E59 - Bill Tutte

Bletchley Park

History

4.8 • 177 Ratings

🗓️ 11 June 2017

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

June 2017

Bill Tutte played a crucial role in deciphering messages between Hitler and his high command. Yet he remains one of Bletchley Park’s unsung heroes. This little-known genius went straight from studying mathematics at Cambridge to the Government Code and Cypher School, where he used his analytical brilliance to help break what was believed to be an unbreakable code. His work also paved the way for the creation of the world’s first semi-programmable computer, Colossus.

His breath-taking achievements are now celebrated in a new exhibition at Bletchley Park and, on the day of his centenary, it was launched with a symposium of talks about his life and work.

We hear from the day’s speakers, who included the GCHQ Departmental Historian, Tony Comer, tireless Bill Tutte Memorial Fund campaigner, Claire Butterfield, David Bedford from Keele University and the BBC security correspondent, Gordon Corera.

We also speak exclusively to Bill Tutte’s family, who were there to soak up the celebration, about what it’s like to learn that a kindly uncle was an unsung war hero.

Image: ©Bletchley Park Trust 2017

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #Enigma, #WW2, #Veteran, #History

Transcript

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0:00.0	The
0:07.0	The Welcome from the home of the co-breakers and the birthplace of modern computing, this is the Bletchley Park podcast.
0:38.4	Welcome to Bletchley Park on the day of the Built-Up Symposium.
0:41.8	It's a day of talks on the life and work of this little-known genius.
0:45.5	I expect you've heard of Alan Turing.
0:47.3	If you're a Bletchley-a-Fong, you've probably heard of Gordon Welshman by now too.
0:50.9	But Bill Tut is less well-known, and a new exhibition in the mansion at Bletchley Park
0:55.2	aims to change that. Speaking today at the GCHQ departmental historian Tony Comer, tireless Bill
1:01.9	Tut campaigner Claire Butterfield, David Bedford from Keel University and the BBC's security
1:07.5	correspondent Gordon Carrera, not forgetting Bletchley Park's own research historian, Dr David Kenyon.
1:17.1	It's 1941 and in Europe, war is raging.
1:27.1	Bletchley Park faces a new problem.
1:29.3	Nazi leaders are using a machine unknown to the codebreakers
1:33.3	to create a complex code and hide their next steps.
1:37.3	No one knows what the enemy is planning.
1:41.3	A sample of the code used by Nazi high command falls on the desk of 24-year-old Bill Tutte, fresh
1:48.3	out of Cambridge.
1:50.2	He doesn't know where to begin.
1:52.6	It's a glorious morning.
1:53.7	The sun is shining on the trees at Bletchley Park.
1:56.0	And before we get going for a day of learning all about the fascinating character that was Bill Tut.
2:02.0	We've pressed ganged the GCHQ departmental historian Tony Comer for a chat about the talk
	...

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