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BLETCHLEY PARK VISIT.

Year 6 visited Bletchley Park on Thursday 7th February. We arrived at 09:30am and were eager to start learning about the incredible events that took place in the tiny huts at Bletchley during WWII.

During our visit, we had the opportunity to: explore the various exhibits and points of interest at Bletchley Park, take part in an interception to intelligence workshop, learn to read and translate Morse Code, and receive a guided educational tour from a knowledgeable staff member named Harold. In addition, we were able to view replica enigma and bombe machines that were used to encrypt and decrypt messages during WWII. We even got to set up a replica enigma machine and create our own encrypted messages.

We learnt that the men and women who worked at Bletchley Park during the war didn’t apply for the jobs – they were recruited. These individuals were some of the top minds in the country and the best mathematicians that Britain had to offer. It wasn’t just mathematicians that were recruited to break the encrypted enigma messages. Linguists were recruited to translate decrypted messages, physicists and scientists were recruited, individuals who were studying Geography were recruited and even captured agents from other countries were recruited. There were over 10,000 people working at Bletchley Park during the war and the whole operation was kept completely secret until long after World War II. It’s quite incredible when you think about it; it must have been quite a difficult task to keep such a big operation secret. ‘Careless talk costs lives’ Bletchley Park used to say to its employees.

Due to the secrecy, many of the heroic efforts of the men and women working at Bletchley Park went unnoticed when the war ended. To honour these important individuals and their war efforts, we suggest that you visit Bletchley Park. It is worth a visit.

Alan Turing is often the most spoken about and well-known individual that contributed to the war efforts at Bletchley Park. Well, he did design and build the bombe machine which led to the cracking of enigma. So he deserves to be well-known and spoken about. However, there were so many other vital contributions by many important individuals. Their combined efforts were a decisive factor in Britain being victorious in WWII. The role of the women during the war for example were unparalleled. Double first female mathematicians were not only tasked with cracking enigma, but they were also tasked with delivering encrypted and decrypted messages to different locations on time by motorcycle. During your visit, please take the time to learn about the contributions of these unknown heroes.

Click HERE to see some photos from the day.

We would like to thank the volunteers that helped us with our visit to Bletchley Park; the day couldn’t have taken place without you and we had a great day!

Blog written by Daniel and Ivana