In some cases the information that Bletchley Park handed over didn’t influence the war that much. This happened when there was a lot of activity in South Africa. Although they did provide a lot of information that led to the sinking of about 45% of supply ships there was a downfall to it. The information wouldn’t always reach them in South Africa and then when it did would be useless as the opportunity to use it had passed. This shows although Bletchley Park was able to decode the messages they got now they couldn’t always get to the places that needed them in time.
Sometimes the information that Bletchley Park was providing was being trusted but then they wouldn’t act upon it or use it properly. When armed forces were in Italy, Bletchley Park was supplying them with endless amounts of information that they could use. They had even cracked “fish” which meant they could get access to high ranking information. However they knew that there was little chance that they could actually win against the 1 million German soldiers that were there so the information that they had couldn’t be used to its full potential.
Although there was a lot of information that couldn’t be used there was still a lot that really did influence the war. Overall they did help to save a lot of lives; like in the Battle of Britain. They could supply information including the number of German bombers that would be coming over to Britain and where they would be. This helped greatly to make sure that as little damage as possible was done to Britain. It also informed them that they had given up on operation sealion, the plan to invade Britain, had been given up on.
Bletchley Park had become very efficient at decoding messages and was able to give detailed information about enemy positions so that battles could be easily one. Like the Battle of Matapan; they had managed to decode all the details and pass them onto the Naval Intelligence to be used. They managed to sink 3 heavy cruisers and 2 destroyers; this was a great victory for Britain and showed what Bletchley Park was capable of.
Bletchley Park was a great overall influence over the war and also helped to shorten it as well. When German U-boats where sinking a lot of ships carrying important supplies from America and Canada over the Atlantic, Bletchley Park came through and broke the “Dolphin” code. This meant that could now find out exactly where all the German U-Boats where and then our ships could avoid them. This meant that we were getting all our supplies and that Germany’s plan to starve us out didn’t work.
Overall Bletchley Park influenced the war vastly. It helped to win many battles and even though sometimes the information wasn’t used for various reasons it still helped Bletchley Park in decoding other messages. It was able to give the military enormous amounts of information that they would not have had any way of getting otherwise and helped them to in the end win the war.
Matthew Clark
