I hope you are enjoying the series so far.
If you haven't read my past two blogs please do take a look, they are all about Bletcley Parks history starting in 1066 and the Domesday Book.
Today we are going to explore more about Bletchley Park focusing on the Second World War. This is without a doubt the most important time in its history. Bletchley Park is now known for it's huge part it winning against the Axis Powers. However during the war it was top secret and everybody who worked here had to sign the official secrets act. They were forbidden from discussing their work. Many went to the grave holding on to the secrets of the war.
How did Bletchley Park become the Home of Code breakers.
When Fanny Leon, Herbert Leons widow died the Mansion was auctioned off, the buyer was a local builder who had intended the land for housing development. Thankfully, the Mansion was saved from demolition by Admiral Sinclair. He had seen it's potential for the Intelligence Service, especially considering the tensions in Europe and the anticipated war. He used his own money to purchase Bletchley Park for £6000.00 which equates to over half a million pounds today. Which in terms of real estate incredible if not large amount of money.
Admiral Sinclair
Admiral Sir Hugh Francis Paget Sinclair KCB, (18th August 1873-4th November 1939) worked in the Naval Intelligence Service during the The Great War and rose through the ranks before becoming admiral on 15 May 1930.
Sinclair is recognised as having founded GCHQ in 1919 after the Great War, previously named GC&CS, Government Code and Cypher School, this name changed to GCHQ in 1945. He was acutely aware of the importance of Intelligence and was setting the stage for Bletchley Park to become one of the most important places of the Second World War.
GCHQ-The Doughnut from above in 2017. Public Domain.
GCHQ means Government Communications Headquarters. GCHQ is essential an Intelligence and Security service for Great Britain. GCHQ is now based in Cheltenham. The current building aptly nicknamed The Doughnut was completed in 2003, its function was to consolidate all the departments of GCHQ. The building cost a staggering £337 million pounds. The futuristic design is the creation of British archetect Chris Johnson. I plan to do another blog in the future regarding the history of the intelligence service, which is hugely fascinating. however, I am in danger of digressing away from my original topic. So I shall endeavour to reign myself in. I do find myself going down rabbit holes when it comes to history, I dont know about yourselves.
If you would be interested in finding out more visit:
In 1938, Admiral Sinclair purchased Bletchley Park for use as a wartime intelligence station. It went on to house the Government Code and Cypher School whose aim it was to decypher and intercept Axis Power messages. This was the start of the story of Station X, Bletchley Parks code name.
Station X
Bletchley Park 2025, taken and edited by myself.
Bletchley Parks code name, Station X was used because it was the tenth station and X represents the number ten in Roman numerals. Station X was initially the code name for a wireless room set up in the mansions water tower, today however, it tends to be used to refer to the whole of Bletchley Park.
The German communication systems were incredibly complex and considered secure by German High Command. The most important encrypted communication used was Enigma. Enigma had been used by the Germans for many years but Germany also made many improvements to Enigma during the war, making the encryption process even more difficult. Being able to intercept messages being sent by the enemy was one thing, being able to cypher them was something of huge importance. We needed to be able to read the messages. This seemed impossible, but that was the job of Station X. The site was hugely secretive, all staff had to sign the official secrets act, many going to grave taking the secrets with them. I would love to know what the locals thought of the place. Although, because of the time they were living in, there were many places that were taken over for warwork and the locals didn't know what was going on behind the gates. I suppose many just didn't ask questions for fear of being reported as a potential spy. Bletchley Park was so incomprehensibly successful that although we can not positively say, it is estimated to have shortened the war by between two and four years. How many lives the staff who worked there saved is impossible to calculate. I can`t express to you the importance Bletchley Park had during the Second World War.
Enigma Machine.
The Enigma machine is probably one of the most well known encryption machines. It was what the Germans used during the Second World War. The Japanese had their own form of cipher machine called 'Purple". It was highly advanced technology and extremely difficult to crack. The Germans were also making improvements to it during this time making it even more challenging to decrypt. The Enigma was invented prior to the Great War by Arthur Scherbius a German engineer. He named the machine Enigma, meaning riddle in Greek. Initially promoted for commercial use, the military soon realised the potential it had. It started being used by the German Navy in 1929 before being expanded to the rest of the German military. Scherbius didn't get see how important Enigma would become as he died in a carriage accident in 1929.
Enigma scrambled messages using a rotor system and only people with days setting could decode them. The settings changed daily so the code breakers did not have time to find the right setting for the day out of the 159 quintillion possible permutations and decrypt the messages before it was reset again. This meant that the code breakers essentially had to start from scratch everyday. They refused to give up even though it seemed impossible. Bletchley Park had the smartest cryptanalysts and mathematician working flat out trying to break the Enigma and intercept and decrypt the German communications. The Allies needed to find away to turn the tide of the war, and cracking Enigma certain did that.
Find out more about Enigma here:
The Bombe.
The Bombe. Public Domain.Amongst the cryptanalysts and mathematician who worked at Bletchley Park were Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman. These two incredibly intelligent men were the brains behind the Bombe machine. Named because of the Polish machine it was developed from the "bomba". The bomba was invented by Polish cryptologist Marian Rejewski and it successful broke the Enigma code in the early 1930s.
Marian Rejewski circa. 1932. licence Rejewski managed to work out the inner wirings of Enigma and reconstruct it. The Polish were able to continue breaking Enigma codes secretly for over six years until 1939. At this time the Germans had began to improve on Enigma by adding additional rotors making the decryption process insurmountable. At this time the threat from Germany meant that the Poles then decided to share the information with their Allies, thus Bletchley Park was able to gain valuable information to help crack Enigma and shortening the War.
You find out more here:
There is also some interesting information here:
Using the information that was shared by the Polish a English cryptologist and mathematician called Alan Mathison Turing developed on the work of Rejewski and came up with the initial blueprint from the bomb. Then in 1940, lesser known Gordon Welchman another English mathematician made some important refinements to the design. Once built the Bombe was able to to decrypt the Enigma, and was able to intercept many of the Gerrman communications.
I will be learning more about both Turing and Welchman in another blog.
Alan Turing..public domain
In the Next blog we will start to investigate the influence Bletchley Park and the Intelligence Services had on D-Day and the Royal connection to Bletchley Park. It is truely fascinating and a real eye opener, well it was for me. I hope you will join me in the next episode.
I`m finding this experience of writing about history rather good. I have been to Bletchley Park before, many times and I have read about the place, but having the opportunity to really deep dive is really satisfying. I realise that all this information is available online, but I like the fact I have brought it all together in to somewhat manageable chunks, with maybe some extra snippits that may not be available so readily. Having the information all in one place is going to be great form me to be able to look back and remember. I hope that it interests you all enough to start delving into this topic even more and please do share it all. Im so wanting in learning more. I would love to have discussions and really find out more. If you have a personnal connection I would love for you to reach out and share what you know.
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