E140 - Intelligence in the Arctic
July 2022    Eighty years ago, in July 1942 the Allies suffered one of their most notorious losses of World War 2. The Merchant ship convoy PQ 17, carrying supplies to Russia was attacked in the Arctic seas by German aircraft and submarines. Out of 34 merchant ships in the convoy only 11 made it safely to Russia.    The incident has become symbolic of the suffering and endurance of those in...
1hr 20m Jul 25, 2022
1hr 20m
E139 - The Pacific Turns
June 2022 In this ‘It Happened Here’ episode we return to South Asia and the Pacific, and the war against the Japanese. After the disasters of Pearl Harbor, the Philippines and Singapore, and near disaster in Colombo in the first few months of 1942, the summer months would bring the Allies better fortune on the fighting fronts. 1942 would also see many changes for Britain’s Codebreakers in S...
1hr 31m Jun 24, 2022
1hr 31m
E138 - SIXTA
May 2022 The way in which the secrets of Bletchley Park were finally revealed to the world, bit by bit and now over the course of nearly four decades have meant that many myths and misunderstandings have become embedded in the story. One of our goals with these podcasts is to tell the full story of the Codebreakers and along the way hopefully correct some of those errors. So in this ‘It Happe...
1hr 17m May 27, 2022
1hr 17m
E137 - The Intelligence Factory
May 2022   Bletchley Park held a number of events to celebrate the opening of The Intelligence Factory and in this special episode we will take you to those events to hear from VIP guests, supporters and some of the people who helped to create our largest exhibition to date.   From the ‘Friends of Bletchley Park’ Preview we will hear from some of the first people who got to follow in the fo...
1hr 8m May 06, 2022
1hr 8m
E136 - Scaling Up
April 2022   Thursday 28th April 2022 sees Bletchley Park unveiling its largest exhibition to date, in the newly restored Block A. Its focus is the period from late 1942 to early 1945, when the demands of its crucial wartime work changed the Government Code and Cypher School from a ‘cottage industry’ into an industrial-scale intelligence operation. The name of the exhibition is, very aptly, ‘...
1hr 22m Apr 26, 2022
1hr 22m
E135 - Two Way Traffic
March 2022   Bletchley Park is synonymous with World War Two codebreaking, but the story is much bigger than just a country house in Buckinghamshire. Making, as well as breaking codes, was within the remit of the Government Code and Cypher School but is a much lesser known part of the story.   In this extended ‘It Happened Here’ episode, we not only find out about the British efforts to cre...
1hr 54m Mar 25, 2022
1hr 54m
E134 - Jumbo Takes Charge
February 2022 In every theatre of war, early 1942 was a dark time for the Allies. Japan seemed unstoppable in the Pacific. The Germans were at the gates of Moscow, threatening Egypt and prowling the Atlantic lifeline at sea. But at Bletchley Park there were far reaching changes to both the leadership and organisation that had one clear objective - to support the ultimate Allied victory. In th...
1hr 14m Feb 21, 2022
1hr 14m
E133 - Honouring Our Veterans
January 2022    The Podcast Team wish all our listeners a Very Happy New Year and how better to start it than with some great news.    With over 13,500 names so far, The Bletchley Park Roll of Honour aims to list all those who worked in signals intelligence for the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries during the Second World War. As no single list of the personnel of Bletchley Park and...
1hr 3m Jan 21, 2022
1hr 3m
E132 - Easterly Wind, Rain
December 2021    On the 7th of December 1941, Japanese invasion forces landed in Malaya. An hour and a half later Japanese aircraft attacked the US fleet, at anchor in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Simultaneous attacks were also made on Hong Kong, Guam, Wake Island and the Philippines.   Since that day controversy has raged over how much the British and US Governments knew in advance about these at...
1hr 34m Dec 07, 2021
1hr 34m
E131 - Secrets of the Supermarina
November 2021 Many visitors to Bletchley Park are familiar with the story of breaking Enigma and reading German and even Japanese codes. But equally important work was done on Italian ciphers. Not only were the Codebreakers able to read Italian naval messages, before and during the war, but this information was used to decisive effect in the Battle for North Africa, and the ultimate defeat of...
1hr 30m Nov 15, 2021
1hr 30m
E130 – Action This Day
October 2021 On the 21st of October 1941, four of Bletchley Park’s Codebreakers sent a plea for more staff and resources in a now notorious letter to the Prime Minister. Demand for Bletchley Park’s work was increasing, and the organisation was facing a crisis. Churchill was won over, adding the note ‘Action This Day’ to the document. But perhaps the changes that followed weren’t just the resu...
1hr 26m Oct 21, 2021
1hr 26m
E129 - Target England
September 2021 After Britain’s failure at Dunkirk and the Fall of France, the Germans seemed unstoppable. An invasion of Britain by Germany seemed the next logical step. In 1940, Britain and Bletchley Park prepared for war on the Home Front. As the German air campaign brought air combat with the Battle of Britain and bombs by night during the Blitz, the RAF - supported by intelligence from Bl...
1hr 26m Sep 27, 2021
1hr 26m
E128 - Whitehall 7947 - The Early Days Exhibition
August 2021 Hindsight and the lifting of decades of secrecy, allows us to know that by 1945 Bletchley Park had become a ‘codebreaking factory’ supplying war winning intelligence to the Allies ultimate victory. But what was it like for the 185 members of staff on Monday the 4th of September 1939? And … who were they? Supported by the UK government’s Culture Recovery Fund, our new exhibition ‘...
1hr 14m Aug 31, 2021
1hr 14m
E127 - Top Secret Misinformation Part 2
July 2021    In late 2020 we asked on social media for any questions our listeners wanted the podcast team to answer. We had so many that we needed to record a second episode that originally we had planned for January 2021. Unfortunately due to COVID restrictions this wasn’t possible … but now, we are back.   In this episode, Exhibitions Manager Erica Munro, Research Historian Dr David Keny...
1hr 9m Jul 27, 2021
1hr 9m
E126 - Barbarossa
June 2021 Eighty years ago in June 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in what Hitler hoped would be a lightning campaign to destroy Bolshevism and provide ‘living space’ for his empire in the east. The result was four years of brutal conflict which shaped the world we live in today. What did the codebreakers at Bletchley Park know about the Germans’ plans of attack? Was Stalin warne...
1hr 1m Jun 22, 2021
1hr 1m
E125 - Fall Gelb Part Two
June 2021 By late May 1940 the Germans have arrived at the French coast, cutting the Allied forces in two. Their risky invasion plan ‘Fall Gelb’ (or ‘Case Yellow’) has paid off.  For the Allies, things will only get worse - an evacuation of the British forces from Dunkirk, the capture of Paris and the ultimate humiliation at Compiègne. It also marked a turning point for Bletchley Park. The at...
1hr 6m Jun 11, 2021
1hr 6m
E124 - Fall Gelb Part One
June 2021 In May 1940, the much-anticipated German attack on France brings the Phoney War to an end. The French have the largest land army in the world, the Maginot Line giving them hundreds of miles of defences and they know the route the Germans will take. But in the space of only a few weeks, the entire strategic course of World War Two is turned on its head. The Germans have gambled on a n...
1hr Jun 04, 2021
1hr
E123 - Oral History Special No. 6
April 2021    Patricia Johnston’s idyllic childhood in Rangoon came to an abrupt end on the 7th of December 1941, with the attack on Pearl Harbour. In early 1942 with the Japanese invasion getting ever closer she was flown out with her siblings and arrived in India, without her parents.      After settling her two brothers in boarding school Patricia’s war really began. She realised after c...
1hr 4m Apr 30, 2021
1hr 4m
E122 - Never Alone
April 2021    Bletchley Park’s latest temporary exhibition is called ‘Never Alone’ and asks ‘what happens when everything is connected?’ Based on an exhibition developed and designed by the National Science and Media Museum, ‘Never Alone’ explores the popularity and power of smart devices.   There are now more devices connected to the internet than people on the planet. ‘Smart’ gadgets are ...
55m Apr 16, 2021
55m
E121 - Oral History Special No. 5
April 2021    Our Veterans who served in one of the three women’s auxiliary services during World War Two are always proud of their particular branch and WAAF Daphne Canning is no exception. When Oral History Officer Jonathan Byrne interviewed her in 2017 she was still proud to have worn her ‘Sparks’ badge; the insignia of a Royal Air Force Wireless Operator.    These Oral History Specials ...
59m Apr 02, 2021
59m
E120 - Oral History Special No. 4
March 2021    In our last Oral History Special we brought you the first part of a 2017 interview with former WREN, Mary Sherrard. From 1942 until the end of the war, Mary served at Bletchley Park and then at the Eastcote Bombe Outstation. This helped shaped the rest of her life because it was at Eastcote where she met her future husband John.    After originally servicing Spitfires in 1940,...
53m Mar 19, 2021
53m
E119 - Forging a Special Relationship
March 2021 In March 1946, as an ‘Iron Curtain’ was descending across Europe, in post-war London a document was signed that to this day is the basis of the most important and longest intelligence relationship that the UK has. But that Special Relationship with the USA didn’t suddenly begin 75 years ago; it was the culmination of five years of wartime collaboration. In this episode Podcast Prod...
1hr 23m Mar 05, 2021
1hr 23m
E118 - Oral History Special No. 3
February 2021    To keep you going during the lockdown, the podcast team will be bringing you a new episode every two weeks.   Last year we featured short clips from dozens of our Veterans telling us what they did on VE Day & VJ Day. Now in these Oral History Specials we can bring you the longer versions of those interviews, allowing our Veterans to tell their full story, in their own voice...
51m Feb 22, 2021
51m
E117 - Oral History Special No. 2
February 2021    As we did last year we have decided to release extra content again during the current lockdown and so for at least the next couple of months we will be bringing you a new show every two weeks. These will be a mixture of Oral History Specials and also our regular content as and when COVID restrictions allow us.    Last year we featured short clips from dozens of our Veterans...
39m Feb 08, 2021
39m
E116 - Oral History Special No. 1
January 2021    As we release this episode Bletchley Park Museum is currently closed as the UK is in a national lockdown to help contain the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19). Our staff and volunteers like so many around the world are in lockdown, self-isolation or working remotely from home. Unfortunately it means the promised second part of our Q&A’s from our listeners is on-hold for now, bu...
57m Jan 25, 2021
57m
E115 - Oral History 2020
December 2020    At the end of each year we like to focus on the important work that our Oral History Officer Jonathan Byrne and his team of staff and volunteers carry out. As with so many around the world, COVID-19 has had a huge effect on the work of Jonathan’s team in 2020.   In this episode we catch-up with Jonathan for an update on the Oral History Project and he shares four more highl...
1hr 7m Dec 22, 2020
1hr 7m
E114 - Top Secret Misinformation Part 1
November 2020 For the first time since January 2020 the podcast team were able to be physically in the same room together, even if socially distanced. So to mark this return we decided to ask our listeners on social media for their questions about Bletchley Park. In this, the first of these shows, Exhibitions Manager Erica Munro, Research Historian Dr David Kenyon, Research Officer Dr Thomas ...
1hr 2m Dec 07, 2020
1hr 2m
E113 - A Historian for the Future
October 2020    For over 8 years the podcast has been privileged to receive help and support from the modern day version of the wartime Government Code and Cypher School, GCHQ, both as an organisation and from their Departmental Historian.    Previous listeners will know that GCHQ has a new Historian and in Podcast Episode 98, we had the honour of being able to exclusively reveal his identi...
32m Oct 29, 2020
32m
E112 – The Best of Reunions Part 3
September 2020    This is the last of three special episodes to mark what would have been our Annual Veterans Reunion.    It was due to COVID-19 restrictions and with huge regret that Bletchley Park Trust had to take the difficult decision not to hold this year’s reunion on-site. But here at the podcast we can still celebrate our Veterans with these special episodes.   At a reunion we lik...
1hr 23m Sep 30, 2020
1hr 23m
E111 – The Best of Reunions Part 2
September 2020    As we explained in the last show, due to COVID-19 restrictions and with huge regret, Bletchley Park Trust had to take the difficult decision not to host our Annual Veterans Reunion onsite this year.   To continue to mark what would have been this year’s reunion, this is the second of three special episodes we will be bringing you this month, to still pay tribute to our Vet...
1hr 11m Sep 18, 2020
1hr 11m
E110 – The Best of Reunions Part 1
September 2020 Each year, to mark the arrival of the Codebreakers to their war station in 1939, we hold our Veterans Reunion. This is the highlight of our calendar year, and a really special occasion for all involved. Veterans can meet up with friends old and new and share stories of their vital and once top-secret wartime work. These events have taken on even more meaning in the past few yea...
1hr 1m Sep 06, 2020
1hr 1m
E109 - VJ Day
August 2020 Nearly 3 months after VE Day, the war against Japan still continued. Its end would be drawn out over 6 weeks between the Potsdam Declaration in July and the final signing of the surrender on-board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September the 2nd. During those weeks the world saw the use of a new weapon, the atom bomb and both Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be totally destroyed bef...
1hr 4m Aug 15, 2020
1hr 4m
Intelligence Insight No. 013
July 2020    As COVID-19 struck we decided to start releasing these extra episodes to give you our listeners something extra each week while you were in lockdown. We are glad we could share so many previously unheard recordings that we just hadn’t been able to before and hopefully these shows have helped you through these extraordinary times, if even in a small way.    Over the next few epi...
35m Jul 31, 2020
35m
Intelligence Insight No. 012
July 2020    Bletchley Park is an independent charity and so we rely on the ticket sales of our visitors for 95% of our operating costs, but another way to support the museum is to become a Friend of Bletchley Park.    As a friend of Bletchley Park you not only get our normal free unlimited year-round access to our heritage site and museum, but a range of other benefits including exclusive ...
52m Jul 17, 2020
52m
Intelligence Insight No. 011
July 2020    In this episode we are staying with Dermot Turing & his wider family. First we go back to a very cold day in March 2015 when more than twenty members of Alan Turing’s family gathered at Bletchley Park to pay tribute to their famous ancestor. The Imitation Game had been released only a few months earlier, so to have so many Turing’s in one place, at the same time, meant the worlds...
1hr 8m Jul 03, 2020
1hr 8m
Intelligence Insight No. 010
June 2020    This week we return for the second and final time to the 2018 launch of Dermot Turing’s book, X, Y and Z: The Real Story of How Enigma Was Broken. It’s a story of international cooperation, spanning many years and for the first time tells of how the French, British and Polish secret services came together to unravel the secrets of the Enigma machine.   At the launch Dermot was ...
49m Jun 19, 2020
49m
Intelligence Insight No. 009
June 2020    The breaking of the German Enigma machine wasn’t just down to the Codebreakers at Bletchley Park and it didn’t start with the outbreak of World War Two. It’s a story of international cooperation, spanning many years and who better to tell it than the nephew of Alan Turing.    In this, the first of two episodes, we return to 2018 when Bletchley Park hosted representatives of the Pol...
37m Jun 12, 2020
37m
Intelligence Insight No. 008
June 2020    This week we return for the last time to the Bill Tutte symposium that was held at Bletchley Park in 2017, the centenary of his birth.    In this episode we bring you the closing address of the day given by our then Chairman, Sir John Scarlett. But before that we have the final speaker of the day, the BBC’s Security Correspondent, Gordon Corera, here for the first time in full.   T...
43m Jun 05, 2020
43m
Intelligence Insight No. 007
May 2020    We return in this episode to the Bill Tutte symposium that was held at Bletchley Park in 2017, on the centenary of his birth. Again we bring you one of the many talks given that day, but for the first time in full.   Bill Tutte’s breaking of the Lorenz machine led to the Codebreakers at Bletchley Park being able to read the messages being sent between Hitler, the German High Command...
34m May 29, 2020
34m
Intelligence Insight No. 006
May 2020    In this episode we stay with the attack on the Lorenz code that Bill Tutte played such an important part in, with a first-hand account.   Captain Jerry Roberts worked with Bill Tutte in The Testery cracking, what they called Tunny, the German High Commands code, used by Hitler & his top Generals. Jerry tells us what it was like to work in The Testery, why breaking Tunny was so i...
41m May 22, 2020
41m
Intelligence Insight No. 005
May 2020    In this episode we again return to the Bill Tutte symposium that was held at Bletchley Park in 2017, on the centenary of his birth.    As a member of the Bill Tutte Memorial Fund Claire Butterfield had by 2017 spent 4 years campaigning for more recognition for the little-known mathematical genius. For the first time we can bring you Claire’s entire talk that opened the day and in it...
31m May 15, 2020
31m
E108 - Victory in Europe
May 2020 After more than 5 and a half years of fighting, 75 Years ago today the war in Europe officially finally came to an end. To commemorate the day we present this special It Happened Here episode. Using archive recordings and interviews with our Veterans from both our official Oral History Project and nearly 8 years of podcasts, we hope to take you back to the heady days of early May 194...
59m May 08, 2020
59m
E107 - The German Surrenders
May 2020 Since first marching into Poland on the 1st September 1939, the German army had conquered most of Europe. But the tide had turned and, as April 1945 began, they were caught between the Western Allies and the vast Red Army of the Soviet Union. The inevitable end was finally in sight, but not before multiple surrenders were signed. For the Codebreakers of Bletchley Park, after more tha...
1hr 36m May 01, 2020
1hr 36m
Intelligence Insight No. 004
April 2020    Many of Bletchley Park’s senior early war staff had cut their codebreaking teeth during World War One. In 2015 we opened an exhibition called The Road to Bletchley Park which looked at the work of Room 40 and MI1B. So following on from our previous Intelligence Insight we will be sharing again some interviews with the families of these famous Codebreakers of both conflicts.   Dill...
59m Apr 24, 2020
59m
Intelligence Insight No. 003
April 2020    Over the years we have been very fortunate to welcome the families of some of our more famous Codebreakers for a visit to Bletchley Park. The families always have such an immense pride in their ancestors and the work they did for GC&CS and it’s always an honour for the podcast to sit down with them for our listeners.   Following on from our last podcast, Invasion Norway, where we ...
57m Apr 17, 2020
57m
E106 - Invasion Norway
April 2020 In early 1940, as winter turned to spring, the world waited for the ‘Phony war’ to end with the expected German attack in the west. But the leaders of both Allied and Axis forces were looking in another direction, to the north, to the snow and the steel, to Scandinavia. Meanwhile in a wooden hut at Bletchley Park, recent recruit Harry Hinsley was certain a German fleet was preparin...
1hr 10m Apr 09, 2020
1hr 10m
Intelligence Insight No. 002
April 2020    2017 was the centenary of a relatively little-known genius who went straight from studying mathematics at Cambridge to codebreaking for the Government Code and Cypher School. The crucial role that Bill Tutte played in the attack on the system used by Hitler and his high command, Lorenz, not only broke it but also helped paved the way for the creation of the world’s first large-sca...
55m Apr 03, 2020
55m
Intelligence Insight No. 001
March 2020    Bletchley Park Museum is currently closed as a precautionary measure to help contain the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19). Our staff and volunteers like so many around the world are in lockdown, self-isolation or working remotely from home.   Bletchley Parks CEO Iain Standen said “This isn’t the first time that Bletchley Park has operated at unprecedented times of national crisis ...
1hr 4m Mar 27, 2020
1hr 4m
E105 - Plunder on the Rhine
March 2020 As 1945 began, the Germans’ last roll of the dice in the Ardennes has failed. They were left to face the overwhelming force of men and materiel of the Allied armies approaching the Fatherland from all directions. For the Allies in the west, the natural barrier of the Rhine River was all that lay between them and the open plains of Germany, and the last phase of the war in the west....
1hr 15m Mar 13, 2020
1hr 15m
E104 - Challenge HQ
February 2020    In contrast to its roots as a top secret organisation, the name of Bletchley Park is now recognised around the world. Sharing Bletchley Park’s stories with our audiences through education is at the heart what we now do here. Since first opening the site as a museum in 1992, educational programming has been a crucial part of the work of Bletchley Park Trust.    Our Learning team...
48m Feb 18, 2020
48m