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Bletchley Park

Operation Sealion - A Doomed Venture

Bletchley Park

Bletchley Park

History

4.8177 Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2014

⏱️ 3 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

May 2014

As the 70th anniversary of D-Day approaches, original Bletchley Park Trust member & Historian Peter Westcombe, compares the meticulous planning which preceded the Normandy landings with the doomed German plot to invade Britain much earlier in World War Two, Operation SEALION.

You can hear more of this interview with Peter in the next episode of the Bletchley Park Podcast, out on the 10th of May.

©Crown. Reproduced by kind permission, Director, GCHQ

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #enigma, #DDay

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

In 1940, of course, we weren't doing too well the Naval Enigma at all.

0:09.0

The Naval Enigma, of course, was the one which might give us information,

0:12.0

but of course we just weren't breaking it.

0:14.0

So in fact that the invasion was stalled and didn't happen was advantageous to us

0:19.0

because he gave us a chance to get in an attack

0:20.9

the neighbour enigma and eventually break it in 1941.

0:25.2

He was always said that they were always won by the side that makes the least mistakes.

0:28.9

Therefore, of course, when we're planning on D-Day, we made the least mistakes and we won.

0:33.3

But when Hitler said, oh, yes, jolly good idea.

0:35.4

What be, lads, let's go and invade England.

0:37.3

You're a bit stuck, aren't you?

0:38.5

When the boss gets into his mind that invading England would be advantageous,

0:42.3

you ain't got much chance of sort of backing out of it.

0:44.4

But, of course, they did eventually, when it was Hitler, they backed out anyway.

0:47.8

Hitler thought what it would do, in fact, was to shorten the war. He said, look, he said, don't worry. He said, England have lost the war, but they don't realize it.

0:54.7

And that was it. We lost all of it. We just didn't realize it.

0:57.5

You know what these blasted Brits are like.

1:00.8

There's this doubt weaving in and out of all the decisions they made.

1:05.1

See, this very hasty put together, hope in fact that because we were so confused,

1:09.4

they had a bad morning at Dunkirk

1:11.1

they were going to walk into England

1:12.6

look at this comment

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