My daughter and son-in-law were visiting us recently and we planned a day trip to Cambridge. We thought we would stop at Bletchley Park for a quick visit on the way -- it's only about an hour north of Oxford. Long story short, we never made it to Cambridge -- we found Bletchley Park to be so interesting we stayed all afternoon.
Bletchley Park was the site of the U.K.'s Government Code and Cypher School, which during the Second World War regularly intercepting and decoding the secret communications of the Germans. Historian of World War II have written that the intelligence produced at Bletchley shortened the war by two to four years, and that without it the outcome of the war would have been uncertain. The park is now an educational and historical center that honors and celebrates the accomplishments of the Code Breakers.
We had a wonderful guide take us around the park and tell us what Bletchley was like during the war. It's well worth joining up with a group and a guide -- we heard all kinds of fascinating stories that brought the whole place to life for us.
At the center of the park is an eclectic mansion built by Sir Herbert Leon starting in 1882. The mansion and grounds were acquired for wartime headquarters for the Government Code and Cypher School in 1938.
These are the main gates to the complex. They don't look anything like the main gate in the movie The Imitation Game. That's because they used Joyce Grove at Nettlebed for the some of the scenes, such as the gates and the exterior shots of the mansion.
There are several Huts on site. Hut 3, 6 and 8 have been restored to what they were like during the war and in Hut 8 is where you'll find Alan Turing's Office.
There are four Enigma machines on display -- a German made code scrambling device and used by Britain’s code breakers as a way of deciphering German signals during the war. With the advent of the war, the enigma machine's settings were changed once a day, giving 159 million million million possible setting to choose from. Finding a way to break that each day, without the Germans knowing, was the herculean task the British Code Breakers were up against.
The process of breaking Enigma was made possible by the invention of a complex electro-mechanical device, designed by Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman. The Bombe, as it was called, ran through all the possible Enigma wheel configurations in order to reduce the possible number of settings in use to a manageable number for further hand testing.
This Bombe has been restored to working order and a guide did a demonstration of how it works. It's absolutely fascinating.
There is also an exhibit of costumes, props and sets on display that were used in the movie The Imitation Game.
Inside the Manor House there is a large hall with a pub and a meeting hall that were used as a set in the movie. In fact it was no set -- it was the real hang-out place for the Code Breakers.
At the end of the war, Alan Turing is awarded the OBE for his wartime services. He was never allowed to tell his family what he did during the war and they didn't find out until 1975 -- 30 years later. All Bletchey personel took an oath that they would not talk to anyone about what they did at Bletchley for 30 years. In some cases, the oath was for life. That is why they story of the Code Breakers was one of the best kept secrets of the war.
In 1952, seven years after Alan Turing was declared a war hero, he was found guilty of gross indecency (homosexual acts) when such behavior was against the law in the UK. He had a choice to serve time in jail or accept treatment with estrogen injections. He choice the injections. Turing died in 1954, 16 days before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning (most likely be suicide).
In 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British Government for "the appalling way he was treated". Queen Elizabeth II granted him a posthumous pardon in 2013.
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