Codebreaker: Bletchley Park's Lost Heroes

[Milosh]

This was on TVO this evening.

The extraordinary, but previously hidden, story of a British engineer, Tommy Flowers, and a talented British mathematician, Bill Tutte. Tutte's codebreaking skill, and the engineering genius of Flowers, gave rise to Colossus, the world's first programmable computer. Tutte is revealed as having been responsible for what experts have described as the single most important intellectual feat of World War Two - without this work, D Day would never have happened. Tutte broke a code ten times tougher than Enigma and, with a handful of brilliant men, allowed Churchill to 'hack in' to Hitler's own hotline, win the War and usher in the age of computers. Tutte's breathtaking genius was exploited by an amazing array of talent at Bletchley Park (the UK's top secret intelligence base) who then broke into Hitler's own communications network, changing the War and the world.

Well worth watching.

 

[nuuumannn]

Interesting, Milosh. There's quite a few good books out there on Bletchley, Station X and Action This Day both by Michael Smith; well worth getting hold of.

 

[davebender]

The real lost heroes are analysts who piece together intelligence estimates using aerial recon reports, ground recon reports, radio traffic analysis (not necessarily code breaking), acoustic reports (very common for German units along channel coast) etc.

 

[nuuumannn]

How much do you actually know about the code breakers? It's a fascinating story. When you are in the UK next, go to Bletchley Park; it's open as a museum.

The real lost heroes are analysts who piece together intelligence estimates using aerial recon reports, ground recon reports, radio traffic analysis (not necessarily code breaking), acoustic reports (very common for German units along channel coast) etc.

I don't think these men and women are 'lost heroes'; on the contrary, their efforts are very much valued and recognised in Britain. In terms of the British intel departments, all these were covered in different areas, photographic interpreters, sigint operators, intel officers of each branch of the forces and intelligence agencies. There was no central agency for processing of this information. Code breaking was different to PI work, for example, but differed little to interpretation of sigint info, but were in different departments. If you are interested in RAF PI work there are plenty of reference sources. Google Constance Babington-Smith for starters; her book Evidence in Camera examines the work of the RAF's Photographic Interpretation Unit, for scientific intel, the head of British Intel was Dr R.V. Jones - his book Most Secret War is a fascinating look at the intel war.

There has recently been a book published called GCHQ about Britain's intelligence agency and covers a lot of the work of the different intel agencies - a terrific read.

 

[Milosh]

An interesting tidbit that came out in the program was that British Intelligence gave to Soviets the complete OoB for the Kursk offensive.

Found it on utube,


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF48sl15OCg

 

[nuuumannn]

Fascinating, Milosh. I read that the Brits supplied the Soviets with a lot of intel during the war, but the reciprocal flow was almost non-existent.