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Authors: Sinclair McKay
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mathematician, to spend my life doing these problems. This was just another form of problem.â
According to Mavis Batey the whole thing was more random than that. She recalls with some amusement the startlingly hands-offapproach when she first joined Dilly Knox in the Cottage: âWe were all thrown in at the deep end. No one knew how the blessed thing worked. When I first arrived, I was told, âWe are breaking machines, have you got a pencil?â
âAnd that was it. You got no explanation. I never saw an Enigma machine. Dilly Knox was able to reduce it â I wonât say to a game, but a sort of linguistic puzzle. It was rather like driving a car while having no idea what goes on under the bonnet.â
Mathematician Keith Batey is amused to this day about his initiation to the new, esoteric world of Enigma: âI arrived with two other chaps from the maths tripos. We were greeted at the Registry and were immediately given a quick lecture on the German wireless network. And I didnât pay much attention because I was focusing on these highly nubile young ladies who were wandering about the Park.
âAnyway, after twenty minutes of this lecture, which told us absolutely nothing,â continues Mr Batey, âwe were handed over to Hugh Alexander, who was the chess champion. He sat us down in front of what later turned out to be a steckered Enigma, and he talked about it. It didnât have a battery, it didnât work. And then we were just told to get on with it. That was the cryptographic training.â
Bletchley Park seemed an organic kind of institution. Perhaps, given the early, experimental nature of the work â so many minds attacking the problem of the codes in so many ways â there was little point in trying to give it an over-rigid structure. Nevertheless, in contrast to strict naval and military hierarchy, the place from the start seemed curiously self-disciplined. âThere were an awful lot of people who just used first names,â recalled one veteran, surprisingly given how socially formal the period was.
Meanwhile, Alistair Dennistonâs administrative difficulties were growing. There were problems involving accommodation for all the staff. An adjacent school â Elmers School â had to be requisitioned as more huts underwent construction.
Looking at these old huts now, one cannot help wondering why the authorities did not base the codebreaking activity in rather more comfortable, better-built space. One possible answer is that at that stage, no one anticipated the war lasting long enough for permanent structures to be needed. After all, even up until the summer of 1939, there were many who believed that Chamberlainâs government would, of necessity, allow Hitler to get away with further acts of aggression throughout Europe. Perhaps another consideration was that it was vital that no unfriendly attention was drawn to the Park. Not only would extensive building work raise questions, it would also be more easily visible from the air by enemy reconnaissance pilots.
And so a series of huts were constructed and accorded separate functions, decided by the sorts of codes that were to be read. By the side of the house was Hut 4, which was to become the Naval Section hut. Hut 5 was to become the Military (and later, the Japanese) Section. Other huts, such as Hut 8, the home of the Naval Enigma operation, followed not too long afterwards.
Hut 3 â which, together with Hut 6, seemed to form the hub of the operation â was nominated in part for army/air intercepts and Intelligence work; Hut 6 was where air force keys were to be read. Hut 1 eventually came to house the first experimental Turing bombe deciphering machine. (And according to Mimi Gallilee, âHut 2 was for beer, tea and relaxation.â)
From the very start, for the sake of security, the functions of each hut were kept as separate from each other as possible. Personnel were
According to Mavis Batey the whole thing was more random than that. She recalls with some amusement the startlingly hands-offapproach when she first joined Dilly Knox in the Cottage: âWe were all thrown in at the deep end. No one knew how the blessed thing worked. When I first arrived, I was told, âWe are breaking machines, have you got a pencil?â
âAnd that was it. You got no explanation. I never saw an Enigma machine. Dilly Knox was able to reduce it â I wonât say to a game, but a sort of linguistic puzzle. It was rather like driving a car while having no idea what goes on under the bonnet.â
Mathematician Keith Batey is amused to this day about his initiation to the new, esoteric world of Enigma: âI arrived with two other chaps from the maths tripos. We were greeted at the Registry and were immediately given a quick lecture on the German wireless network. And I didnât pay much attention because I was focusing on these highly nubile young ladies who were wandering about the Park.
âAnyway, after twenty minutes of this lecture, which told us absolutely nothing,â continues Mr Batey, âwe were handed over to Hugh Alexander, who was the chess champion. He sat us down in front of what later turned out to be a steckered Enigma, and he talked about it. It didnât have a battery, it didnât work. And then we were just told to get on with it. That was the cryptographic training.â
Bletchley Park seemed an organic kind of institution. Perhaps, given the early, experimental nature of the work â so many minds attacking the problem of the codes in so many ways â there was little point in trying to give it an over-rigid structure. Nevertheless, in contrast to strict naval and military hierarchy, the place from the start seemed curiously self-disciplined. âThere were an awful lot of people who just used first names,â recalled one veteran, surprisingly given how socially formal the period was.
Meanwhile, Alistair Dennistonâs administrative difficulties were growing. There were problems involving accommodation for all the staff. An adjacent school â Elmers School â had to be requisitioned as more huts underwent construction.
Looking at these old huts now, one cannot help wondering why the authorities did not base the codebreaking activity in rather more comfortable, better-built space. One possible answer is that at that stage, no one anticipated the war lasting long enough for permanent structures to be needed. After all, even up until the summer of 1939, there were many who believed that Chamberlainâs government would, of necessity, allow Hitler to get away with further acts of aggression throughout Europe. Perhaps another consideration was that it was vital that no unfriendly attention was drawn to the Park. Not only would extensive building work raise questions, it would also be more easily visible from the air by enemy reconnaissance pilots.
And so a series of huts were constructed and accorded separate functions, decided by the sorts of codes that were to be read. By the side of the house was Hut 4, which was to become the Naval Section hut. Hut 5 was to become the Military (and later, the Japanese) Section. Other huts, such as Hut 8, the home of the Naval Enigma operation, followed not too long afterwards.
Hut 3 â which, together with Hut 6, seemed to form the hub of the operation â was nominated in part for army/air intercepts and Intelligence work; Hut 6 was where air force keys were to be read. Hut 1 eventually came to house the first experimental Turing bombe deciphering machine. (And according to Mimi Gallilee, âHut 2 was for beer, tea and relaxation.â)
From the very start, for the sake of security, the functions of each hut were kept as separate from each other as possible. Personnel were
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