The

The from the home of the codebreakers and the birthplace of modern computing, this is the Bletchley Park podcast.

Welcome to the July 2023 episode of the Bletchley Park podcast.

Sicilian deception.

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 far could Bletchley Park prove those

deceptions were working? When they came, the landings in Sicily in July 1943 marked the opening

of a new front against the Axis in Italy, with far-reaching strategic consequences. In this

it happened here episode, Bletchley Park's research officer, Dr Thomas Cheatham, leads us through Operation Husky and Bletchley Park's role in its execution and success.

Many thanks to Dr Ben Thompson for voicing our archival documents. This is Bletchley Park.

It happened here.

In our November It Happened Here episode, Torch to Tunis, we looked at the end of the North African

campaign.

And that episode actually really took us up till May, 1943, Thomas, didn't it?

And this is where we're going to pick up now in this episode, isn't it?

Yes, so the Axis forces in Tunisia surrender on the 13th of May, 1993, and it's a big victory

for the Allies, of course, an enormous bag of prisoners. It's a bit like a second Stalingrad in many

ways, and the Axis have been pushed out of North Africa. The whole of Italy's overseas empire,

actually, apart from the Greek bits and the Yugoslav bits,

...