E88 - The Tide of Victory

Bletchley Park

History

4.8 • 177 Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2019

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

May 2019

It Happened Here this month takes us to a Britain who’s south coast in May 1944 resembled one huge army camp as over 2 million men waited for D-Day. In the Buckinghamshire countryside the staff at GC&CS carried on feeding detailed and crucial intelligence to the Allied forces that would play an integral part in the success of the upcoming Operation Overlord.

The Western Front Committee was established at Bletchley Park in October 1942 and for the next 18 months built up a comprehensive picture of German forces in the West, recording every unit, its location and its strength.

From February 1943 the committee began to produce reports of which over 450 pages are now held in our archives. Our Research Historian, Dr David Kenyon uses these to illustrate how the various departments, using multiple sources, came together to create the vital information that the D-Day planners needed, in some cases even leading to last minute changes.

Special thanks to Mr Ben Thomson for playing the role of our Hut 3 Intelligence Officer.

Image: ©Bletchley Park Trust 2019

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #DDay75

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.
0:44.3	Welcome to the May 2019 episode of the Bletchley Park podcast, The Tide of Victory.
0:51.1	It happened here this month takes us to a Britain whose south coast in May 1944 resembled one huge army camp as over two million men waited for D-Day.
0:55.6	Meanwhile, in the Buckinghamshire countryside, the staff at GCNCS carried on feeding
1:00.0	detailed and crucial intelligence to the Allied forces that would play an integral part in the
1:04.7	success of the upcoming Operation Overlord.
1:08.1	The Western Front Committee was established at Bletchley Park in October
1:11.0	1942 and for the next 18 months it built up a comprehensive picture of German forces in
1:16.3	the West, recording every unit, its location and its strength. From February 1943,
1:23.0	the committee began to produce reports of which over 450 pages are now held in our archives.
1:28.8	Our research historian, Dr David Kenyon, uses these to illustrate how the various departments,
1:33.9	using multiple sources, came together to create the vital information that the D-Day planners needed,
1:39.7	in some cases even leading to last-minute changes.
1:43.0	Special thanks to Mr Ben Thompson for playing the role of our Hutt 3 intelligence
1:46.6	officer.
2:03.6	This is Bletchley Park. This is Bletchley Park. It happened here.
2:09.6	England has become one vast ordinance dump and field park.
2:13.6	In every wood and copse, in leafy, dead-end lanes and side roads often in private gardens
2:21.3	under quarries and embankments there it all was trucks ambulances tanks armored cars carriers jeeps
2:28.7	bulldozers of all kinds vast really vast numbers of them right in the midst of it
2:36.7	all just as I'd turn for home I passed a field where 22 men in carcice shirts and
	...

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