The Codebreakers

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Geo: 51.5002, -0.1262

I slept fairly soundly for three hours last night and then woke up and could not get back to sleep. The last time I looked at the clock, it said 2:45, and I know I was awake for quite some time after that. Still, I know I fell asleep at some point because I was actually awakened by someone else's alarm. The second night is usually the worst jet lag-wise, so I'm hoping tonight will be better. And, no, last night's traffic wasn't any less noisy.

I asked for an egg at breakfast this morning and ended up wishing I hadn't. The eggs were scrambled and on the nauseous side of runny. I ate them anyway because I had the feeling the lady would give me an earful if I wasted food. I'm pretty sure that adults who don't like eggs were given runny eggs as children. Bleh.

The Tube was so warm this morning that a lady swooned. Some survival instinct kept her clinging to the horizontal bar, so it was almost like she was hanging there in the middle of the carriage. The man sitting in front of her leapt up out of his seat and maneuvered her into it, and the woman sitting next to her offered up her bottle of water. The poor lady looked like she was going to throw up and she'd gone a whiter shade of pale. (I've always wanted to use that phrase in a sentence!) I've often wondered how Londoners aren't fainting left and right on the Tube when it gets warm, but I guess it does actually happen.

Made it to Euston Station without fainting myself and bought a return ticket to Bletchley (£14.50). The journey took slightly under hour, with the train calling at Leighton Buzzard, a name I have to look up. It was a five-minute walk from Bletchley Station to Bletchley Park, Home of the Codebreakers. For those who don't know, Bletchley Park played a huge and important role in the Allied victory in World War II. It was here that nearly 10,000 civilians and military personnel worked to crack the Germans' Enigma code -- which the Germans thought was unbreakable -- as well as Japanese codes. Out of all my solo travels, I think this is the first time that John might be a touch envious: Bletchley Park is essentially the birthplace of modern computing.

Girls outnumbered men at Bletchley Park by three to one, and they were indeed girls. Some were in their twenties or older, but the majority of girls were in their late teens and recruited from all areas of society. Some were Wrens, some were girls of "good breeding," and some were simply good at crosswords and other puzzles. Everyone who worked at the Park signed the Official Secrets Act and couldn't tell anyone, not even their parents or spouse, what they were doing for the war effort. The brilliant thing was, people simply didn't ask. It was practically beaten into the British psyche to keep their lips zipped, a version of "Don't ask, don't tell." (Some of the codebreakers didn't reveal their war service until the 1980s or later, simply because they felt they were still bound by the Act.) It could be quite difficult for some of the men who worked at the Park, particularly those who came from small towns where everyone knew everyone. They might go back home for a break and have to endure the raised eyebrows that asked, "Why aren't you doing your part?"

In spite of having read a book about Bletchley Park earlier this year, and despite having sat through three talks today, reading the signboards, and seeing the machines, I still don't have a clear idea as to how the code-breaking machines worked. A man who had worked on the bombe rebuild project even showed me how the stuff worked, and it still went over my head. (Good thing the English didn't need me in the early 40s, eh?)

It goes something like this: The German Enigma machine could encrypt messages with roughly 155 million different possibilities. The British would intercept a message (they were usually sent by Morse code and easy to attack) and then set about finding patterns in the encryption. Then they would run potential decrypts through the bombe. The bombe would eventually spit out maybe five possibilities. Those possibilities would then be run through a checker (which looked like a smaller bombe), which would narrow the possibilities down to one or two. Those results would then be typed into a TypeX machine (a British version of the Enigma) to see if clear German would come out. If it did, then the British had the German code for the day and could easily decrypt further message that came in that day. If clear German did not come out, then the codebreaker had to start all over.

Confused yet? Just trying to describe it has made my head feel fuzzy! The man who personally showed me the Enigma machine recommended the movie "Enigma" to get a better idea of how the whole system worked. Also on show were some of Alan Turing's (remember him from yesterday?) personal items, including his Teddy bear. How cute is that? Granted, it was a Teddy he bought as an adult, so maybe not "cute" so much as "whimsical."

There was a tour leaving shortly, so I got a ticket and went off to the meeting point for that. Again, a charming man went over the whole bombe process. For a few people in the group the penny dropped, but not for me. We walked around the Park a bit and saw the Park's semi-unofficial Post Office, the outside of the manor house, where the pigeons lived, and a memorial to the Polish men who shared all their invaluable expertise and knowledge of Enigma with the British. As our guide pointed out, cracking Enigma wasn't a British achievement so much as a Polish one.

When the tour was over, I went over to the National Museum of Computing on the edge of the Park. It was closed, but the Colossus rebuild and Tunny machine are always on display. The Tunny was developed to decrypt the German Lorenz machine. Where Enigma had three encrypting rotors, Lorenz had 12. So, basically, Lorenz provided about a squillion more levels of security in the encryption. The British figured out how the Lorenz machine worked after a German operator made an error. One night, Fritz sent a very long (4,000 character) encrypted message. At the end of the transmission, Hans on the other end sent back, "Reception here isn't so good. Can you resend your message?" Now, what Fritz was supposed to do was reset all his rotors before sending the message again. This would encrypt the message differently than the first time. However, it was late at night, it was probably cold, Fritz was probably sleepy, and instead of resetting all the rotors, he simply flipped a switch that reset all the rotors to the position they were in when he sent the first message. Then he resent his message - using the same code as the first message - but, likely in an effort to save keystrokes, he started abbreviating everything that could be abbreviated. So whereas the first message started out "Number 37," the second message was sent as "Nr. 37," "nr." being the German abbreviation for number. Fritz's laziness ended up being a gift to the British, who were able to compare the two messages and crack the code.

The Colossus rebuild was in an adjacent room. Eleven months in development in 1943, Colossus was the first digital electronic machine with programmability. The rebuild on display took 15 years to complete. Colossus helped to further British codebreaking efforts. It's estimated that the work done at Bletchley Park with the bombes and the Colossi shortened the war by at least two years.

After a bit of lunch in the cafe (Cornish pasty, anyone?), I visited Hut 8, which was where Alan Turing primarily worked. There's also a room devoted to the pigeons who carried important messages during the war. There's something quite funny about it - particularly the pigeon parachute - but it's also awfully sweet. Some of the pigeons were honored with the Dickin Medal after the war for bravery and service. The messages carried by the pigeons saved countless lives, and the birds were a vital component in the war machine. This from the brochure about a pigeon called Mary of Exeter: "Despite being wounded three times Mary found her way home. She had part of her wing shot off, was badly injured by a German hawk and had three fragments removed from her body. Cecil even made a leather collar so that she could keep her head up." Awww! Give that bird a medal!

Lastly, I visited the Churchill Collection, quite a large room filled with Churchill memorabilia. Vera Lynn was singing on the stereo, and it was awfully cute when the elderly people touring the exhibit started whistling or singing under their breath. (I'm sure I was the youngest person in the room by at least 30 years.)

After Bletchley Park was decommissioned in 1946, it was essentially forgotten (partly because everything that had gone on was still subject to the Official Secrets Act). In the 80s, all the huts and buildings were going to be razed and a housing estate put up. Fortunately, some of the Park's former workers got a campaign going to preserve the Park, and in the early 90s the Duke of Kent officially opened the Park as a museum and important part of English history. It's nice when things work out like that.

I ended up spending a little over five hours at the Park, which is at least two more than I thought I would. But it was a marvelous day out! When I got back to London, I went to the Apple Store on Regent Street to see if they could sell me an SD card reader or a cable so that I could download my photos. The "genius" was very nice and sent me two blocks away to Maplin's to buy a cable for £8.99. Huzzah! I'll put it with my travel stuff when I get home so that I never forget the thing again. (By the way, I added photos to yesterday's entry. Go back and look. You wouldn't want to miss the cervical dilator, would you?)

It's 7:00 as I type. That pasty at lunch really filled me up, so I'm not sure that I'll do much in the way of dinner. Maybe I'll just have this apple and sultana biscuit thing that I bought at the airport.

Tomorrow: Belgium!

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Photos

A rebuilt bombe
All those rotor spin and spin and create a tremendous amount of noise, then spit out five or so possibilities.

Colossus
Valves galore!

Story of pigeon bravery
(I hope this is legible.)

The Park's Post Office
The building with the conical tower was originally used as the manor house's refrigerator.

Comments

[Kate]

Yea for the Poles! We're smarter than we look...Truly, that's really cool, though. That code breaking stuff is fascinating--how do you remember all that detail?! you don't give yourself enough credit; but I can't wrap my mind around it,
either. Probably why I went into the arts...HA! The pigeon thing is interesting, too. Their brains aren't very big, but they can sure find their way home! Glad you got a cable to use 'cause it's fun to see the pix (excpet for that dreaded speculum! GADS! Did they REALLY USE THAT? I would never have survived...) Have a good trip to Belgium! Can't wait to hear your adventures there!

[John]

Did you remember to call that cardboard box full of tubes on the floor, "valves!"