“Bletchley Park, a British government cryptological establishment in operation during World War II remained classified even after the end of the war. The establishment was where Alan Turing and other agents of the Ultra intelligence project decoded the enemy’s secret messages, most notably those that had been encrypted with the German Enigma and Tunny Cipher machines.”
The world would not fully learn of the valuable efforts put forth by approximately 12,000 men and women until 1974 when Frederick William Winterbotham received permission to publish his memoir, “The Ultra Secret.”
Ethel Bamford (pictured left) of the Royal Corps of Signals, worked as a Teleprinter Operator at Beaumanor Y Station, Leicestershire, transmitting Enigma messages intercepted by the Station to Bletchley Park for decryption.
According to The Bletchley Park Museum: “Gladys Sweetland, from London, joined the women’s equivalent of the Army, the Auxiliary Territorial Service, and was sent to Bletchley to work on Japanese Army codes. “I shall never forget the comradeship,”Gladys recalls, “and meeting all those different types of people. I never thought, leaving school at 14 and a half, that I would be able to have a proper conversation with a University professor.”
“Corporal Gladys Sweetland, of the Intelligence Corps, served at Bletchley Park from May 1943 to October 1945. She worked in the Military Section in Block F.
“They used innovative mathematical analysis and were assisted by two computing machines developed there by teams led by Alan Turing: the electro-mechanical Bombe developed with Gordon Welchman, and the electronic Colossus designed by Tommy Flowers.”
The code breakers began working around the clock to send the intelligence they were producing to London. Special Liaison Units were set up to feed the Bletchley Park intelligence to Commanders in the field, first briefly in France in May 1940 and then in North Africa and elsewhere from March 1941onwards. These achievements greatly shortened the war, thereby saving countless lives. Lest We Forget.
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WWII uncovered©️ description and photos sourced by The Bletchley Park Museum, The History of Bletchley Park by Michael Smith and the Telegraph (Fair Use Photos)
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