Page 62 - Phonebox Magazine November 2014

The secret’s out and it’s hidden away in Bletchley...
Gently pushing on a door marked with the number 3, I’m greeted with a long empty corridors. Worrying I might interrupt
someone, I listen to the sound of office workers chatting and laughing, striding across the wooden floorboards or furiously typing into their machines.
Stepping into the first room, I’m greeted with sparse office with a desk, typewriter and filing cabinets. I jump at the hologram of a young woman chatting in the corner, sharply remembering I’m in the 21st century and thankful that no-one had seen my genuine surprise.
It’s early on a murky Tuesday morning and Hut 3, a plain and unassuming shed- like building, has enormous historical significance. It was in this very building that German Army and Air Force coded messages were translated and analysed. Countless lives were saved as a result of what happened in these dark rooms. Thanks to a £8million Heritage Lottery Fund, the home of the WW2 code breakers and Buckinghamshire’s most iconic heritage site has been transformed. It was even formally opened by the Duchess of Cambridge in June (whose grandmother worked as a code breaker there).
Many historians estimate that the code breakers’ efforts shortened the war by up to two years, saving thousands, maybe even millions, of lives. Love your iPhone or laptop? You may not have them without Bletchley Park, which is where the world’s first electronic computers were installed and operated.
The historical significance of the site is unprecedented, but what actually went on there is still a mystery to most.
The enemy – A German Enigma machine.
Breaking the unbreakable
In 1938, the British Government chose the rural Bletchley Park as the perfect location to house its new code breaking efforts, the Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS), in a quiet rural location easily reached from London, Cambridge and Oxford (where the young mathematicians of the day were attending university). Hitler and the Nazi regime were making their presence known in Europe, and not long before Poland was invaded, a secret meeting was held in a forest near Warsaw. Having spent months trying to break the German code, created by the Enigma machine, the Polish intelligence service handed over everything they knew to the British and French in the hope they would further their work. Later on, the Germans also developed the Lorenz cipher.
Enigma had 159,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible combinations and it was considered unbreakable, but it didn’t stop them trying. When war was announced in August 1939, Bletchley Park needed intelligent minds
Spy School – It’s estimated that the work at Bletchley Park shortened the war by two years.
to help. Personal networking drove early recruitments for cryptographers, particularly graduates from Cambridge and Oxford. Women were recruited for clerical jobs, but by the end of the war they took up 60% of the work force. Wrens (Women’s Royal Naval Service) were vital in running the Bombe machines which helped decipher messages. One particular 1941 recruiting drive saw The Daily Telegraph organize a crossword competition. Afterwards, promising contestants were discreetly approached to help with the war effort...
Nurturing creative minds
The site itself was designed to look like a university campus, with a lake in the middle that became the place of many a romantic liaison between colleagues. One woman who worked at Bletchley Park estimated that nearly everyone there was in their twenties and that many flourished in the unique environment that encouraged creativity and lateral thinking, regardless of any social expectations.
Class and military systems were left behind, and it was even known that those with hay fever would sit with gas masks on so they could enjoy the outdoors too. Four children even lived on site with their parents, as their father was in charge of Bletchley Park’s transport (at its peak, between 30-40,000 miles were travelled each week by drivers who picked up workers from across the Buckinghamshire countryside).
Staff received initial training at the Inter- Service Special Intelligence School (initially at an RAF depot in Buckingham and later
The mansion – The site was perfect because it was close to London and major universities.
62 Phonebox Magazine