Signals Intelligence in World War One

Bletchley Park

History

4.8 • 177 Ratings

🗓️ 3 August 2014

⏱️ 6 minutes

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Summary

August 2014

As the centenary of World War One is marked, Bletchley Park looks back at the early intelligence career of one of its lesser-known geniuses.

In this extract, recorded at the Codebreaker’s Legacy Talks in November 2013, bestselling author and Bletchley Park Trustee Michael Smith charts the World War One service of John Tiltman, Bletchley Park's Chief Cryptographer, who was awarded the Military Cross fighting in the trenches. After being badly wounded in the Battle of Arras he transferred to military intelligence beginning a brilliant codebreaking career that was to last more than sixty years.

Bletchley Park became the World War Two home of the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), which was formed shortly after the allied armistice with Germany in November 1919. GC&CS was the outcome of a merger between the two significant codebreaking and signals intelligence departments of the then recent war: Room 40 or I.D. 25 (part of Naval Intelligence located within the Admiralty) and MI1(b) (a sub-section of Military Intelligence located within the War Office). A number of individuals who played important roles in codebreaking during World War One, went on to perform prominent roles at Bletchley Park during World War Two, such as Alastair Denniston, Dilly Knox, Frank Birch, Oliver Strachey, and Nigel de Grey.

The great accomplishments of the GC&CS during World War Two owe a great deal to the first official government codebreaking and signals intelligence departments that were established just after the outbreak of World War One.

This story will be explored in an exciting new exhibition due to open in 2015 co-sponsored by BAE Systems Applied Intelligence and Ultra Electronics.

Picture: ©shaunarmstrong/mubsta.com

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW1centenary

Transcript

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0:00.0	The man I'm going to talk to you about today was certainly one of the best co-breakers at Bletchley Park, quite possibly.
0:14.0	He was the greatest co-breaker at Bletchley Park.
0:18.0	He was born in London in 1894. His father was a prominent architect. John was the youngest
0:26.6	of three children, the oldest being his sister Mary. His older brother was called Alfred after his father.
0:32.6	They grew up in relatively privileged circumstances. They had a cook, a parlour maid, a Welsh nurse and a housemaid.
0:41.1	And John Tilton was sent to Charter's House school
0:43.8	where he proved to be a distinguished student.
0:46.8	He was offered a place at Oxford at the age of 13.
0:51.1	But his parents appeared to have decided that he was too young at that point.
0:55.4	It would be better for him to stay on at school.
0:58.6	Sadly, his father died three years later unexpectedly.
1:03.7	And when John left school, he went straight into a teaching career,
1:08.3	working at three small private schools, initially one in Fulham, then in Hastings,
1:12.7	and then finally one at Bogner, where he was at the start of the First World War.
1:20.7	Tiltnam took a commission in the King's Own Scottish Borders. He was one of a number of
1:26.2	enthusiastic early recruits who were held back. There
1:29.5	were so many of them, but in the summer of 1915 he was sent to sorts of plane, trained to go
1:35.8	and fight on the Western Front. In October, 1915, he arrived. He was just a second lieutenant, very basic junior officer, but trench warfare took a
1:48.9	heavy toll on junior officers and by March 1917, although still only being paid as a
1:56.2	substantive second lieutenant, he was a temporary captain commanding a company in what was known as
2:02.7	the regiment's 7th, 8th Battalion. The two original battalions had gone there in late 1915, having
2:10.2	lost so many men that they'd had to be amalgamated. The battalion took part in the Battle of Arras,
	...

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