In Search of the Truth of Bletchley Park

(The Secrets of Station X by Michael Smith and Codebreakers, eds. F.H. Hinsley and Alan Stripp)

Bletchley Park is to my mind one of the most fascinating places in history. It was here that the British broke into German, Italian and Japanese codes and ciphers during the Second World War, among them the most famous, Enigma, the cipher used by all German Armed Forces. Through the intelligence collected through reading these signals, it was possible to reroute convoys in the Atlantic away from German wolf-packs, which saved Britain from starvation. Rommel's supply lines in the Mediterranean were successfully cut, leading to military victories in North Africa. In preparation for D-Day, the Allies learned through intercepted and broken messages that the Germans had accepted the misinformation of the landing-sights as true, making it possible to go ahead with the Normandy landings. Bletchley Park also played an important role in technological development. Huge leaps were done in the field of cryptanalysis (although details are sketchy, as plenty of material from after 1945 is still classified). Also, it is not an exaggeration to say that the discipline of computer science has its roots at Bletchley Park. It was here that the world's first electronic computer, Colossus, was built, and the ideas of many early computer scientists, most notably Alan Turing, were formed by the war-work done there.

On top of this, Bletchley Park is fascinating because of how little it is like most war-stations. In the early years of the war, it was more like a displayed Oxbridge college. Academics of all imaginable disciplines, but especially linguists, Classicists and mathematicians, made up a large proportion of the staff. People who displayed a useful kind of intelligence, whether through their academic work or through a passion for crossword puzzles, were recruited. Many of the early recruits were and remained civilians, but there were also much uniformed personnel, both men and women. However, this did not make the place any more disciplines. No saluting, no parading and no kit inspections for the servicepersons, and open-necked shirts and first names only for the civilians made Bletchley Park a remarkably relaxed war-station. It is no surprise that much has been written about Bletchley Park, both in fact and fiction. For now, I will concentrate on the factual side, and will attempt to do the fiction about Bletchley Park justice in a later post.

Bletchley Park remained a secret for almost thirty years after the end of the Second World War. In the mid-1970s, books started being published, and the secrecy was slowly lifted. However, because of the strong internal security and this continuing secrecy, many of the published works are of varying quality. One author's mistake easily finds its way into the work of other writers, eventually turning it into a general truth. An example of this is the story that Churchill learned through intelligence from Bletchley Park that Coventry was going to be bombed, but did nothing to stop it, as that would have revealed that the British had cracked Enigma. It was first told in the very first book on Bletchley Park, The Ultra Secret by F.W. Winterbotham, but has since been proven to be wrong. Even if it has been refuted since the late 1970s, it is sometimes still quoted (and even became a minor plot point in the episode "Scandal of Belgravia" of Steven Moffat and Mark Gattiss' Sherlock, although they had the good sense of presenting it as uncertain).

But there are some books which are both reliable and entertaining. I read most of the non-fiction written about Bletchley Park when working my master's thesis in history this year, and the one of the popular books offering a master narrative of Bletchley Park throughout the war was The Secrets of Station X by Michael Smith (2011, Biteback Publishing). Michael Smith has long been considered one of the authorities on Bletchley Park, having written several books on the subject. The Secrets of Station X gives a comprehensive picture of an organisation which, due to its motley origins and hastily organised structure, can be incredibly confusing. Smith strives to give a historical view of Bletchley Park, rather than a cryptological one, and tells the story of GC&CS from the 'mobilisation of the dons' in the late 1930s to its abandonment of the estate of Bletchley Park at the end of the war. Using the war as a background to the British codebreaking efforts, he relates the work done at Bletchley Park to bigger events, touching upon its impact on the war as well as the war's influence on the station and its personnel. The picture he gives is a broad, sweeping one, but he does not lose sight of individuals either. The history of Bletchley Park has always been actor-based, and most probably it will remain that way, because of all the eccentric, interesting characters to be found there, but Smith manages to diversify the voices well. He has interviewed several men and women who were at Bletchley Park as well as read many accounts by veterans. These personal stories are skillfully interweaved with the larger historical narrative, making The Secrets of Station X both well-written and well-researched.

However, if you feel that you know the basics, and want something heavier which goes deeper, the book you want is Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park, edited by F.H. Hinsley and Alan Stripp (1993, Oxford University Press, reissued 2001). Codebreakers is an anthology, with chapters written by thirty-one contributors, all of whom served at Bletchley Park during the war. In short essays, they give their view of what Bletchley Park was. The focus is mainly on the work, and some essays are very technical (if you want to know how the wirings of an Engima rotor work, Alan Stripp's essay is for you), but this does not make them dry and dull. Instead, this enterprise captures the huge variety in the work done at Bletchley Park. By asking cryptanalysts, intelligence officers, translators, even machine-minders to contribute, it gives a far more thorough picture than any of the popular history books ever could. Also, many contributors offer insights into life at Bletchley Park, through describing everything from billeting to leisure activities. The question of the historical importance of Bletchley Park is also addressed, especially in F.H. Hinsley's introduction. Codebreakers might not be the best book to start with if you know nothing about Bletchley Park, so it is worth of forming at least a rough understanding of the organisation, through The Secrets of Station X or some other source, before tackling it. However, it remains the best book ever to have been published about Bletchley Park.