GRALISTAIR
Established Member
Which vital member of the Bletchley Park Codebreakers did not even get a mention in The Imitation Game?
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xotGD
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Was it a dog?
GRALISTAIR
Established Member
Nope.
GRALISTAIR
Established Member
His contribution was probably as big as Alan Turing's.
GRALISTAIR
Established Member
No he was not Polish. Turing did say though the bombe (Christopher as he called it in the film) was inspired by an old Polish design.
DerekC
Established Member
There was a lot more to the Polish contribution than that. The Poles under the leadership of Rejewski broke the first version of the Enigma machine using their "Bomby" which was the intellectual ancestor of the Bletchley Park "Bombe" even though the "Bombe" was much more advanced. In one of the key moments of the war (before it even started) in July and August 1939 the Poles handed over a copied version of the Enigma, the design of the Bomby and the "Zygalski sheets" which also formed a key part of their methods of decryption. This got Turing and Bletchley Park off to a flying start.
In terms of the British effort, there is a danger of history being rewritten around Turing as though he was a one-man band, great though his contribution was. Apart from Turing some of the key names were Denniston (who launched the whole thing and recruited the team), Knox, Twin, Jeffreys, Welchman (who realised the scale of the problem and put the organisation together), Milner-Barry, Herivel, Keen, Hinsley and lots of others.
If you haven't been, a visit to Bletchley Park is quite revealing in terms of the ultimate scale and professionalism of the organisation - but read a good book on the subject first!
GRALISTAIR
Established Member
So in terms of the question which critical member of the team did not even get mentioned in The Imitation Game and made a huge contribution - Gordon Welchman whose work on traffic analysis is still used today. Wikipedia entry here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Welchman
(BTW I agree about history being rewritten a little too much around Turing even though he is one of my heroes) I have read at least 3 books on the subject btw.
Open floor
(BTW I agree about history being rewritten a little too much around Turing even though he is one of my heroes) I have read at least 3 books on the subject btw.
Open floor
DerekC
Established Member
Sorry - I didn't mean to be patronising - the message was for anyone reading it! I did find the order of the tour at Bletchley Park a bit random and it helped a lot to have read books on the subject first.
OK - so sticking to the subject of Bletchley Park, what senior politician and cabinet minister did a spell as a code-breaker in his earlier life?
Marton
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Ian Macleod
DerekC
Established Member
Not so far as I can see. Ian Macleod had a distinguished war including landing on "Gold" beach on D-day but not, I think, Bletchley Park. (My mother, otherwise a lifelong Liberal/Lib Dem, voted for him in the 1950s because he was such a good constituency MP. I dimly recall him coming to our house on one occasion).
Someone slightly younger and with Welsh rather than Scottish ancestry!
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xotGD
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Picks a name at random: Rab Butler?
Marton
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Lady Trumpington. May have been in the cabinet as Leader of the Lords . I’m not 100% sure
DerekC
Established Member
Not Rab. He was a minister throughout WWII (hence the Butler Education Act of 1944)
Lady Trumpington did indeed work at Bletchley Park but she was never, I think, in the cabinet. Very good try, though.
Aim a little further to the left!
GRALISTAIR
Established Member
Surely not Ramsay Macdonald himself?
DerekC
Established Member
Right party - but he died in 1937! I am surprised nobody has guessed this yet. The subject became Home Secretary but never Prime Minister and died in 2003.
DaleCooper
Established Member
Roy Jenkins?
DerekC
Established Member
Spot on - your encrypted data field.
DaleCooper
Established Member
I didn't know he did that but he was the only Labour Home Secretary I could think of.
Next question:
Which well known album cover depicts, among other things, a group of primates, a beetle, a zebra and a herald beneath some trees in a wood?
Next question:
Which well known album cover depicts, among other things, a group of primates, a beetle, a zebra and a herald beneath some trees in a wood?
krus_aragon
Established Member
Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band? There's pretty much everyone and everything else on there...
DaleCooper
Established Member
... except for most of the things in the question. Sorry, that's not it.
GRALISTAIR
Established Member
Led Zeppelin IV
DaleCooper
Established Member
I can see some trees, houses, a tower block, peeling wallpaper and a picture of a man carrying sticks. So, no that's not it.
GRALISTAIR
Established Member
It isn't by any chance an Elton John album is it?
DaleCooper
Established Member
No, it's not one of his.
DaleCooper
Established Member
DaleCooper
Established Member
Correct and a bit further up the road is a light blue Triumph Herald estate, your turn ...