Describe The Organisation And Work Of People At Bletchley Park Bletchley Park or Station X, situated 50 miles North-West of London, was the site of the British secret military intelligence

BLETCHLEY PARK COURSEWORK

Istvan Szentkereszty de Zagon

1.Describe The Organisation And Work Of People At Bletchley Park

Bletchley Park or Station X, situated 50 miles North-West of London, was the site of the British secret military intelligence, whose aim was to break the German Enigma code. The main reason was to obviously win the war save lives. Other reasons were to stop, or be prepared for German attack, and have a psychological advantage over the enemy as Bletchley Park was almost always able to know when and where the Germans would attack.
The Enigma codes were thought to be unbreakable. At Bletchley Park there were some of the most brilliant minds of Britain; most of the code breakers were expert linguists or mathematical geniuses, individuals like Alan Turing and Dilly Knox. .
The 'Y' Service, a chain of wireless intercept stations across Britain and in a number of countries overseas, listened in to the enemy's radio messages. Thousands of wireless operators, many of them civilians but also Wrens, WAAF personnel and members of the ATS, tracked the enemy radio codes up and down the dial, carefully logging every letter or figure. This information was then sent to Bletchley Park where the codes were broken.
Bletchley Park which was the main site of the code breaking expectations, was organised in the following way. The mansion house was the base, but was surrounded by temporarily, hastily constructed huts. Every hut had different jobs. For example Hut 3 focused on intelligence: translation and analysis of Army and Air force Enigma decrypts, instead Hut 4 was focusing on naval intelligence: analysis of naval Enigma decrypts, Hut 5 worked on the army intelligence, Hut 6 Cryptanalysis of Army and Air force Enigma, Hut 8 cryptanalysis naval enigma, hut11 was the first Bombe building.
Bletchley Parks findings where then sent it on to the British High Command which was useful to command and direct the allied troops in a more effective way.
Bletchley Park depended upon top secrecy and there was also very little communication between the people that worked in different huts. In fact people that worked in hut 3 did not know what people in hut 4 were doing. All the people that worked at Bletchley Park did not asked questions about the work that was being done as it was very secret. Everyone who had worked at Bletchley Park had signed the Official Secret Act. This act stated that no one could talk about what they were doing in Bletchley Park. It was obvious that the Allies did not want to let the Germans know that they had broken the Enigma.
In fact when the war was finish, Churchill ordered to destroy every file and work about Station X and the secret was kept for 30 years.

2. Why was Bletchley Park able to break the German Enigma codes?

Bletchley Park was able to break German Enigma codes because of the technology that was developed such as Bombes and the Colossus, also because of individuals such as Alan Turing and Dilly Knox, and mistakes made by the Germans.

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2. Why was Bletchley Park able to break the German Enigma codes?

As Germany invaded Poland, Polish officials met up with the British and gave them all they knew about the Enigma. This not only opened the gates for the British as to what the Germans were using to scramble to letters, but also gave them a solid head start in order to go about decoding them. Later on, a German who was willing to sell information about the Enigma contacted the French intelligence who later passed this information on to other Allies, including the British. This gave them a crucial head start which greatly helped Bletchley Park crack the Enigma codes.

Bletchley Park used certain methods to ease the task of finding the right combination out of 150,000,000,000,000,000 possibilities. To try and find a pattern in the German Enigma codes, Jeffrey sheets were created. Those were a number of sheets were to be perforated with holes at specified locations, and stacked. Light shining through the holes in one or more locations could indicate possible keys. The Bombe developed from a Polish concept and then significantly enhanced by the Mathematician, Alan Turing, was invented and became the main machine used by the British to break the German Enigma codes. At least 200 of these machines were built and were produced throughout the war. In the final year of the war Tommy Flowers invented the Colossus, the first programme for computer which could break down German Enigma codes in only few hours.

Another factor that help those working at Station X were the mistakes of the German operators. It is likely that if the Germans had used the Enigma exactly as directed, it would have been a lot harder to crack. Common mistakes were made, such as not replacing or changing the order in which the cog wheels were arranged, not arranging the two plugs in the correct formation. The Germans then introduced a fourth rotar, but it was always left in neutral. Another error was used to its maximum effect was that of the double helix. In many cases, the enigma was not anywhere near as random as the Germans had first hoped, and in a few cases the British were able to see clear patterns were letters were exactly the same within the code. Whilst this was not necessarily the Germans fault, it was still as mistake that they did not know about and failed to consider. These mistakes were exploited and picked apart by the British, giving them a further chance in forming patterns out of the codes.

Germany never found out that the Enigma had been broken therefore the British could continue to break the codes and discover important information. Due to many facts Bletchley Park was able to break down the German Enigma codes, and the people who worked there played a major role in helping win the war.

3. In What Ways Did The Work Of Bletchley Park Influence The Outcome Of The Second World War?

The work of Bletchley Park during the Second World War was crucial to the Allied victory.

In 1940 60% of the food on which the British depended came from America, but as the war went on the supplies were cut off during the Battle of the Atlantic (1941-1943) America were trying to send troops and supplies to England but his was difficult as the Germans had their U-boat based in the Atlantic and at the beginning of the war many of the Allied convoys were a key target and many were sunk resulting in many losses. Thanks to Bletchley Park the Allies won the battle of Matapan in March 1941, this was the first victory achieved by Bletchley Park The Allies succeeded in capturing a German supply boat, Atlantis, where they found the German naval codes. This was a great success for Bletchley Park as they were now able to break down the German naval codes and more convoys with supplies from America were able to arrive to Britain safely, this was a priceless advantage.

The bombe were developed which gave them a great advantage, cryptanalytical machine, was invented by Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman. The bombes were not the only, nor the first, method of breaking the Enigma codes but made code breaking easier. The bombes made a major contribution to Allied victory. Design of Colossus started in March 1943 and the first unit was operational at Bletchley Park in January1944. The Colossus was immediately successful, as it was able to decode German codes in hours which proved immensely useful especially during the D-Day landings.

As the war started the Germans began a bombing campaign against the British key cities. However the Germans used different codes to call the cities that they were about to bomb, for example BIRM would be Birmingham and the British were therefore pre-warned about possible attacks.

Operation Overlord led by the Allies to liberate France, (6th of June 1944). The operation began with a series of air attacks and decoy measures. About two thirds of the air attacks were actually away from the invasion area in order to confuse the Germans that attacks were taking place elsewhere. Other measures such as false radio message sent by Bletchley Park were used. To enable ships to arrive in Normandy safely Station X warned the Allied ships against possible U-boat attacks. The success of this Allied invasion of Europe depended upon an element of surprise. Bletchley Park was able to warn Allied troops when they had been spotted by the Germans. This operation was massive and brought 130.000 man across the Channel by sea and 23.000 by air. From this point the allies used their air superiority to devastating effect against German forces. Resistance fighters disrupted German communications and destroyed supplies taken to the German forces.

Churchill and Roosevelt signed a Secret Intelligence Pact where they agreed that to support each other in secret intelligence. In fact the role of the Allied leaders was important to the success of Bletchley Park, the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited Bletchley Park in September 1941 to boost the moral of those working people at Bletchley Park and promised to provide resources that were needed to continue vital intelligence work. Churchill went as far as to claim that Station X- “The goose that laid the golden egg but never cackled.”, suggesting that the work done at Bletchley Park brought a great and crucial success..

Bletchley Park played a major role in the Allied victory in of the Second World War as they were able to break down the German Enigma codes this led to keep vital supplies. The success of the code breakers was one of the key factors in the Allied victory. This helped save many lives. Some historians as gone as far as suggesting that Bletchley Park shortened the war, some believe that it shortened the war by at least two years.

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