This month in the Bletchley Park Podcast’s It Happened Here series, we tell the story of The Bismarck. The iconic German battleship was sunk by the Royal Navy 75 years ago. While this clearly did not happen at Bletchley Park, but in the Atlantic Ocean, codebreaking and some of the pioneering techniques developed as part of it played a crucial role in locating the flagship of the German fleet.
Bletchley Park’s Research Historian, Dr David Kenyon, explains how work going on in wooden huts in the Buckinghamshire countryside contributed to the ship’s destruction, which was vital for the Allies, both strategically and symbolically.
Jane Fawcett worked in Hut 6 from 1940. She recalls “It may be the most important thing that any of us have ever done in our lives. We didn’t realise it at the time, but we do now.”
To hear the podcast please visit http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/podcast/932393/The_Bismarck.html
Also, Bletchley Park is seeking more participants for its Oral History Project:
Since November 2011 we have visited over 300 Veterans to interview them and hear how enemy signals were intercepted, decrypted and turned into intelligence, as well as capturing fascinating glimpses of their daily lives. We have interviewed people who worked at Bletchley Park and in outstations from the north of Scotland to Australia. Their jobs highlight the broad range of roles people were fulfilling, from the upper echelons of Oxbridge academics via machines operators and clerical staff to cooks, cleaners and even delivery staff from the local bakery.
We are keen to interview anyone who worked:
- At Bletchley Park or its outstations, civilian or military, in any role, however junior
- In the Y services, in the UK and overseas
- In SLUs or SCUs
- In the Radio Security Service
- In the development and construction of Colossus
- In the construction and maintenance of Bombes
For further details visit http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/content/hist/oralhistory.rhtm.
(With thanks to Bletchley Park)
For details on my genealogy guide books, including A Decade of Irish Centenaries: Researching Ireland 1912-1923, Discover Scottish Church Records (2nd edition), Discover Irish Land Records and Down and Out in Scotland: Researching Ancestral Crisis, please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html. My Pinterest account is at https://www.pinterest.com/chrismpaton/.