Bletchley Park

July 2024  In early 1942 one of the most disastrous defeats of the war saw British forces pushed out of Burma, now known as Myanmar. Two years later, the multi-national Fourteenth Army, the ‘Forgotten Army’, had learned to fight and beat the Japanese, inflicting their largest defeat of the war at Imphal and Kohima, and was poised to begin the reconquest of Burma. This turnaround had much to do wit...

June 2024    To commemorate the 80th Anniversary of D-Day, we are releasing 3 special episodes to tell the full story of The Longest Day. This third part is a brand new episode looking beyond the beaches. Bletchley Park made a vital contribution to the planning and preparation of D-Day, but the landings were only the beginning. There would be another three months of hard fighting in Normandy befor...

June 2024    To commemorate the 80th Anniversary of D-Day, we will be releasing 3 special episodes to tell the full story of The Longest Day. This second part is a complete remastering of our original Overlord episode with the addition of much new content. 80 years ago today, more than 150,000 Allied troops were boarding planes, gliders and landing craft as they prepared to invade Fortress Europe...

May 2024    Over the next 6 weeks, to commemorate the 80th Anniversary of D-Day, we will be releasing 3 special episodes to tell the full story of The Longest Day. This first part is a complete remastering of our original Tide of Victory episode with the addition of much new content. This first episode takes us to the south coast of Britain which, in May 1944, resembled one huge army camp as over...

April 2024 Women were the backbone of Bletchley Park during World War Two. At its peak in January 1945, the workforce was 75% female, but even at the start of the war, women comprised a significant portion of GC&CS’s numbers. Women were recruited in a variety of ways, but a significant quantity of them, particularly early in the war, were selected direct from prominent universities such as Oxf...

March 2024 Bletchley Park is famous as the home of World War 2 codebreaking. But what was there before the Government Code and Cypher School moved in? Who built Bletchley Park, and what remains of the pre-war country estate? In this episode, Research Historian Dr David Kenyon and Head of Content Erica Munro examine the people who made Bletchley Park their home prior to World War 2. Sir Herbert Leo...

February 2024 In 2023, Bletchley Park Trust completed its biggest refurbishment project to date – a £13 million, three-phase project, to open up wartime buildings at the heart of the site for the very first time. The final phase saw Block E, once the wartime Communications hub of Bletchley Park, transformed into two new resources – the Block E Learning Centre – which includes eight learning spaces...

January 2024 Eighty years ago, in January 1944, the first Colossus computer was delivered to Bletchley Park. This machine and the nine that followed it have acquired legendary status within the story of World War Two codebreaking. The machines have also been described as the world’s first large-scale electronic digital computers – direct precursors of the digital world in which we live today. But...

January 2024  Eighty years ago, in January 1944, the first Colossus computer was delivered to Bletchley Park. This machine and the nine that followed it have acquired legendary status within the story of World War Two codebreaking. The machines have also been described as the world’s first large-scale electronic digital computers – direct precursors of the digital world in which we live today.  Bu...

December 2023 Eighty years ago this month Britain was marking its fifth Christmas of the war with still no end in sight. D-Day still lay in the future and the campaigns in Italy and on the Eastern Front ground on. However on Boxing Day 1943 the Royal Navy achieved a significant, if grim success over the German Navy, sinking the Scharnhorst, one of the few last remaining large warships in the enemy...

November 2023 For our tenth anniversary episode, E141 “Security & Insecurity”, we discussed one of the most important factors in wartime codebreaking – secrecy. We looked at its effects on operations at Bletchley Park and the lives of those who worked there.  We had so much to talk about on that occasion that we didn’t have the chance to explore beyond the bounds of Bletchley Park. However, as...

October 2023 The fight up the Italian peninsula involved some of the most arduous battles of the war for Allied soldiers, but they were being supported at every stage by intelligence from Bletchley Park. Ultra intelligence helped inform Allied strategy in Italy, kept commanders constantly up-to-date about enemy forces, and sometimes proved the difference between victory and defeat on the battlefie...

September 2023 The annual Bletchley Park Veterans’ Reunion is one of the highlights of our year. A chance to welcome back those who worked for Bletchley Park during World War Two, and thank them for their service. This year’s reunion saw 17 Veterans return to enjoy a very special afternoon tea in the Mansion.  In this episode, we bring you highlights from the day as we caught up with Jean Cheshire...

August 2023 This month we examine the often-overlooked story of GC&CS’s work on diplomatic codes and ciphers.  This vital work predated work on military codes, beginning when CG&CS was created in 1919. Work continued throughout World War Two, with some staff eventually leaving Bletchley Park to carry on as the Government Communications Bureau in Berkeley Street London. In this special epis...

July 2023 In 1943, when the guns fell silent in Tunisia, a lull fell over the war in the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, the work of the intelligence services continued unabated. An Allied amphibious assault somewhere in the Mediterranean was inevitable. The question for the Germans was “where?” – and the Allies were eager to supply the answers. But how much could the Allies mislead the enemy, and how f...

June 2023 Who chose Bletchley Park – a vacant estate in Buckinghamshire – as the wartime home of the Codebreakers? That decision was made by the man in charge of the Secret Intelligence Service, known as ‘C’ – Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair. A very public man with a very secretive profession, Sinclair was widely-known and well-respected. He passed away just a couple of months after World War Two began...

May 2023 Like many heritage organisations, Bletchley Park Trust holds a collection within its storerooms. And we are always seeking to improve how it’s managed and taken care of. Now, due to the support of foundations, trusts and generous individuals, we’ve created a new Collection Centre. Once the building had been refurbished and kitted out, the curatorial team had the mammoth task of moving and...

April 2023  80 years ago, Bletchley Park’s communications centre opened in Block E. Employing hundreds of staff, mainly young women, this block was vital to BP’s smooth running. Most messages and reports coming into and out of Bletchley Park went through Block E. But as we’ll hear in this ‘It Happened Here’ episode, its wartime importance doesn’t necessarily mean its value has been fully recognise...

March 2023  To celebrate World Poetry Day on the 21st of March, we have been looking into the poets and poetry of Bletchley Park. We have chosen nine poems to feature in this episode; they are read by staff, volunteers and Bletchley Park Veterans. Exhibitions Manager, Erica Munro and Research Officer, Dr Thomas Cheetham have been digging into the archives to give us more information as we listen....

February 2023  The breaking of the German Lorenz cipher system was one of BP's most complex technical achievements. This work is often associated with Tommy Flowers from the GPO, however Flowers' work, and the wider mechanisation of the breaking of TUNNY was overseen by a Cambridge mathematician who came to BP only reluctantly in 1942; Professor Max Newman.  To mark the 80th anniversary of the ope...

January 2023  The Podcast Team wish all our listeners a Very Happy New Year.  To start the 2023 season of the podcast, producer Mark Cotton sits down with Oral History Officer Jonathan Byrne to catch-up on both our Roll of Honour and our continuing Oral History Project.  For the rest of the episode we have highlights of 3 selections from our Oral History Archive. As with previous years we have a t...

December 2022  Since the first two Top Secret Misinformation podcasts in 2020 & 2021, our listeners have been asking us to record another one. Maybe it’s because the secrecy surrounding Bletchley Park is the perfect breeding ground for all sorts of myths and misunderstandings. Or maybe it’s because it lets our Historians off the leash to set the record straight once and for all. We asked our l...

November 2022  The Allied victory in the Second Battle of El Alamein in November 1942 proved to be the beginning of the end of the war in North Africa. But many months of hard fighting, and the opening of a whole new front in northwest Africa, would be needed before the Allies were finally able to kick Axis forces off that continent for good. Though often forgotten about today, the Operation Torch...

October 2022  In February 1942 the worst fears of the teams working on Enigma in Hut 8 and Naval Section were realised. The German navy introduced a new, more complex Enigma machine for use by its U-boats in the Atlantic.  At a stroke, Bletchley Park was no longer able to read messages sent by the German submarines hunting the vital Atlantic convoys.  By the end of the year, however, the new code...

September 2022  Earlier this year in April 2022, Bletchley Park opened a new temporary exhibition in a brand new gallery. The Art of Data explores how data can be visualised to reveal patterns and stories, helping us understand the world around us. The exhibition includes WW2 visualisations alongside a whole variety of striking contemporary examples, shown in objects, pictures, films and interacti...