E130 – Action This Day

Bletchley Park

History

4.8 • 177 Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2021

⏱️ 87 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

October 2021

On the 21st of October 1941, four of Bletchley Park’s Codebreakers sent a plea for more staff and resources in a now notorious letter to the Prime Minister. Demand for Bletchley Park’s work was increasing, and the organisation was facing a crisis.

Churchill was won over, adding the note ‘Action This Day’ to the document. But perhaps the changes that followed weren’t just the result of the Prime Minister’s influence.

In this ‘It Happened Here’ episode, Dr Thomas Cheetham explores the problems the Codebreakers were facing and how this letter was only part of the wider story.

Thanks as always for voicing our archival documents to Dr Ben Thomson, and to Geoffrey Welchman who recreates the letter co-authored by his grandfather.

Featuring the following contributors from our Oral History Archive:

Sir Arthur Bonsall
Elizabeth Marshall
Mimi Gallilee
Arnold Hargreaves
Gwendoline Herbert
Barbara Hart
Judith Wainer

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2,

Transcript

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0:00.0	The
0:07.0	The From the home of the codebreakers and the birthplace of modern computing, this is the Bletchley Park podcast.
0:36.2	Welcome to the October 2021 episode of the Bletchley Park podcast. Action this day.
0:43.7	On the 21st of October 1941, four of Bletchley Park's codebreakers sent a plea for more staff and resources in a now notorious letter to the Prime Minister.
0:54.4	Demand for Bletchley Park's work was increasing, and the organisation was facing a crisis.
1:00.0	Churchill was won over, adding the note, action this day to the document, but perhaps the changes
1:05.7	that followed weren't just the result of the Prime Minister's influence.
1:09.9	In this It Happened Here episode, Dr Thomas Cheatham explores the problems the codebreakers were
1:14.4	facing and how this letter was only part of the wider story.
1:19.4	Thanks as always for voicing our archival documents to Dr Ben Thompson
1:23.2	and to Geoffrey Welshman, who recreates the letter co-authored by his grandfather.
1:43.3	This is Bletchley Park. It happened here.
1:51.4	It's now 1941. GCCNCS has been at Bletchley Park for about two years. And by this point,
1:58.2	the code breakers must have surely solved a lot of the early problems
2:01.3	and settled down to work, right? You would have thought so. But actually, 1941 is a period of
2:07.3	crisis for Bletchley Park and Government Coen & Science School. In this podcast, you know, we always
2:12.5	like to relate what was going on here to the broader war effort, because otherwise why did any of it matter?
2:18.7	But this podcast is more about Bletchley Park itself and events in Britain and how code breaking was
2:23.8	organised. So it quite literally is, and it happened here. Now, clearly the codebreakers have been
2:29.2	really successful by this point in the war, but the system at Bletchley is starting to creak just under the weight of the
2:35.7	effort and the limitations of the resources they have. To keep producing intelligence, GCNCS needs
2:41.6	more people, more places to house and feed them, and for them to work. And the billeting and catering
	...

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