How do you keep 8,995 codebreakers secret?

The extreme siloing reminded me of the bit in Monty Python where a deadly joke had to be translated one word at a time so the workers didn’t die of laughter. Wonder if that’s where they got the idea?

A fun bonus from this series has been meeting all these wonderful people who are so enthusiastic and knowledgeable in their fields! I love hearing folks speak about such niche technologies with such confidence and intelligence. Where would we be without the people willing to preserve and learn about all of this?

I remember when people were allowed to talk in 2009.

My Dad found out one of his teachers had been at Bletchley.

my nan's cousin worked at Bletchley. The family knew she worked there, and that she did War work. but it was just accepted that you did not talk about War work. She never told anyone what she did. And no one asked her.

103 sextillion before actual computers is an absurd number to hear

Apparently the code breakers would get gifts for Hitler's birthday. A lot of easy to decrypt messages to Berlin, which then made all the other massages for the day easy.

About 20 years ago I visited Bletchley Park. One of the replica Turing Bombes was being assembled and a woman in her 80s quietly said to the man assembling it that he was doing it wrong. When he asked how she knew, she said she had worked there during the war and had repaired some of the originals. But what happened next was even better. Her husband, who would have been a few years older, said he had also worked at Bletchley Park during the war. They didn't know they had worked in neighbouring buildings and had never discussed it with each other. When the guide asked how neither of them knew the other had worked there, the answer was simple - after around 60 years of marriage they still took the Official Secrets Act very seriously.

One of my favorite subjects on WW2 is the development of the intelligence industry. They laid the groundwork for how we handle sensitive information today. My Great Uncle worked in intelligence during WW2, we never found out in his lifetime what he did but after we died we found a box full of plans about German aircraft. He was a very talented model maker, and as it turned out his job was to make detailed scale models of German planes. Later in life he turned those skills into make models of sailing ships, some of which are still displayed in a local museum!

I remember a story of a man being told all his life for being a coward and never going to war, accused of malingering. He never argued and lived with the shame till he was on his deathbed, and a historian tracked him down. During the war, he was trained by the SOE and SAS post Africa and Italy, not to go into Europe, but to disappear if the Country was ever invaded, and he and his team of irregulars, others who were trained also, priests, gamekeepers, poachers, farmers, would hide in secret underground hides, and launch sabotage attacks on the invading Germans. One of their primary tasks was to find Englishmen who were either sympathetic to the Germans, or held great state secrets and not the fortitude to hold them and assassinate them. He was interviewed in a care home, not a medal to his name, but a trained killer to run suicide missions to harass the enemy.

Jesus, that quote about secrecy at the fireplace really hit hard.

Thank you for shining this particular light on this particular part of the operstion.

Bletchley Park is the exact place and time where "computer" turned from a job into a machine.

A brilliant look behind the scenes at Bletchley Park. Thanks for helping bring the story of our codebreakers to life, Tom. You’re welcome back anytime!

About twenty years ago I got to meet one of the archivists at Bletchley Park who were recording the memoirs of the code breakers. She had just got back from talking to one of the team who worked with Dilley Knox on the first systematic breaks into Enigma. At the time, she was just recovering from surgery.

The little old lady had almost refused to undergo a lifesaving operation because she was afraid that she might spill secrets whilst under anaesthesia. She had even demanded a policeman be brought into the operating theatre in case she broke the official secrets act. Eventually the surgeon was able to persuade her that even if she did say something secret, he was bound to keep quiet on the grounds of medical confidentiality.

I love that that myth is almost inverted - they didn't not act because it'd give away they'd broken Enigma, they DID act because it made their forces look bigger and more fearsome than they really were.

Britain really said "If we are always where they are, they will think we are everywhere." And it worked

My grandmother worked at Bletchley Park - she was invited to a meeting after winning a crossword competition.

She ended up working in the Japanese area of the park.

She did not talk about what she did in the war untill she got the letter and medal from PM Gordon Brown.

David was, in my opinion, the best guide so far in this series. Excellent eloquence and knowledge.

In 2017 or around about then, my Granny went on an old folks’ coach trip tour of Bletchley. While there, one woman on the tour revealed that she had worked there, and this was the first time she had told another living soul that in over 70 years. Which was made all the more surprising when her husband turned to look at her and revealed that he too had worked at Bletchley and had also never told a living soul that. This couple, who had been married for over 50 years, had never known either of them had worked together during the war. Such was the secrecy of these people.

"We Also Served" is one hell of a quote to describe the people at Bletchley Park who kept their mouths shut about their duty

This is one of those joyful videos where I get to hand over to Someone Very Qualified. | AD: 💼 Find a fulfilling career that also helps the world: 80000hours.org/tom