The

The Welcome from the home of the codebreakers and the birthplace of modern computing.

This is the Bletchley Park podcast.

Welcome to the February 22 episode of the Bletchley Park podcast, Jumbo takes charge.

In every theatre of war, early 1942 was a dark time for the Allies. Japan seemed

unstoppable in the Pacific. The Germans were at the gates of Moscow,

threatening Egypt and prowling the Atlantic lifeline at sea. But at Bletchley Park, there were far-reaching

changes to both the leadership and organisation that had one clear objective to support the ultimate

Allied victory. In this It Happened Here episode,

our research officer, Dr Thomas Cheatham,

guides us through the dramatic changes

that would transform GCNCS into an intelligence factory.

Thanks as ever go to Dr Ben Thompson

for voicing our archival documents.

Music to Ben Thompson for voicing our archival documents. This is Bletchley Park.

It happened here.

This episode follows on in terms of historical events from what we learned in episode 130 action this day, where we found out that the letter to Churchill was not quite the pivotal event at Bletchley Park that people often think it is. It was a few months later that the really dramatic events at Bletchley

Park took place. But to widen it out and get a bit of context, Thomas, can you give us some

insight into the progress of the war in early 1942. Things were looking pretty bad for

the Allies at this point, weren't they? Yeah, I mean, to sum it up, you've done it. I mean,

it's not going well. This is probably the low point in the war for the Allies. And even if

they're not on the verge of losing the war, they're certainly nowhere near to winning it.

...