D-day is closing fast for Bletchley Park, a complex of austere concrete
buildings near Milton Keynes where Churchill and his military commanders
planned the Normandy landings by the Allied forces in 1944. In the same
buildings, the mathematician Alan Turing led a team of cryptographers who
intercepted and deciphered top-secret military communiques between Hitler
and his admirals and generals. The communiques were encrypted in the so-called
鈥楨nigma鈥� code which the Germans considered unbreakable.
The codebreakers at Bletchley cracked the Enigma and Fish codes with
the help of Colossus, the world鈥檚 first electronic programmable computer.
Because the Allies were able eventually to snoop on the German high command
with such consummate ease, they were able to anticipate Hitler鈥檚 every move
and to inflict crushing defeats, bringing the war to a hastier end and saving
thousands of lives. In their work with electronics, the code breakers laid
the theoretical basis of digital computing and artificial intelligence.
Ironically, a latter-day alliance has had to fight tooth-and-nail to
save the historic buildings from the bulldozers. But now there are encouraging
signs that their dreams of turning the entire site into a complex of museums
may yet materialise.
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A year or so ago, things looked bleak. There was every likelihood that
the buildings would be razed to the ground to be replaced with 450 houses
and a superstore. That possibility has now largely receded thanks primarily
to the efforts of campaigners in nearby Milton Keynes.
The Bletchley Park Trust was born in 1991 after a reunion of 100 former
code breakers at Bletchley. They found, to their horror, that the historic
buildings faced demolition. British Telecom and the government, which jointly
own the site, planned to sell off the land and did not consider the historic
buildings worth conserving.
Nor did English Heritage, the body charged with listing historic buildings
and monuments so no-one can knock them down. To the dismay of the trust,
English Heritage judged the buildings to be too undistinguished architecturally
to merit a listing. 鈥榃e thought the whole site was of historic importance,
but not the buildings,鈥� said an English Heritage spokeswoman. 鈥業t was not
the buildings that were important. The concrete shells were not really going
to convey the internal activity that went on.鈥�
Not so, according to Ted Enever, chief executive of the Bletchley Park
Trust. 鈥楾hey are unique and historical. I know of no other site in Britain
where buildings of this kind are still standing and have been bombproofed
in this way,鈥� he says. 鈥楢lmost all the wartime buildings are still there,
but British Telecom destroyed F Block and an annexe to it. It is a great
pity, because they housed the first electronic computers, built in or around
1943. One or two small huts have been destroyed, but some 85 per cent remain.鈥�
Enever says that only four or five of the buildings can be called 鈥榟uts鈥�.
New information has emerged, he adds, that the majority of the huts were
built to withstand not just bomb blasts, but rocket attacks as well as Hitler鈥檚
V weapons.
The trust aims to restore or replicate the original equipment, and reinstall
it in the huts as part of a display recreating Bletchley鈥檚 heyday. But what
was life like there during the 1940s? 鈥業t was fascinating,鈥� says Lord Asa
Briggs, a veteran code breaker. 鈥業 went there straight from Cambridge as
a historian. I learned more maths in the war than in the rest of my life.
I was very interested in the combination of analytical skills with a broad
imagination.
鈥楾uring was the great mathematical genius. But most of the people who
did the best work were pretty young. It was a lively place and there were
many women there,鈥� says Briggs. He maintains that it is essential to keep
the house and as many huts as possible. 鈥業t would be the right thing to
do. They were central to the war effort in every conceivable way,鈥� he asserts.
鈥楾hey were right at the core of central intelligence.鈥�
He supports the trust鈥檚 plans to turn the site into a complex of museums,
but says that 鈥榳hat鈥檚 to be done requires time and money. That it鈥檚 near
Bletchley railway station is a good start. If someone could take it on,
I think the idea of them being a general memorial is important. But the
huts and even the house will only be important if they become part of a
肠辞尘辫濒别虫.鈥�
Enever and colleagues plan to do just that, and have drawn up a 拢7-million
business plan which is under consideration by British Telecom and the Department
of the Environment. Barclay鈥檚 Bank has agreed in principle to 鈥榟elp the
trust with the purchase price鈥�. Touche Ross, a City firm, is acting as financial
adviser and the trust is also employing the London-based property consultant,
Savill鈥檚, to advise on land acquisition. Even the Secretary of State for
the Environment, Michael Howard, has expressed support for the trust鈥檚 initiative,
and British Telecom is also warming to the idea instead of blithely pursuing
the highest price it can for the land. 鈥極ur dealings with BT and (the government)
are in no way confrontational,鈥� says Enever. 鈥楢ll sides want to see (the
plan) come to fruition . . . We are optimistic that given the cooperation
of the owners, we can reach an amicable agreement.鈥�
Added to this, Milton Keynes Borough Council extended the existing conservation
area last December to take in all the wartime buildings. Archaeologists
have since found evidence of a substantial Roman villa within the conservation
zone, adding to the case for preserving the site.
So what do Enever and his colleagues have in mind for Bletchley? 鈥業t
will be the world鈥檚 first campus of high-technology museums,鈥� says Enever.
鈥楾wo of them would be museums to cryptology and would re-enact the cryptographers鈥�
work during the war. People would feed their own message and it would be
encrypted in the Enigma code. Then, they would see how it was deciphered.鈥�
Alongside would be a museum to the history of computing, marking the
historic development of Colossus by Turing. 鈥楤y the end of the war, 10
computers were operative,鈥� says Enever. Nearby would be a museum of radar
technology and air traffic control. In 1949, he explains, the Civil Aviation
Authority moved onto the site and trained air traffic controllers there.
Also, engineers from the Post Office have links with the site, and Enever
wants to erect a museum to modern telecommunications, particularly satellite
communications.
Finally, the trust wants to build a museum to town and urban planning.
鈥楳ilton Keynes was the 21st, and the biggest of all the towns in the 鈥榥ew
town鈥� movement after the war,鈥� says Enever.
So what now stands in the way? The trust is meeting regularly with BT
and the government鈥檚 property agency, called Property Holdings, to decide
Bletchley鈥檚 fate. With luck, things will go the trust鈥檚 way. As Enever points
out, there is no need to build houses on the site because enough land to
support 20 000 houses is available within the boundaries of Milton Keynes
itself. Also, BT is haunted by the public relations bogeys of monopoly,
overcharging customers and excessive profits. This year it posted a pre-tax
profit of 拢1.7 billion. So for BT to make a fuss about the need to
get a good price for Bletchley would hardly endear it to the public鈥檚 heart.
But perhaps the last word should go to General Dwight Eisenhower, commander
of the Allied Expeditionary Forces during the Second World War and afterwards
President of the US. In a letter, dated July 1945, to General Stewart Menzies,
who was in charge of Allied intelligence, Eisenhower writes of Bletchley
Park: 鈥楾he intelligence which has emanated from you before and during this
campaign has been of priceless value to me. It has simplified my task as
a commander enormously. It has thousands of British and American lives and,
in no small way, contributed to the speed with which the enemy was routed
and eventually forced to surrender.鈥� As Enever has consistently pointed
out, the museums would be a monument to the power of intellect over guns
and bombs. Let鈥檚 hope for a common sense solution which heralds an historic
victory at Bletchley.
