March 2016 Dr David A Hatch, NSA Historian, explains the huge historic significance of the letter sent by General Dwight D Eisenhower, the five-star general in the United States Army during World War Two who served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, to the Chief of MI6, Stuart Menzies, at the end of the war, thanking him for the intelligence produced by Bletchley Park. In it, Eisenhower says “The intelligence … has saved thousands of British and American lives.” The letter is n...
Mar 16, 2016•3 min
March 2016 In this month’s brand new episode of the Bletchley Park Podcast, Bombe Girls, meet some of the trailblazing women who were assigned to Special Duties X or posted to HMS Pembroke 5 when they joined the Wrens (Women’s Royal Naval Service or WRNS). These women found themselves at Bletchley Park - or, in many cases - at one of its huge, industrial outstations on the fringes of London - operating state of the art machines created to speed up the process of finding the daily Enigma settings...
Mar 10, 2016•59 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 first part of his talk he examined how foreign partnerships became an integral part of British signals intelligence shortly before World War Two. Although parts of the story are told, the meeting with the Poles in Warsaw in July 1939, and the arrival of the Amer...
Mar 03, 2016•29 min
February 2016 75 years ago, a tentative meeting was held late at night, aided by sherry, in the office of Alastair Denniston, then Head of the Government Code and Cypher School. It was to prove an important turning point in the history of both the UK and the US. That night, as intelligence secrets were shared, the Special Relationship was founded. That alliance continues to be crucial to both nations today. To celebrate this anniversary, the Directors of GCHQ and the NSA visited Bletchley Park t...
Feb 10, 2016•1 hr
January 2016 Throughout 2016, the Bletchley Park Podcast will tell stories of the Codebreakers’ successes and agonies - all of which they kept completely secret. This month, it’s not German and it’s not Enigma. With help from Bletchley Park’s Research Historian, Dr David Kenyon, we look into the high level Italian ciphers being broken by Bletchley Park, which impacted significantly on the war in North Africa. There was a continuing dance of difficulty between the codebreaking operation in Cairo ...
Jan 10, 2016•57 min
December 2015 Veterans’ families encouraged to join community and buy a brick Pride burns bright in relatives of the men and women whose secret work at Bletchley Park and its outstations helped shorten World War Two. The Bletchley Park Trust is in touch with more than 1,500 Veterans of the clandestine codebreaking organisation, the Government Code and Cypher School. Many more are no longer with us. Now, for the first time, the Trust is reaching out to its Veterans’ families to join a global comm...
Dec 29, 2015•4 min
December 2015 A story full of heroism and tragedy is now told at Bletchley Park in a new mini exhibition. The Petard Pinch was the seizure of vital codebooks from a sinking U-Boat in which two young men drowned. But they didn’t die in vain - the intelligence treasures they captured were extremely valuable. They allowed the Codebreakers at Bletchley Park to break back into the naval Enigma network Shark, after a devastating ten month blackout. Image: Petard Crew 1942 ©The Petard Association #BPar...
Dec 17, 2015•4 min
December 2015 Bletchley Park has had its best ever year. In the whole of 2014, 196,000 people came to discover the secret world of World War Two codebreaking and this year, with nearly a month still to go, the figure stands at more than 280,000 thousand. New exhibitions which opened this year included The Road to Bletchley Park, about codebreaking during World War One, and the little-known story of one of World War Two’s forgotten heroes, Gordon Welchman. Among the treasures which went on show f...
Dec 10, 2015•59 min
December 2015 Professor Jack Copeland, Director of the Turing Archive for the History of Computing, celebrated another forgotten hero of Bletchley Park, Max Newman, as part of the Bletchley Park Presents lecture series. His August talk ‘How Computers Were Used Against Hitler’, was a huge success. Professor Copeland explored the story of little-recognised Codebreaker Max Newman, whose work was fundamental to the construction of the first electronic computer, Colossus. The section he founded and l...
Dec 04, 2015•42 min
November 2015 Time is running out to see That is All You Need to Know, an original play which shines a light on the Home of the Codebreakers. Created by theatre company, Idle Motion, the work pulls together three different strands of Bletchley Park’s history; Alan Turing and his team breaking the Enigma code during World War Two, Gordon Welchman writing his ground-breaking book, The Hut Six Story, in the 1970s and the campaign to save the site for posterity in the 1990s. That is All You Need to ...
Nov 24, 2015•10 min
November 2015 In the throes of war, difficult decisions have to be made. Prime Minister Winston Churchill was fully aware that Bletchley Park was breaking German codes, and even received regular digests of the intelligence gleaned, known as Hut 3 Headlines. However, a myth was born in the mid-1970s that remains in circulation even now. The theory was that messages decoded by Bletchley Park warned Churchill that the Luftwaffe was heading for Coventry on 14 November 1940, and that he allowed the b...
Nov 13, 2015•5 min
November 2015 Hindsight can be cruel. The conspiracy theory that Churchill allowed Coventry to be bombed beyond recognition, killing hundreds of civilians, in order to protect the Ultra secret - that Bletchley Park was breaking German codes - is a myth. In this episode we bring you memories of the devastating air raid on Coventry, which took place 75 years ago, on 14 November 1940. Hear from Sir Arthur Bonsall, who worked in the German Air Section, debunking the myth. And Bletchley Park’s Resear...
Nov 10, 2015•1 hr
November 2015 Sarah Harding’s mother remembers Bletchley Park as a happy place. Dorothy Harding, nee Thompson, worked as a Morse slip reader in the Communications Centre from 1943 to the end of the war. Many years later, Sarah directed the hit ITV drama, The Bletchley Circle, about four fictional women who worked at the Government Code and Cypher School during World War Two and, some ten years later, regrouped in secret to solve mysteries including murder. Now Sarah is joining a worldwide commun...
Nov 06, 2015•1 min
October 2015 The Bletchley Park Trust is reaching out to Veterans’ families, to create a worldwide community of people with a special link to this unique piece of British history. The Trust is inviting relatives of the Codebreakers to cement their family ties with the breath-taking achievements of the Bletchley Park operation during World War Two. Their names and the importance of what they did was once shrouded in secrecy, but can now be celebrated in perpetuity. For the next six months Veteran...
Oct 24, 2015•29 min
October 2015 In Forgotten Genius, the October 2015 episode of the Bletchley Park Podcast, we take you to the opening of a brand new, fascinating exhibition about Gordon Welchman, Bletchley Park’s Architect of Ultra Intelligence. Hear from Welchman’s granddaughter, Jennifer, who flew in specially to be at the launch and from his Hut 6 colleague, Jimmy Thirsk, who at the age of 101 is one of the last few of his kind left. Also featured is the grandson of a man who was involved in Codebreaking in b...
Oct 10, 2015•59 min
October 2015 You’ve seen the Oscar winning film, now visit the set and get a rare insight into how the story of genius Codebreaker Alan Turing was brought to life. Benedict Cumberbatch said Filming at Bletchley Park was amazing. It was a very important part of the film. In the Ballroom and Billiard Rooms of the Mansion, this atmospheric exhibition is all about the making of The Imitation Game, in the very room where the bar scenes were filmed. Among the many behind the scenes gems are secret doc...
Oct 02, 2015•3 min
September 2015 On 29 July Bletchley Park’s Royal Patron, HRH The Duke of Kent, officially opened the major new exhibition, The Road to Bletchley Park, telling the story of codebreaking during World War One. Many of those World War One Codebreakers went on to work at Bletchley Park during World War Two. Among them was Alastair Denniston the first operational head of the Government Code and Cypher School. The August episode of the Bletchley Park Podcast featured an edited version of an interview w...
Sep 30, 2015•19 min
September 2015 Chatbots have yet to fool the judges of the Loebner Prize into believing they’re human at the Loebner Prize. The 25th annual Artificial Intelligence competition, which puts the Turing test into practice, has ended without any of the judges being duped. The BBC’s Technology Correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones, was one of the four judges. He says it was easy to tell which of the conversations were with humans and which were with bots. When he started talking about keeping slugs off his...
Sep 21, 2015•7 min
September 2015 On 18 October the BBC’s Security Correspondent, Gordon Corera, will give a talk at Bletchley Park about his new book which traces the intertwined history of computing and espionage, Intercept – The Secret History of Computers and Spies. The computer was born to spy. Under the intense pressure of the Second World War and in the confines of Bletchley Park, the work of men like Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers led to the birth of the computing age. It was a breakthrough that helped win ...
Sep 17, 2015•3 min
September 2015 Nearly ninety Veterans of the Government Code and Cypher School and its many outstations gathered at Bletchley Park on Sunday 6 September, to reminisce and meet old friends and new. After a summer of 70th anniversary commemorations, it was a chance for people who worked in secret at both Bletchley Park and its outstations to remember their contribution. They took the opportunity to bring their friends and families to soak up the atmosphere back in the very buildings where they did...
Sep 10, 2015•59 min
August 2015 Seventy years ago on the 15th August 1945, small group of young women were quietly at work in Hut 16 at Bletchley Park. They included twins Valerie and Mary Glassborow, who later married brothers and among whose grandchildren was a girl who became HRHThe Duchess of Cambridge. Marion Graham (later Body) was also in that room in Hut 16, which Hut 6 was renamed as the codebreaking factory that was Bletchley Park grew and developed throughout World War Two. She recalls a moment of great ...
Aug 14, 2015•4 min
August 2015 In this episode we take you to the royal launch of a major new exhibition, which looks at the roots of codebreaking as we know it. The Road to Bletchley Park was officially opened on July the 29th by Bletchley Park’s Royal Patron, HRH, The Duke of Kent. We have interviews with the designer, a sponsor, our friendly GCHQ Historian & family members of two of the WW1 codebreakers. This episode also features highlights of the last three years’ Veterans’ Reunions, as this year’s approa...
Aug 10, 2015•59 min
Today Bletchley Park’s Royal Patron, HRH The Duke of Kent, will officially open a major new exhibition telling the story of Codebreaking in World War One, The Road to Bletchley Park. The Duke will meet representatives of the exhibition’s sponsors, BAE Systems and Ultra Electronics, as well as visiting new displays and exhibitions updated since his last visit in 2009. Timed to coincide with the exhibition opening, the Bletchley Park Trust is delighted to republish a unique parody of Alice’s Adven...
Jul 29, 2015•3 min
July 2015 This brand new episode celebrates five years of the Roll of Honour, which aims to record all those who worked at Bletchley Park and its outstations during World War Two. It now holds nearly 11 thousand names, as well as a rich archive of memories, anecdotes and photographs. Also this month, hear from Bletchley Park Veteran Betty Webb MBE, about how keeping news of her honour secret for seven weeks was harder than sticking to the Official Secrets Act for more than 30 years. Betty was na...
Jul 12, 2015•51 min
June 2015 This month’s episode provides a peek at a major new exhibition at Bletchley Park, about codebreaking during World War One. The roots of Bletchley Park’s codebreaking success in World War Two can be clearly traced back to WW1, when several of the key figures of the Government Code and Cypher School were already engaged in the business of snooping into the enemy’s communications. The Road to Bletchley Park traces the roots of this codebreaking powerhouse back one hundred years. The exhib...
Jun 10, 2015•54 min
May 2015 First this month we talk to our official photographer Shaun Armstrong who’s pictures help to tell the story of our new exhibition; Bletchley Park Rescued and Restored. Shaun was on hand to capture images from the start of the £8 million phase one restoration project, right through to the official opening in June 2014 by HRH The Duchess of Cambridge. Sarah Harding, director of the 2nd series of The Bletchley Circle was one of last years speakers in our Bletchley Park Presents series of t...
May 11, 2015•1 hr
May 2015 70 years ago on May the 7th 1945 General Jodl signed the unconditional surrender of all German forces in Europe. The next day then became Victory in Europe Day. In this clip we bring you some of the sounds from those two monumental days along with the memories of some of our amazing Veterans that we have had the honour to interview over nearly three years now. This clip includes, Betty Flavell (WRNS 1944-1945) Joyce Roberts (WAAF 1945-1947) Dot Tuffin (WRNS 1943-1945) Marigold Freeman-A...
May 07, 2015•4 min
April 2015 This month we take you into our new Hut 12 Exhibit; Rescued and Restored, showcasing historical treasures found during the transformation of the Huts and Blocks. When conservation specialists were brought in to rescue fragile, derelict buildings as part of the much needed first phase of restoration, little could they know what they might find. In the cracks between roof beams in Hut 6 they discovered folded pieces of what appear to be scrap paper, with mysterious notes scribbled on th...
Apr 13, 2015•55 min
March 2015 This month join us on a very special tour of Bletchley Park, when more than twenty members of Alan Turing’s family gathered to pay tribute to his contribution to the war-winning intelligence that emerged from this unassuming country estate. It was a poignant visit for members of his family, some of whom had never been before and most who’d never met the man. Sir John Dermot Turing, a Trustee of Bletchley Park and Alan Turing’s nephew, took the opportunity to talk about exciting plans ...
Mar 14, 2015•48 min
March 2014 In this EXTRA’s episode we bring you highlights of bestselling author, journalist and TV presenter Ben Macintyre’s talk on his book ‘A Spy Among Friends, Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal’. Kim Philby was the most notorious British defector and Soviet mole in history. Agent, double agent, traitor and enigma, he betrayed every secret of Allied operations to the Russians in the early years of the Cold War. It is followed by the interview we recorded with Ben after his talk, that regular...
Mar 04, 2015•46 min
