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Bletchley Park Mansion, Buckinghamshire, UK

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Bletchley Park Mansion, Buckinghamshire, UK

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As the prospect of World War II (WWII) seemed inevitable, in August of 1939, the complex of the Bletchley Park mansion was bought and transformed into the center of WWII Allied codebreaking.

Located around 50 miles from London, it was strategically well connected by railway lines to London, Cambridge, and Oxford.

At its start, there were only around 150 employees, but demand for more grew rapidly as the codebreaking process became more mechanized.

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(Photo courtesy of Australian Broadcasting Corporation

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In the beginning, a vast majority of recruitment was done through contacts at prestigious schools such as Cambridge and Oxford, as well as those in debutant circles as they were deemed trustworthy.

Though, as demand grew, crosswords were published in the daily paper and those who could complete them in less than 10 or 12 minutes (varied by crossword), were prompted to call the number attached.

Many women with no formal education found themselves stationed at BP thanks to their crossword skills and lateral thinking.

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(Photo courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency)

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159 Million Million Million Possibilities

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159 Million Million Million Possibilities

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The Enigma machine was used by Germans to encode their military communications during World War II.

It utilized a form of substitution encryption, but unlike a Caesar cipher, where each letter is displaced by a consistent amount each time, the Enigma rotors made it so that a letter could be encrypted as any other letter but itself.

On top of the countless possibilities, the Enigma was reset every 24 hours!

So, how did they manage to crack it?

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(Photo courtesy of The National Archives)

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A letter to Churchill in 1941, written by Alan Turing and others on his team.

A request was made for 20 more women clerks, 20 trained typists, and a detachment of the WRNS (Women’s Royal Naval Service) to help test the incoming 'bombes.'

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(Photo courtesy of Google Arts & Culture)

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Introducing, the bombes!

Alan Turing's bombe machines were used to decrypt messages encoded by the Enigma machine.

2 meters tall and 1 meter wide, each bombe contained 12 sets of Enigma scramblers, and it went through 159 quintillion combinations to arrive at the right setting.

In Hut 11, women part of the WRNS, nicknamed Wrens, operated the bombe machines.

Height was certainly an advantage in this job, and some women were even chosen primarily for their height.

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WWII officially came to an end in Europe on May 8, 1945, and the Paris Peace Treaties were signed in 1947 (pictured).

The work done at Bletchley Park is said to have shortened the war by several years and was instrumental to numerous Allied victories, including the Battle of Cape Matapan and Battle of North Cape.

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Enacted at the start of the war in 1939, all Bletchley Park workers were required to sign the Official Secrets Act when accepting their positions.

Their signature meant they could not tell anyone about the work they did at Bletchley Park, including friends, family, and significant others.

When the war ended and operations at Bletchley Park wrapped up in 1946, nearly 10,000 workers, 75% of them being women and 60% of those women being in uniform, had to return home and act like their work at Bletchley never happened.

As the average age of women working at BP was between 17-24, a large percentage of those women got married after the war and became housewives, adhering to the expected return to separate spheres following the unique circumstances of war.

These women could not share even a hint of their work with their spouses, children, or grandchildren, at least, not until...

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When wartime information was declassified in the mid 1970s, those who had worked at the site could finally open up and share their stories.

'Ordinary' grandmothers shared stories of intercepting, translation, and code breaking that awed their families and other audiences.

The site, abandoned for decades, was urgently restored and the Bletchley Park museum opened to the public in 1994.

The declassification of information means those whose war efforts were once shrouded in secrecy and can now be cemented in history and commemorated!

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(Photo courtesy of History of Scientific Women)

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Born in London, Joan Clarke attended Newnham College, Cambridge, where her mathematical abilities were first discovered by Gordon Welchman.

Welchman recruited Clarke in 1939 to join Bletchley Park as part of the “Government Code and Cypher School” (GCCS).

At the time of her placement, 22 year old Clarke only knew one other female cryptologist as it was not considered a job for women, but that changed very soon!

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Charlotte “Betty” Webb, born in Worcestershire, arrived at Bletchley Park at age 18.

Having learnt German as a child from her mother, Webb was involved in the intercepting and deciphering of messages.

Upon discovery of her excellent transcribing skills, Webb also moved to the Japanese department to paraphrase and transcribe decoded messages.

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Jane Fawcett, a young London society woman, started working at Bletchley Park at age 20.

Having learnt German during her time in Switzerland, she worked in Hut 6 breaking codes from the German Army and the Luftwaffe (the German air force).

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Jean Millar Valentine, born in Perth, Scotland, started working at Bletchley Park at age 18.

She was a member of the WRNS, and despite her short height of 4ft 10in, she operated the 6ft tall bombe machines using a raised wooden platform to reach the top dials.

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(Photo courtesy of Horus Security Consultancy LTD)

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The work performed at Bletchley Park not only helped to shorten the war by several years, but was also instrumental to advancements in computing technology.

This is why the women involved, now that the oppressive silence of the Official Secrets Act has been lifted, are being recognized for their contributions to modern technological advancements.

The work of these women stands as evidence for the incredible things women can accomplish when given the opportunity to put their minds to the test!