We are thrilled that Mary Nichols has found
time in her busy schedule to join us today. Even more so as she is writing
about her latest work which is set around Bletchley Park. Welcome, Mary.
We’ll Meet Again is about the secrets people were
expected to keep in WW2, secrets they could not even tell their nearest and
dearest.
The
story surrounding the Government Code and Cypher School or Station X, better
known as Bletchley Park, is fascinating, awe-inspiring and almost incredible.
Thousands of people worked there, everyone of whom was sworn to secrecy. That
the secret was kept by so many for so long is truly amazing.
They were recruited from all
walks of life and were a mixture of civilians and people from all three
services. They ranged from incredibly clever mathematicians, linguistics and
puzzle solvers to typists, telex operators, messengers, cooks, cleaners and
motor cyclists. The motor cyclists were an important part of the operation. They
brought in coded German messages from outlying radio listening stations to be
deciphered at Bletchley, travelling at high speed in all weathers, often
through the night. No one was allowed to receive mail at Bletchley Park, it all
had to come through a box number at the War Office and no post left Bletchley
Park. It was taken by the motor cyclists all over the country to be posted.
Imagine the puzzlement of your family receiving letters from you posted all
over the place. It would make them wonder what you were up to, wouldn’t it?
 |
| Bletchley Park |
The
work was done in huts built in the grounds of the park, and each had a separate
function. The enemy used a very clever machine called an enigma to encipher
their messages and it was the job of the decoders at Bletchley Park to unscramble
them. They used a modified Typex machine made to work like an enigma, and other
more complicated electro-mechanical machines called bombes. They couldn’t work
unless they had a crib to start them off, things like call signs, transmission
times, the length of the message and the mistakes of the German operators. One
apparently habitually used the name of his girlfriend. Without those there were 58 million, million,
million possibilities.
The work was further complicated
because there was no universal setting, every section of the German
intelligence services, army, navy and air force, all used different machines
and different settings and they were changed every twenty-four hours. Then everyone had to begin all over
again. How on earth did they manage it?
It needed the genius of men like Alan Turing, ‘Dilly’ Knox, Gordon Welchman and
a host of others, to come up with the answers. The intelligence gathered was
sent to whoever needed to know, but the recipient was only told it came from ‘a
reliable source’. It won battles, sunk
enemy ships, tracked u-boats and saved thousand of lives. All in secret.
Since the secret was revealed in
the 1980s There have been many books written about it and I acquired a few of
them. Hut Six by Gordon Welchman was the one that broke the silence. It
goes into some detail about how the enigma code was cracked with logic, though
mathematics certainly came into it. I tried to follow it but figures have never
been my strong point and though I could see vaguely how it was done, that was
as far as I could go. It did not stop me enjoying the story it told and wondering what it must hve been like to have a secret like that and not be able to tell a soul, not even your nearest and dearest. There is a tale of a couple being shown round the Park by a guide, at the end of which the lady said, 'Very Good. You’ve almost got it right.’ Her husband turned
to her in astonishment and said, ‘You were here?’ and when she confirmed
it, he said, ‘So was I.’ It was the first that either had known about
the other. Hard to believe, and it may be apocryphal, but who would not be
fascinated by it, especially an inquisitive writer looking for something to
write about?
 |
The work done at Bletchley Park
is mentioned frequently in other books I have researched for my WW2 stories.
Its influence on the conduct of the war was far reaching, but its legacy is
even more widespread. The first ever computer, a huge affair called ‘Colossus’
was built at Bletchley Park. Today’s computers, microchips and the hundreds of
gadgets we use every day, were born in the huts of Bletchley Park.
|
We’ll Meet Again tells the
story of two girls who work there, Prue, the daughter of an earl, and Sheila, a
girl from the East End of London who has lost all her family in the first big
air raid of the blitz. Together they face the challenges of wartime Britain and
the secret they must keep.
We’ll Meet Again is published by Allison and Busby
and is available from bookshop and online. Paperback ISBN: 9780 7490 17040.
Links:
Thank you so much for
visiting the blog today, Mary. We both look forward to reading We’ll Meet Again.
The RNA blog is brought to you by,
Elaine Everest & Natalie Kleinman
If you would like to write for the RNA blog please contact us
on elaineeverest@aol.com
.jpg)
.jpg)
