Bletchley Park

November 2024

The crews of RAF Bomber Command had one of the most hazardous jobs of the war. Flying by night to their targets in occupied Europe, they were alone and vulnerable to the prowling German night-fighters. 

Helping them reach their targets was one of the least-known, but most significant achievements of the signals intelligence operation at Bletchley Park. Analysis of the night-fighters’ communications revealed priceless insights into the German defensive system – and how it could be evaded, outwitted and ultimately manipulated.

In this ‘It Happened Here’ episode, Bletchley Park Research Officer Dr Thomas Cheetham tells us about one of Bletchley Park’s most important contributions to Britain’s total war against Nazi Germany.

Many thanks to Mr Lindsay Spence for voicing our archival documents.

Image: Herbert Olivier, Operations Room: Bomber Command Conference. Oil on canvas, 1944. From the Collection: Air Historical Branch, MOD, on long loan to the RAF Museum as part of the Second World War Official War Artists’ collection.

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #Enigma, #BomberCommand,

October 2024

The crews of RAF Bomber Command had one of the most hazardous jobs of the war. Flying by night to their targets in occupied Europe, they were alone and vulnerable to the prowling German night-fighters.

Helping them reach their targets was one of the least-known, but most significant achievements of the signals intelligence operation at Bletchley Park. Analysis of the night-fighters’ communications revealed priceless insights into the German defensive system – and how it could be evaded, outwitted and ultimately manipulated.

In this ‘It Happened Here’ episode, Bletchley Park Research Officer Dr Thomas Cheetham tells us about one of Bletchley Park’s most important contributions to Britain’s total war against Nazi Germany.

This episode features the following Veteran from our Oral History archive:

Sir Arthur Bonsall

Many thanks to Dean Annison & Mr Lindsay Spence for voicing our archival documents.

Image: ©Bletchley Park Trust 2024. Staff of Bletchley Park night fighter section in 1943. L-R standing: Pat Smith, Edith Davidson, Janet Smith, Florence Brooke, Vincent Chapman. Seated: Molly Blakeley, Catherine Payne, Brenda Gough. Front: Joy Parker, Jeanne Phillips.

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #Enigma, #BomberCommand,

September 2024

The Government Code and Cypher School employed thousands of people during the war. These varied from Cambridge dons who had broken codes in World War One to machine workers with very specific skills, to female conscripts from the three armed services.

How did all these people know what to do? As usual at BP, the answer is a complex one: a mix of training courses (some well organised, others less so) developed as the organisation grew exponentially as the war progressed.

In this month’s ‘It Happened Here’ episode we are joined by Bletchley Park Historian Dr David Kenyon to explore the varied experiences of new recruits finding out how to do their job – sometimes on an organised course, sometimes learning on the job, and sometimes literally making it up themselves.

This episode features the following Veterans from our Oral History archive:

Betty Webb

Iris King

Joan Joslin

Many thanks to Sarah Langston for voicing our archival documents.

Image: ©Will Amlot for the Bletchley Park Trust 2024

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #Enigma,

August 2024

Hut 6 was the section at Bletchley Park which broke the German army and air force Enigma ciphers. Historical accounts usually focus on the early part of the war, when a small and inexperienced team was established in a newly-built wooden hut.

But by 1944 Hut 6 looked very different. It was a hardened unit of several hundred people, supported by cutting-edge technology. Hut 6 personnel had honed their methods through bitter experience against Enigma ciphers which continued to increase in both number and security.

Recent research into Bletchley Park’s unique collections has revealed more about how this vital section worked. We have discovered how they kept the intelligence production line running despite fighting a daily battle not just against the ciphers, but against the dangers of inefficiency, poor morale and organisational friction.

For this episode Research Officer Dr Thomas Cheetham is joined by Bletchley Park digitisation volunteer (and all-round brainbox) Craig Heath to take a detailed look inside Hut 6.

Many thanks to Sarah Langston and Joel Desborough for voicing our archival documents.

Image: ©The Registration Room in Hut 6, Block D. Reproduced by kind permission, Director GCHQ.

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #Enigma,

July 2024 

In early 1942 one of the most disastrous defeats of the war saw British forces pushed out of Burma, now known as Myanmar. Two years later, the multi-national Fourteenth Army, the ‘Forgotten Army’, had learned to fight and beat the Japanese, inflicting their largest defeat of the war at Imphal and Kohima, and was poised to begin the reconquest of Burma.

This turnaround had much to do with bitter experience gained in close combat, and superb logistics, but an important element was detailed intelligence, which allowed the Allies to seize control of the skies and control the battle below. 

In this ‘It Happened Here’ episode, Research Officer Dr Thomas Cheetham leads us through the transformations at Bletchley Park, at signals intelligence centres in South-East Asia, and on the front lines, which turned defeat into victory.

This episode features the following from our Oral History archive:

Pat Johnston

Stephen Freer

Edward Simpson

Mary Every

Eric Rhodes

Image: © The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force (Public Domain)

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2,

June 2024 

 

To commemorate the 80th Anniversary of D-Day, we are releasing 3 special episodes to tell the full story of The Longest Day. This third part is a brand new episode looking beyond the beaches.

Bletchley Park made a vital contribution to the planning and preparation of D-Day, but the landings were only the beginning. There would be another three months of hard fighting in Normandy before the German forces finally cracked, and France could be liberated.

Ultra intelligence from Bletchley Park gave crucial support to Allied commanders throughout the battle. But knowledge rarely translated directly into action. Those generals and airmen faced with the mammoth task of orchestrating a modern all-arms battle had to balance numerous competing priorities, of which intelligence was rarely the most important.

In this episode, Research Officer Dr Thomas Cheetham has delved into the detail of five turning points, to explore exactly how – and how far – Bletchley Park contributed to Allied victory in the Battle of Normandy.

Many thanks to Joel Desborough for playing the part of our RAF SLU Officer.

Image: ©Bletchley Park Trust 2024

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #D-Day80,

June 2024 

 

To commemorate the 80th Anniversary of D-Day, we will be releasing 3 special episodes to tell the full story of The Longest Day. This second part is a complete remastering of our original Overlord episode with the addition of much new content.

80 years ago today, more than 150,000 Allied troops were boarding planes, gliders and landing craft as they prepared to invade Fortress Europe in Operation Overlord, the Normandy Invasion. Meanwhile, 200 miles away in the Buckinghamshire countryside the Codebreakers of GC&CS were also ready and waiting. 

Naval Section spent the day decrypting German messages and forwarding that vital intelligence to Allied commanders, in many cases only two and a half hours after the German operators had sent them.

 

Today at Bletchley Park our Archive holds hundreds of these handwritten decrypts and using a selection of these we tell the story of The Longest Day. Our Research Officer, Dr Thomas Cheetham & Research Historian, Dr David Kenyon will be your guides, with the help of 12 of our Veterans’ memories from that eventful day.

This episode features the following from our Oral History archive:

Margaret Bryant

Colette Cook

Jean Tocher

Pat Davies

Norah Brierley

Eric Dodd

Stanley Clegg

Kenneth Case

Gordon Rosenberg

Jimmy Thirsk

Aileen Hasdell

Pam Harding

Many thanks to Dr Ben Thomson for voicing our archival documents.

Image: ©Bletchley Park Trust 2024

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #D-Day80,

May 2024 

 

Over the next 6 weeks, to commemorate the 80th Anniversary of D-Day, we will be releasing 3 special episodes to tell the full story of The Longest Day. This first part is a complete remastering of our original Tide of Victory episode with the addition of much new content.

This first episode takes us to the south coast of Britain which, in May 1944, resembled one huge army camp as over 2 million men waited for D-Day. In the Buckinghamshire countryside the staff at GC&CS carried on feeding detailed and crucial intelligence to the Allied forces that would play an integral part in the success of the upcoming Operation Overlord.

The Western Front Committee was established at Bletchley Park in October 1942 and for the next 18 months built up a comprehensive picture of German forces in the West, recording every unit, its location and its strength. 

From February 1943 the committee began to produce reports of which over 450 pages are now held in our archives. Head of Content, Erica Munro and our Research Historian, Dr David Kenyon use these to illustrate how the various departments, using multiple sources, came together to create the vital information that the D-Day planners needed, in some cases even leading to last minute changes. Meanwhile our Research Officer, Dr Thomas Cheetham brings us the full story of a temporary Y Station set up at Bletchley Park just for D-Day.

This episode features the following from our Oral History archive:

Vera Bartram

Pat Davies

Edna Garbutt

Enid Wenban

Many thanks to Dr Ben Thomson for voicing our archival documents.

Image: ©Bletchley Park Trust 2024

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #D-Day80,

April 2024

Women were the backbone of Bletchley Park during World War Two. At its peak in January 1945, the workforce was 75% female, but even at the start of the war, women comprised a significant portion of GC&CS’s numbers. Women were recruited in a variety of ways, but a significant quantity of them, particularly early in the war, were selected direct from prominent universities such as Oxford, St Andrews and Cambridge.

Over the last few years, a team of members of Newnham College Cambridge have been researching the women from their college who worked at Bletchley Park and in other wartime roles. They have discovered, astonishingly, more than 70 students and alumnae were recruited to BP. After close collaboration with the team at Bletchley Park Trust, a new exhibition presents their findings and reveals some hidden histories.

In this episode, recorded at Newnham College, Bletchley Park’s Head of Content, Erica Munro, meets the three women behind this new research and we visit the exhibition to find out more about their discoveries. Dr Sally Waugh, Dr Gill Sutherland and Newnham College Archivist Frieda Midgley share what they’ve uncovered, and what surprised them, about the Newnham women who worked at Bletchley Park.

This episode features our Oral History recordings of three of those Newnham women:

Sister St. Paul

Elisabeth, Lady Reed

Mrs Brenda Lang

Image: Reproduced with the permission of Dr John Clarke via Kerry Howard from her research into the life of Joan Clarke.

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #Newnham,

March 2024

Bletchley Park is famous as the home of World War 2 codebreaking. But what was there before the Government Code and Cypher School moved in? Who built Bletchley Park, and what remains of the pre-war country estate?

In this episode, Research Historian Dr David Kenyon and Head of Content Erica Munro examine the people who made Bletchley Park their home prior to World War 2. Sir Herbert Leon and his family bought, expanded and lived in the now-familiar Mansion, stamping their individual style on the design of the building and the estate. Surviving historical records shed an intriguing light on the Leons, their philanthropy, interests and impact on the local community.

We also hear from Professor Abigail Green of Brasenose College, Oxford University, an expert on Jewish Country Houses, to discover more about the social context of the family who ‘made’ Bletchley Park.

Image: ©Bletchley Park Trust 2024

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2,