Did anybody see this BBC Timewatch programme?
If you are interested in history, WW2 or computer sciences, this is a fascinating story about two men who broke the German Telex Code which was far more complex than the Enigma code which has been the subject of many books and at least one film.
This is the BBC's summary
"Documentary that reveals the secret story behind one of the greatest
intellectual feats of World War II, a feat that gave birth to the
digital age. In 1943, a 24-year-old maths student and a GPO engineer
combined to hack into Hitler's personal super-code machine - not Enigma
but an even tougher system, which he called his 'secrets writer'. Their
break turned the Battle of Kursk, powered the D-day landings and
orchestrated the end of the conflict in Europe. But it was also to be
used during the Cold War - which meant both men's achievements were
hushed up and never officially recognised."
I knew a little about the story, much of which has remained secret until now, and some of it remains so. It is reckoned that this work alone, shortened the war by two years - around about how far the Nazi's were from developing nuclear weapons. These guys truly were unsung hero's and their part in developing the first digital computer has been hidden for too long with credit going to others.
Comments
You should try The Secret Life of Betchley Park by Sinclair McKay ... good book.
There's been a few on the subject, but this is more recent.
Apparently a good book coming out next year on Alan Turing (by Andrew Hodges)
Recommend this stunning book:-
Between Silk and Cyanide by Leo Marks
That looks good ... going on xmas list
The problem was the computer that they built was top secret, so secret that Churchill had most of the machines destroyed barring a couple which ended up at GCHQ. After WWII we went straight into the Cold War and those machines were used to break Soviet messages so for obvious reasons no one wanted to let on that we had a machine that could de-code Russian messages.
I'm not sure that the claim was made that deciperhing the codes won the battle, which as you say was expected and had been for at least two months or more. However it did help to give the Russians an idea of what the Nazi plan of attack in Zitadelle would be and therefore how to plan their defence and counter-attack.
The German plan of attack included over 90 different elements - from tank,infantry units, artillery and airplanes some of which formed the real attack and others were diversionary manoeuvres, making sense of that lot and a confusing, constantly changing battlefield would stretch the best military strategists. The info fed by Colossus helped the Red Army to plan and co-ordinate their defensive strategy. However the supply problems encountered by the German army delayed the start of the battle by a few days which shouldn't be under-estimated.
As for Stalin trusting the Allies - he had a good grap of long-term strategy and took whatever help was offered to him, but the Soviets did take the precaution of getting a second opinion. John Cairncross, rumoured to be the "fifth man" after Burgess, Blunt, Philby and Mclean and trusted by the Soviets, fed information secretly to the Russians and that confirmed what they had been officially told. They also had help from a spy ring based in Switzerland - the Lucy Spy ring which also confirmed some of the Nazi plans for Zitadelle.
There was an explanation at the Museum which I can't begin to explain properly. Looking for repeating patterns and connections as much as maths and then using that to "guess" which of the millions of possible settings of the enigma machines the Nazis were using.
The japanese had codes but believe no foriegner could learn their language so the Americans broke thier codes before 1941
In the 1982 Falklands war the Argentine navy were still using enigma machines
And something that was obvious but I'd never thought about before going to Bletchley Park. We had our own version of engima which as far as we know the Germans never tried to break
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/23526
In those days homosexuality (if practiced) was illegal (difficult to imagine now). Hence the conviction.
Undoubtedly a genius.
I can recommend Bletchley Park to any war buff. Without all the wrens and strange Polish mathematicians it perhaps is not the place it was in the the early forties yet still it somehow retains its aura.
With regards to Colin Tats view, firstly history is all about conflicting opinions, as an historian I admit we are sometimes a little Anglo centric and overlook the size and scale of the Russian effort in the last war but were not alone, many Russians regard our own contribution in the same way as we look at Brazilians on the Western Front in 19114/18 (and there were actually a small few). As one of their historians once told me its all about numbers, the stand out stat is Great War - 713,000 British war dead
1939/45 war - 21,000,000 Russian war dead,
just staggering numbers, that aside a cracking program well done BBC
I have signed the petition, tragic treatment of a genius. Bletchley Park is not just for war buffs, to be honest i thought it would be very boring (we went before MK game) and ended up going back as there is so much to see. I had to explain to my friends kids what a telex machine was - made me feel ancient and i am only 49 . I have not managed to get to the Museum of Computing - only open some days.