, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Now deleted the Station X reference in the introduction as unnecesarily prominent, and the Roman numerla X piece, since Bletchley Park's own website says "the Park was given the cover name Station X, being the tenth of a large number of sites acquired by MI6 for its wartime operations", contradicting any link to the radio station. Does anyone have any evidence taht anyone called it Station X, pronounced as letter X, before the Chanel Four documentary? If it were a numeral it would be called "Station Ten". I suspect that Channel 4 seized on it a snappy name for its series. Also changed the references to Y Stations which implied that the BP radio station carried out direct signal intercepts (the job of the Y Stations) - no evidence for that. Why are these particular Y Stations mentioned? --Cyclopaedic 11:27, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I've readded a bold "Station X" into the lead section, simply because it's now a popular term for BP, and it's customary to list synonyms there. I don't know how popular it was before Channel 4, though, and I don't disagree with your edit. I don't know about mentioning particular Y stations, but a paragraph or so describing BP's relationship with the Y service would be a good thing to have. — Matt Crypto 11:42, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

**The codebreakers would enter the park by coach or train, and it is rumoured that there was a series of inter-connecting tunnels and chambers below Bletchley Park that allowed workers to get in secretly. It is also rumoured that one tunnel, which started in the Park grounds and emerged in the local pub, was for the use of Winston Churchill. It is also said that Eisenhower and Churchill had a meeting in one of the rumoured chambers.**

You can't enter BP by train, although the station is next door. I suspect most workers arrived on foot or bicycles, although many were billeted some distance away. The tunnels staff sounds like rubbish to me. Why would Churchill need his own tunnel? Chris R 23:24, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I know, and have learned, absolutely nothing about the history of the place prior to Leon. All of this in the article may be spot on, but ???

ww 17:06, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] status of Colossus as first xxx computer, esp in re Zuse

Because of the importance of Bletchley Park for the field of Computer Science someone should correct the statement where it sais the Collossos was the world's first programmable computer. That information is incorrect - the earlier success of Konrad Zuse in building a fully electronic computer (Z1, Z2, Z3) were largeley ignored in Nazi Germany. I think that information is especially interesting in relation to Batchley Park, because Germany apparently had access to superior technology for cryptography at the time - luckily didn't realize it!

I am not so sure about this. Wikipedia says that Colossus was the first programmable electronic computer, whereas the Zuse machines were based on telephone relays and were therefore electrical, not electronic. -- Heron 16:21, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Heron, You are correct. The article claims (or at least claimed when I last reviewed carefully) that Colossus was the first 1) electronic, 2) programmable 3) digital computer. Vannevar Bush's analog computers were neither electronic nor digital, but pre-dated Colossus. The ABC machine was electronic but not programmable, and pre-dated Colossus. The Zuse and Stibitz (Bell Labs) relay machines were not electronic and were (variably) programmable, but pre-dated Colossus. Babbage's Analytical Engine design was digital and programmable but not electronic, and well pre-dated Colossus. It is the combination of points that is the unique priority for Colossus. ww 20:44, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thank you, ww. Our article "History_of_computing_hardware" has more details, for anyone who wants to follow this up. -- Heron 08:03, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

A later note. After reviewing Colossus material in great detail (to far more depth than we have in our article), I would not describe Colossus as "programmable", at least in anything like the sense we now think of the word.

For one, there was no program, in the sense of an algorithm, with transfers of control, especially conditional transfers. The commonly-reported line about Colossus having some conditional testing is true only in a very limited sense; at the end of each pass of the tape loop, it could compare the contents of counters with pre-set values (in switches), and would print or not print the totals in the counters if they exceeded the preset values.

All Colossus could do, really, was read paper tape, perform certain plug-selected binary operations on one or more of the bits of each frame read from the tape (usually only 2 channels out of 5 were looked at), and depending on the output of that binary function, increment counters. That's all. It was really incredibly specialized to the job of doing statistical analyses on the key/cipher stream of the Tunny cipher.

The novelty of Colossus lies in the technology, more than the architecture: it was certainly the first large-scale electronic digital device, and thereby had a great influence on post-WWII computer development in the UK (since many of the leading lights in that field, such as Newman and Turing, were intimately associated with Colossus). Noel (talk) 04:11, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

One other thing: It's saying "citation needed" for the claim that the crypto research at Bletchley was comparable to the Manhattan Project in impact. This is prima facie evident. Without the crypto research at Bletchley, there would have been no Manhattan Project. Furthermore, Turing's work is the foundation of all modern computer science.

I do think it needs a citation — at least IMHO (for whatever that's worth!) it's not really prima facie evident. It's not at all clear to me why Ultra was necessary for the Manhatten Project to have succeeded, for example. Also, Turing's work may indeed be the foundation of compsci, but it's not the crypto work he did at Bletchley. From what I've been reading recently, Turing's contribution to Colossus has been much overstated. It would seem he had little, if any, involvement in Colossus. — Matt Crypto 17:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] hut, hut, hike

Matt, I can't pretend to remember the Hut numbering, but the one I seem to remember is Hut Six. It's the title of Welchman's book, after all. That implies that Six was responsible for Naval Engima, not as the list is now Army and AirForce variants. Since you've clearly gotten this from a list, could there have been a list - brain - fingers obscuration. Appropriate for the crypto corner, eh?, but confusing to the non-cryptiac.

So, Six or not Six, that is ... never mind... ww 14:57, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Welchman's own book says (pp. 58) that Hut 6 "decoded .. mostly army and air force traffic", and Hut 8 did "decodes of the German navy's Enigma traffic". So I'm not sure what led you to your idea above that Welchman worked on naval Enigma. Noel (talk) 23:20, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The list was amalgamated from a couple of online sources (one was http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/bletchleypark/tour4.htm). It seems that huts 6 and 3 were paired and dealt with army and air force traffic; 6 did the codebreaking while 3 housed the intelligence analysts. Similarly Huts 8 and 4 were paired for Naval Enigma. — Matt 22:57, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Rumours

I've moved the following rumours here for now:

Does anyone have a source for these rumours? I haven't come across them after reading a number of BP books, so I'm not even sure these are notable enough to include, but I'm willing to be proved wrong! — Matt 20:23, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The rumours of tunnels for Churchill were alive in 1982; we spent many hours searching for them in Block B, without success, but with some likely places - the drying room in the basement appeared to have a blocked off area, and a vertical blocked tunnel close to the GCHQ building facing part of Block B.

[edit] Link error?

Comment only: on the list of people associated with Bletchley Park: I think you've linked Hugh Alexander to the wrong chap: the Hugh Alexander at Bletchley was C. H. O'D. Alexander, an outstanding English chess player, later - among other things - chess correspondent of the Sunday Times (in which capacity he once sent me a nice letter).

Brian Palmer 137.195.14.158 14:23, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting that. I've whipped up a short entry on C.H. O'D. Alexander, although it doesn't include any of his achievements in chess. — Matt Crypto 15:48, 28 September 2005 (UTC)