E97 - Early Days

Bletchley Park

History

4.8 • 177 Ratings

🗓️ 10 October 2019

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

October 2019

“Gas masks are to be taken” so ends what seems a rather mundane government memo dated the 2nd of August 1939. It importance becomes apparent when you discover this was the Move Order sent to the staff of the Government Code and Cypher School.

As Hitler threatened Poland it seemed another war in Europe was inevitable, so it was decided the staff of GC&CS should move to their War Station in the Buckinghamshire countryside. With hindsight we now know that over the next 6 long years, Bletchley Park would become a codebreaking factory, but what were those Early Days really like?

In this “It Happened Here” episode, our host, Erica Munro & Bletchley Park’s Research Officer Dr Thomas Cheetham take us back to August 1939 and through documents held in the archives tell the story of the arrival at Bletchley and dispel a few myths along the way.

Special thanks to Mr Ben Thomson for voicing our archival documents.

In memoriam, Jane Fawcett MBE (1921–2016) FO Civilian Hut 6

Image courtesy Judie Hodsdon

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #80WW2

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.
0:38.5	Welcome to the October 2019 episode of the Bletchley Park podcast. Welcome to the October 2019 episode of the Bletchley Park podcast.
0:43.7	Early days.
0:45.9	Gas masks are to be taken.
0:48.3	So ends what seems a rather mundane government memo dated the 2nd of August 1939.
0:53.9	Its importance becomes apparent when you discover
0:55.8	this was the move order sent to the staff of the Government Code in Cipher School. As Hitler
1:01.6	threatened Poland, it seemed another war in Europe was inevitable, so it was decided the staff of GCNCS
1:07.2	should move to their war station in the Buckinghamshire countryside. With hindsight,
1:11.9	we now know that over the next six long years, Bletchley Park would become a code-breaking factory,
1:16.7	but what were those early days really like? In this It Happened Here episode,
1:22.7	Bletchley Park's research officer, Dr Thomas Cheatham, takes us back to August 1939 and through documents held in
1:30.0	the archives, tells the story of the arrival at Bletchley and dispels a few myths along the way.
1:36.6	Special thanks to Mr Ben Thompson for voicing our archival documents. This is Bletchley Park.
1:58.4	It happened here.
2:02.5	Tom, this episode looks at the early days of code breaking at Bletchley Park,
2:06.8	but it's not actually the first time the co-breakers were here, is it?
2:10.7	No, the park had been purchased in early 1938,
2:14.8	and the codebreakers had actually come for the first time later that year in September
2:18.4	around the time of the Munich crisis. And this was a mobilisation to war. Contrary to popular
2:24.1	perception, it wasn't a test, it wasn't a visit to check out the suitability of the site.
	...

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