Bletchley Park WWII Staff Finally Recognized 122
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by
Soulskill
from the what's-a-few-decades-among-friends dept.
from the what's-a-few-decades-among-friends dept.
99luftballon writes "Nearly 70 years after Station X (aka the Bletchley Park cryptanalysis unit) was set up, the surviving members are to be honored by the British government. Bletchley was one of the most important computing centers of its time and housed giants of the technology industry (as it was) like Tommy Flowers, who built Colossus, and Dr. Alan Turing. I was lucky enough to meet one of the staff at the site 11 years ago, and she was very bitter that their work was never recognized, and that they were bound by the Official Secrets Act and couldn't talk about it. It's just a shame that so few of the staff are still alive to receive the award."
Re:Unprofessional (Score:3, Informative)
"Not recognizing", goodness. Try literally castrating: go look up what happened to Alan Turing. It's important to remember of that era that the Nazis weren't the only ones locking up people for being different: the British treatment of homosexualy and the American treatment of Japanese-Americans of that time simply reflect other nation's willingness to harass and destroy those minority groups they pick as feared scapegoats.
And 20, 30, even 50 years later, the people who helped win WWII for the allies in such profound ways deserve recognition. Those secrets are expired, or should be.
Polish Cipher Bureau cracked Enigma (Score:5, Informative)
Get your facts straight. At a Warsaw conference on 25 July 1939 the Polish Cipher Bureau initiated the French and British into its Enigma-breaking techniques and technology, and provided complete "bomba" cracking machines. The bomba, or bomba kryptologiczna (Polish for "bomb" or "cryptologic bomb") was a special-purpose machine designed about October 1938 by Polish Cipher Bureau cryptologist Marian Rejewski to break German Enigma-machine ciphers. Colossus used to crack Enigma at Bletchley Park was based on Bomba technology. Harry Hinsley suggested in British Intelligence that the Poles decided to share their Enigma-breaking techniques and equipment with the French and British in July 1939 because they had encountered insuperable technical difficulties. Rejewski refuted this: "No, it was not [cryptologic] difficulties [...] that prompted us to work with the British and French, but only the deteriorating political situation. If we had had no difficulties at all we would still, or even the more so, have shared our achievements with our allies as our contribution to the struggle against Germany.". It's a shame to see Bletchley Park giving almost no credit to Polish Cipher Bureau, and claiming all the credit.
Have you been to Bletchley Park? (Score:5, Informative)
If you go to Bletchley Park the tour guides (some of whom served there during the war) are very clear about crediting all contributions where due.
One of the places the tour stops at is the memorial to the Polish code breakers and the tour guides clearly explain the Polish connection. They have an annual Polish day at the Park - celebrated two weeks ago, photos here [bletchleypark.org.uk]. Bletchley Park folks recognise the Polish contribution and make their visitors aware of this.
Re:Their value system is out of whack (Score:3, Informative)
To protect whatever source they would have had that the British did their code-breaking at bletchley.
The British had the same considerations when they had decrypted material; 'how much of it can we use before the Germans get the idea that we have broken their encryption'. Some times U-boats or supply ships was left alone even after their exact position was known in order to protect the fact that Enigma was broken.
Yours Yazeran
Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer
Re:Their value system is out of whack (Score:1, Informative)
For instance the naval version of the Enigma was much harder to break than the standard army version as German marine was much more conscious about the above pitfalls and had a more complex Enigma.
The naval version was only cracked because in order to communicate with weather stations (which used the old three-rotor Enigma system) they were setting their fourth rotor to a 'null' position. Backward compatibility and encryption do not mix.