E68 - Turning Points

Bletchley Park

History

4.8 • 177 Ratings

🗓️ 10 January 2018

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

January 2018

January is a good time to take stock and look at the year ahead. 75 years ago, it was January 1943 and, after a dark and difficult year, things were starting to look up.

By this time, Hut 8 had broken back into the naval Enigma codenamed Shark, after a devastating ten-month blackout. The daring raid on a sinking submarine which cost the lives of two brave sailors became a huge turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Elsewhere, five gruelling months drew to a close with the German army’s surrender at Stalingrad, against Hitler’s wishes, and not before 2 million people had been killed, injured or captured.

Intelligence played its part in both of these turning points, and more, in 1943. Bletchley Park itself was beginning to look quite different. No more were wooden huts hastily thrown together. Now, solid brick blocks were taking shape, showing a serious commitment to code breaking. In this episode we examine these - and more - turning points in 1943 with Bletchley Park’s Research Historian, Dr David Kenyon, and a rich archive of audio from the time.

Image: ©Crown. Reproduced by kind permission, Director, GCHQ

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #Enigma, #WW2

Transcript

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0:00.0	The
0:07.0	The From the home of the co-breakers and the birthplace of modern computing, this is the Bletchley Park podcast.
0:43.9	Welcome to the January 2018 episode of the Bletchley Park podcast, Turning Points.
0:50.6	As it's January, it's time to take stock and look at the year ahead. 75 years ago, it was January 1993. We now know the end of the war was in sight, but not even the intelligence chiefs at
0:56.8	Bletchley Park knew that then.
0:58.7	But things were starting to look up.
1:00.4	By December 1942, Hutt 8 had broken back into the naval enigma codenamed shark after a devastating
1:08.1	10-month blackout, which had been prompted by extra security,
1:12.7	added by a rightly suspicious Admiral Dernitz, and ended by a daring raid on a sinking submarine,
1:19.3	which cost the lives of two brave sailors, but made for a huge turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic.
1:26.4	Elsewhere, the end of the Battle of Stalingrad was another huge turning point.
1:31.2	After five grueling months, the German army finally surrendered against Hitler's wishes.
1:36.7	They'd been surrounded and eventually starved out, not to mention running out of ammunition.
1:42.2	But not before up to 2 million people were either killed, injured or captured.
1:47.0	There's an intelligence story to tell about both of these turning points and more, all in 1943.
1:53.8	Back at Bletchley Park, things were developing fast.
1:56.8	Solid brick blocks had been built and the workers by now were moving in,
2:00.5	this showing a serious commitment to code breaking as part of the war effort.
2:05.0	Let's look into all of this and more with Bletchley Park's research historian Dr David Kenyon.
2:09.8	Music This is Bletchley Park.
2:26.6	It happened here.
2:30.5	This time last year, David, we were looking back at 1942 as a year as a whole and it was pretty
	...

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