Bletchley's record

March 7, 2009

Bletchley's record
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Recognising the incredible record of achievements from Bletchley Park

Sir, Bob King suggests ( letter, Mar 5 ) that Bletchley Park never solved 
messages from Himmler's Sicherheitsdienst (SD). In fact, Bletchley 
succeeded in solving about 13,000 SD messages. The resulting ISOSICLE 
( sic ) decrypts are now available at the National Archives, Kew. SD 
traffic provided high-quality intelligence on political and diplomatic 
subjects - for example, from Vichy France, where the SD had an agent who 
was a friend of Pierre Laval, the Prime Minister. However, none of the 
Gestapo's TGD messages was ever solved by Bletchley.

As to the claim that "messages were never intercepted at Bletchley 
Park," in June 1944 arrangements were made to intercept German naval 
Enigma traffic from the Channel at Bletchley, to help with the D-Day 
operation. Hut 4 teleprinted the resulting decrypts to the Admiralty on 
average 30 minutes after being intercepted. The record was 19 minutes -
a magnificent achievement.

Ralph Erskine
Comber, Co Down 

Comments :
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MY GOODNESS - we have some honest people and the use of an apology - such 
a rare event.

Well done all you great BP people - what a debt the nation owes you all.

Daniel Murphy, Dorchester, Dorset

Yes, I apologize for over-stating the case. SD intercepts were RSS group 
13 the slickest of all our groups. I used them to improve my Morse speed.

The navy sent a small group to BP for about 6 weeks before D-Day but no 
large aerial system was set up and no permanent intercept station.

Bob KIng, St Ives Cambs, 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article5860173.ece

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article5847133.ece