Day 59 -61 Cov - Bletchley Park - Scotland - Wed to Friday

Peter Bate ·

Wednesday was a trip to Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire. This was the famed cypher establishment during WWII that cracked the German, Japanese and Italian cypher codes.   A motley collection of mathematicians, engineers and crossword puzzle solvers were brought together in an effort to read the enemy cypher codes, those very clever people together with some great daring do adventures by Polish patriots and the Royal Navy managed to read messages and bring the war to a close an estimated two years earlier. Some interesting things we learned was:

  1.  The Enigma cypher machine was invented in Switzerland and was available commercially twenty years before the outbreak of war. It was invented for banks etc to keep their business secrets secret, a German company bought the patents in the 1930's and the military created a more secure version.
  2. Most of the initial work was done in the late thirties by Polish code breakers who already had access to commercial Enigma and were worried by German threats and potential invasion.  
  3. The Navy capture of an Enigma machine was only important for the code books that were recovered and not the machine itself. 
  4. There was a period of about nine months before the invasion when the Germans changed codes and added a fourth wheel to the Enigma machine, the codes then could not be read.
  5. The British had cracked the Japanese cyphers before Pearl Harbour but the Americans were sceptical at first

October 31, All Hallows Eve, we celebrated with great nieces Lilia and Elise who dressed for the occasion and prepared two pumpkins with the help of Nanny Twinn, unfortunately  both vomited all over the path.

Later Alan and I held a firework display in the back garden with oohs and aghhs emanating from the assembled crowd, including Auntie Vi from next door. 

 

Friday and off to Scotland for a weekend with Malcolm and Marina, weather was terrible at first pouring with rain but the further north we got the better it was until at Lake Windermere the sun was shining. After a tussle with the swans over who should eat my chips we proceeded to Uphall about sixteen miles from Edinburgh and the home of the Wilde's. We met the rabbits and look forward to Saturday to meet the clan.