Bletchley Park: The Undiscovered Country Estate (where we used computers to beat the Gerries)

Wrens operating the Colossus computer, 1943.

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Picture number: COM/B911217
Description: Wrens operating the ‘Colossus’ computer, 1943. Colossus was the world’s first electronic programmable computer, at Bletchley Park in Bedfordshire. Bletchley Park was the British forces’ intelligence centre during WWII, and is where cryptographers deciphered top-secret military communiques between Hitler and his armed forces. The communiques were encrypted in the Lorenz code which the Germans considered unbreakable, but the codebreakers at Bletchley cracked the code with the help of Colossus, and so aided the Allies’ victory.
Credit: Bletchley Park Trust/Science & Society Picture Library

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