Why a Booktrail?
1930s – 1940s: How the Bletchley Park codebreakers helped win the war
The Secrets of Station X
What you need to know before your trail
When Captain Ridley s shooting party arrived at Bletchley Park in 1939 no-one would have guessed that by 1945 the guests would number nearly 10,000 and that collectively they would have contributed decisively to the Allied war effort. Their role? To decode the Enigma cypher used by the Germans for high-level communications. It is an astonishing story. A melting pot of Oxbridge dons maverick oddballs and more regular citizens worked night and day at Station X, as Bletchley Park was known, to derive intelligence information from German coded messages.
Locations
Reset- England - Buckinghamshire - Bletchley
- A: Bletchley Park - The train station
- B: Hut 12
- C: The Cottages
- D: The National Museum of Computing
- E: Bletchley Park Mansion
Travel Guide
Bletchley Park
This really has to be seen to be believed. The cramped conditions, the cold winds rattling through the doors, the basic tables and chairs, the lack of comforts and the secrecy. But amidst all that some of the best brains in the country saved millions from death by shortening the war by about two years.
The huts are a lot smaller than you think, the park itself so compact that you can’t imagine how so many people could work here and work here without knowing what everyone else was doing. This is one place you will never ever forget once you’ve seen it through your own eyes.
There are no words to describe walking into the huts, around the lake, into the mansion house…..every step you take feels as if you’re on sacred ground as when you think about it, you are. You can almost hear the echoes of the past whispering through the walls.
Trail Gallery
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The Secrets of Station X
Destination: Bletchley Author/Guide: Michael Smith Departure Time: 1930s -1940s
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