Traveling Tuesday: Bletchley Park
Winston Churchill once called Bletchley Park his “goose
that laid the golden egg but never cackled.” Often referred to as Station X by
those who worked there, Bletchley Park was a mansion located fifty miles outside
of London. As the central codebreaking location of the Allies, the golden egg
was the ability to decode the secrets of the German war machine, Enigma.
With 150 million million million (not a typo!) because
of its lettered rotors, Hitler and his men were convince the machine was
unbreakable. Enigma looked like an oversized typewriter with lights. Many
experts feel the war was shorter by two to four years because of the Allies’
cracking of the code.
Ultimately, Bletchley would house more than 10,000
employees in a collection of small wooden huts who were a hodgepodge of
personalities and skills. Many were mathematicians from Cambridge, but there
those who were geniuses at chess, linguistics, and hieroglyphics. But one
requirement was the same for all: they must be able to solve The Daily Telegraph’s crossword puzzle.
About 75% of the workforce was women, although few
worked at the higher levels, instead operating cryptographic and communication
machines, performing traffic analysis, translating Axis documents, and of
course, doing clerical tasks. It was only after documents were declassified
that the female analysts received recognition for their work.
Today, Bletchley Park is a heritage attraction and
receives hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
I learned about Bletchly park through PBS. Loved learning about this interesting piece of history. Thanks.
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