June 2018 This month it’s all about 007. Bletchley Park has opened a new exhibition in historic Hut 12, featuring memos, letters and personal photographs of Ian Fleming, a fantastic collection of Bond novels through the decades and original, specially commissioned works by talented and innovative artists, inspired by scenes, themes and characters from Bond novels. The Bond creator and author, Ian Fleming, worked in Naval Intelligence during World War Two, and had close links with Bletchley Park....
Jun 09, 2018•55 min
May 2018 The Bletchley Park story is about more than Enigma. A different kind of traffic was also coming over the airwaves, being intercepted and mined for crucial intelligence. But it was generated by an even more fiendishly complex system than Enigma, which was itself believed to be unbreakable. Lorenz was the machine being used by Hitler and his high command to send top level, strategic messages. It was less portable and more secure than Enigma, but that didn’t defeat the boffins at Bletchley...
May 09, 2018•57 min
April 2018 A brand new exhibition telling the story of the Bombe machines has opened in Hut 11a, where they were housed during World War Two. Hundreds of Bombe machines were made and operated at both Bletchley Park and its outstations. This exhibition tells the story of how this incredible technological breakthrough came to be, and the stories of the people whose ingenuity and hard work made them both a reality and a success. This episode takes you to the official opening of the exhibition, by B...
Apr 09, 2018•59 min
March 2018 From the attempt to assassinate Hitler in July 1944, to orders to shoot dead any German soldier seen fleeing Riga as a cowardly traitor, the Hut 3 Headlines tell a story of World War Two in tiny snippet form. They were succinct summaries of Enigma messages sent by the German army and air force, intercepted and deciphered by Bletchley Park. These messages were then boiled down to the barest essentials to be sent to the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. He’s reputed to have wanted to k...
Mar 10, 2018•53 min
February 2018 Is Bletchley Park about codes, machines or people? Of those, the most fascinating stories come from the people who did this incredible job, and then kept it absolutely secret, for at least another 30 years. Their memories are precious and it’s crucial that we capture as many as we can, so that future generations can read and listen to their first-hand accounts of not only their amazing achievements, but what life was like during those defining years. A new exhibition in the gloriou...
Feb 12, 2018•58 min
January 2018 January is a good time to take stock and look at the year ahead. 75 years ago, it was January 1943 and, after a dark and difficult year, things were starting to look up. By this time, Hut 8 had broken back into the naval Enigma codenamed Shark, after a devastating ten-month blackout. The daring raid on a sinking submarine which cost the lives of two brave sailors became a huge turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic. Elsewhere, five gruelling months drew to a close with the Germ...
Jan 10, 2018•49 min
December 2017 Bletchley Park’s Oral History project has been running for six years, interviewing more than 400 veterans so far. These personal testimonies capture the unique and precious memories of people who worked at Bletchley Park and its outstations. Not only are these interviews a great source of historical facts, adding to what we know about the work carried out by the Government Code and Cypher School during World War Two, they’re also a treasure trove of lesser-known details about the p...
Dec 29, 2017•53 min
December 2017 Bletchley Park’s Oral History project has been running for six years, interviewing more than 400 veterans so far. These personal testimonies capture the unique and precious memories of people who worked at Bletchley Park and its outstations. Not only are these interviews a great source of historical facts, adding to what we know about the work carried out by the Government Code and Cypher School during World War Two, they’re also a treasure trove of lesser-known details about the p...
Dec 13, 2017•55 min
November 2017 This month, it’s all about women. A century ago, the Women’s Royal Naval Service - aka Wrens - were founded. They went on to play a crucial part in the codebreaking effort during World War Two. By November 1917, Britain was three years into a bloody, devastating war. In this episode, we explore what kind of work women did during both wars and what they - and the men - thought of it. A new pop up exhibition is now open in the Visitor Centre at Bletchley Park, celebrating the contrib...
Nov 16, 2017•59 min
October 2017 75 years ago, one of the most decisive battles of World War Two marked the end of the beginning. El Alamein was of huge strategic importance to both the Allied and Axis forces in North Africa. Rommel and Montgomery’s forces clashed twice. The second battle would become famous, making a household name of this obscure outpost. The intelligence was a crucial weapon. Rommel’s attack plan was confirmed by intercepts which were deciphered and translated by the top secret Government Code a...
Oct 22, 2017•53 min
September 2017 There were so many memories shared at this year’s Veterans’ Reunion, that we’ve split this month’s episode into two parts. This time, we’ll hear some of the longer conversations, as people who spent part of their youth carrying out vital war work, tucked away in the Buckinghamshire countryside or at one of Bletchley Park’s equally secretive outstations. They went on to keep their lips sealed about what they’d done for at least another 30 years. Now, when the memories begin to flow...
Sep 26, 2017•44 min
September 2017 More than 110 Veterans returned to Bletchley Park for this year’s reunion - the highest number in recent years. They came back to the headquarters of the Government Code and Cipher School, where they, among thousands of men and women, carried out vital war work which made a huge difference, not only to the outcome of World War Two, but to the digital age in which we live today. Once in the tranquil grounds of the Victorian mansion, they met up with friends old and new, and took th...
Sep 12, 2017•52 min
August 2017 Hear some of the best bits from five packed years of this podcast, primarily from the Veterans themselves, but also a smattering of prestigious visitors down the years, from movie stars to heads of foreign security agencies. The highlight of the calendar at Bletchley Park is without doubt the annual Veterans’ Reunion, when people who worked at the Government Code and Cypher School and its outstations during World War Two return to revive and share their memories, helping to keep the ...
Aug 09, 2017•59 min
July 2017 What happened when the Admiralty didn’t believe the intelligence coming from Bletchley Park? The answer; huge losses at sea. But this is not to suggest blame - hindsight can be cruel. The Tirpitz was a much-feared German battleship - it was the biggest they had built. Bletchley Park provided intelligence under the banner of Ultra - the highest level of secrecy - that it had not yet set sail. But this reassuring news was not taken on board by the naval powers that be. Convoy PQ17 was sc...
Jul 09, 2017•43 min
June 2017 Bill Tutte played a crucial role in deciphering messages between Hitler and his high command. Yet he remains one of Bletchley Park’s unsung heroes. This little-known genius went straight from studying mathematics at Cambridge to the Government Code and Cypher School, where he used his analytical brilliance to help break what was believed to be an unbreakable code. His work also paved the way for the creation of the world’s first semi-programmable computer, Colossus. His breath-taking a...
Jun 11, 2017•1 hr
May 2017 Highs and lows of the codebreaking operation at Bletchley Park are the subject of this month’s episode. There were a lot of lows, but it’s not all doom and gloom. We know how the war ended but, back then, the threat of invasion still hung in the air and Hitler’s forces were making great gains, not only in Europe. This was also around the time when the German Navy decided to tighten the security of its radio traffic in the Atlantic, where Allied shipping convoys were being found and sunk...
May 09, 2017•54 min
April 2017 Bletchley Park’s brand new exhibition, Off Duty, High Spirits in Low Times, is now open. It explores what happened outside of the gruelling shifts the thousands of workers did, day and night. Wartime work at the Government Code and Cypher School was stressful and tiring - but the authorities understood it was important to keep staff happy - and healthy. We’ll hear from Veterans who gave an intimate Q&A session, which launched the exhibition. Also this month, we hear memories from ...
Apr 09, 2017•1 hr
March 2017 This month’s It Happened Here story is a truly global one. It’s about what happened when the war was no longer just in Europe. In December 1941, Japan entered World War Two. This meant intelligence gathering and processing became a far bigger and more complex task, which brought about the need for a significant expansion of the top secret operation at Bletchley Park. We'll hear from two of the women who worked on Japanese codes at Bletchley Park, Betty Webb and Mary Every, who had nev...
Mar 09, 2017•59 min
February 2017 This month we celebrate the unique and precious memories being gathered in Bletchley Park’s Oral History Project. Jean Kotchie was a Royal Navy Wren who worked on the noisy, smelly Bombe machines which helped speed up the daily race against time to find the Enigma settings on hundreds of networks, so that messages could be deciphered in enough time to make the intelligence operationally pin-sharp. Hers is a story of oil stains, monotony and exhaustion in the rural outreaches of the...
Feb 10, 2017•1 hr
January 2017 The Zimmermann Telegram tells the story of how the US became embroiled in World War One. The threat from Germany came home to the United States 100 years ago this month, courtesy of an intercepted telegram sent by the German Foreign Secretary, Arthur Zimmermann. The tricky thing was, British intelligence didn’t want the US finding out they were reading what was coming over those cables. That made it rather difficult to warn the US, without giving the game away and thereby doing enor...
Jan 17, 2017•58 min
December 2016 Fifty years after World War Two, a farewell party was held for Veterans of the Government Code and Cypher School, at the ramshackle site where they had carried out vital intelligence work. It was about to be bulldozed for housing, but the party bolstered a burgeoning desire to save and preserve it for future generations. Then, more so than now, Codebreakers from all levels of the organisation were able to attend and enjoy the reunion. As a result, the 14 hours of audio recorded by ...
Dec 11, 2016•1 hr
November 2016 Fun, food and friendships at 1940s Bletchley Park were among the most popular topics of conversation at the party that saved the site. Travel back 25 years for another dip into the memories shared by the Veterans that day in 1991, about everything but the work - from digs to dances. It was quite a party, carefully timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the letter sent to Churchill, asking for more resources. Sent in 1941, the letter opened the door for Bletchley Park to exp...
Nov 15, 2016•1 hr
October 2016 The Party that Saved Bletchley Park takes you back 25 years, to the first Veterans’ reunion. On 19 October 1991 Bletchley Park was about to be bulldozed for housing. A group of local historians organised the first - and, they thought, last - reunion of Veterans of the Government Code and Cypher School in the very buildings where they did their war work. They believed it would be a chance for the Veterans to have one last look around the site before it was consigned to history, and b...
Oct 18, 2016•59 min
September 2016 Action This Day! In our historic anniversary-based series, It Happened Here, we look at a paper-based act of daring which changed the course of history. Seventy five years ago Winston Churchill visited Bletchley Park, amid the utmost secrecy. He understood how important the intelligence being produced was, and valued it highly. He gave a morale-boosting speech to the Codebreakers, and we hear from Sir Arthur Bonsall, who stumbled across the PM on his way to lunch. Once the euphori...
Sep 11, 2016•54 min
August 2016 Hear from a German Enigma operator for the first time in the August 2016 episode of the Bletchley Park Podcast, Enigma from the other side. Sharing her unique story as part of Bletchley Park’s Oral History Project, Irmgard Enge, later Copley, tells how she was part of a secret operation to make sure the Allies did not find out how badly German aeroplanes and munitions factories were being damaged by bombs. She also recalls friendly - and less friendly - French people living near the ...
Aug 11, 2016•55 min
July 2016 Dive into stories of stolen intelligence treasures which helped turn the tide in the Battle of the Atlantic in the July 2016 episode of the Bletchley Park Podcast, Pinches and Breaks. As part of the historic anniversary-based series, It Happened Here, we hear from Arnold Hargreaves, a seaman aboard HMS Bulldog, who boarded the captured German submarine, U110, and still has the spoils today. An Enigma machine, codebooks and other vital documents were among the haul taken from the U-boat...
Jul 13, 2016•58 min
June 2016 No Sleep on VE Day, a brand new episode of the Bletchley Park Podcast, is out now. Cynthia Humble was an intercept operator in the ATS from 1944 and was stationed at Forest Moor in the Yorkshire countryside. There she listened intently to enciphered Morse signals which were whisked off to a place she and her colleagues knew only as Station X. Her memories of the intense work, the somewhat rationed but sparkling social life and how she and her watch did not sleep a wink on VE Day, despi...
Jun 12, 2016•52 min
May 2016 This month in the Bletchley Park Podcast’s It Happened Here series, we tell the story of The Bismarck. The iconic German battleship was sunk by the Royal Navy 75 years ago. While this clearly did not happen at Bletchley Park, but in the Atlantic Ocean, codebreaking and some of the pioneering techniques developed as part of it played a crucial role in locating the flagship of the German fleet. Bletchley Park’s Research Historian, Dr David Kenyon, explains how work going on in wooden huts...
May 10, 2016•55 min
April 2016 This episode of the Bletchley Park Podcast, Punch Cards, Porridge and a Pittance, celebrates five years since Bletchley Park’s Oral History project began in earnest. This rich archive has grown to more than three hundred interviews and this month we begin to celebrate its fifth anniversary, by sharing the very first interview that was carried out under its auspices. Doris Marshall, nee Phillips, lived just outside the boundaries of Bletchley Park and her family welcomed a number of bi...
Apr 11, 2016•47 min
March 2016 In November 2015, the GCHQ Departmental Historian made a rare public appearance as part of the Bletchley Park Presents lecture series. Tony gave a talk titled International Partnerships - Bletchley's Foreign Relations. In this second part of his talk he picks up the story with the fundamental work on Enigma carried out by Polish Codebreakers in the years running up to the start of World War Two and the start of the UK US relationship. The simultaneous management of different levels of...
Mar 29, 2016•27 min
