'Station X'-The Story of Bletchley Park |
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| Part 1- The keys to the Reich- | ||||||
| This told the early beginnings of code breaking at Bletchley
Park, from when the Mansion was purchased in 1938, leading to the gathering
of crossword addicts, mathematicians and a large cross section of men
and women of various ages who were to intercept and later decode the morse
code messages which were originated by the network of Enigma machines.
Intercepts of German messages were received by numerous Y stations throughout
the world and the newly formed Station X (call sign) of the installation
at BP.
The programme gave an insight into how the Enigma machine, by a use of rotor wheels and a 26 letter plug-board, could produce a 150 million, million, million combinations. It was discovered that the mapping of the keyboard to the entry rotor was in the sequence ABCD and that the German's use of double indicator encryption, lead to the first stage of code breaking using the 'Jeffries Sheets' to determine the starting positions for the rotor wheels. Old film sequences were interspersed with interviews of people who worked at the Park together with explanations from Tony Sale (of the BP Trust) and enacted scenes at BP today, to make for an intriguing reconstruction of events...
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| Part 2- The goose that laid the golden eggs.- | ||||||
| This looked at Alan Turing's arrival at the
Park and the events leading up to the breaking of the Naval codes.
It also continued with the interviews of characters who recalled working
at the Park, all those years ago.
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| Part 3- The ultra secret. | ||||||
| This showed further progress in cracking the German codes,
including the extensive use of 'cribs' and the algorithm solving Bombe
machine devised by Alan Turing. A reunion of WRENS recalled their
memories of working the Bombes, locating the rotor wheels onto the machines
(and cleaning the wire contacts when they stuck), and
plugging up the stecker-boards from the crib menus. They
used the following phonetic alphabet :-
Apple, Butter, Charlie, Dan, Edward, Freddie, George, Henry, Ingrid, James, Kenneth, London, Monkey, Nuts, Oliver, Peter, Quagga, Robert, Sugar, Tommy, Unicorn, Vinegar, Willie, X-ray, Yellow, Zebra.
The information obtained from all these sources was of course
'ultra top secret' and had to remain so otherwise the Germans might
reconfigure the Enigma. Winston Churchill referred to this intelligence as
his 'Ultra.' |
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| Part 4-The war of the machines. | ||||||
| This looked at the breaking of Shark and other Fish codes with the use of the Tunny machine and the development of Colossus which was to be the world's first electronic programmable computer. All these efforts lead to the shortening of the war by several years. In order to keep the secret of 'Ultra' safe, all of the machines and paperwork were destroyed at the end of the war. However, that's not quite all of the story... | ||||||
The Bletchley Park Trust, over a number of years, are taking much care and effort to rebuild all of these fascinating machines that were so important in the war effort and were innovations well ahead of their time. Be sure to visit the websites below to find out how the Trust is progressing and see how you can help to keep alive the brilliant pioneering work of the Park. |
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| Many books have been written over the years about the code-breakers,
but it is only now that all of the events are being put into perspective
as documentaries such as Station X find out what really did happen all
those years ago. The book (pictured opposite) of the series Station
X -The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park is by Michael Smith and can be bought
from your 'local retail outlet', ordered on-line from the BP Trust site,
or direct from Channel 4.
Another interesting book about Bletchley Park Mansion, Enigma, the huts and the events leading to the setting up of the Trust is, "Ultra's base at Bletchley Park" by Ted Enever. |
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You can visit Bletchley Park and see for yourself
the reconstructed Colossus computer which was used to crack the German
codes. |
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Visit the Official Bletchley Park former home of ULTRA, Britain's best kept secret! |
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| Bletchley Park Post Office-Selling First Day Covers from the Park. | ||||||
| Camp X was where 'agents' trained before being parachuted into Nazi occupied territory to not only lead the resistance movement, but to provide valuable information to invading Allied Armies. Camp X was administered by British Security Co-ordination under the leadership of Sir William Stephenson, known as Intrepid. | ||||||
| Camp X - Canada's on-line World War II intelligence, history site! | ||||||
| Codes
and Ciphers in the Second World War -The website for the history, science
and engineering of cryptanalysis in World War II created by Tony Sale.
Codes and Ciphers Heritage Trust (CCHT) - The world’s first purpose built computer centre (for Colossus) is planned to become home of National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park. |
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| Cold War Research Study Group -secret underground bunkers. | ||||||
| Garat's HaY-Home to the "Y" (Wireless Intercept) Services- An essential link in the code-breaking chain. | ||||||
| The Motor Pool at Bletchley Park. | ||||||
| RETRO beep ...The Computer Museum at Bletchley Park. | ||||||
| Telecoms at Bletchley Park -Photo tour of the Park & Post Office Training. | ||||||
| Winston S Churchill Enigma was his ULTRA secret. | ||||||
To compliment 'Station X', a new book about the Y Services entitled
The Story of Beaumanor Read a full review at www.garatshay.org.uk/englandneeds.htm |
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THG visit to BP on Saturday 16th October 1999 |
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Copyright © 1998-2007 THG and contributors |
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