The Secrets Of Station X

In 1939, several hundred people - students, professors, international chess players, officers, actresses and debutantes - reported to a Victorian mansion in Buckinghamshire: Bletchley Park, known as 'Station X', where enemy codes were deciphered. This title details their remarkable achievements.

An engrossing account of working in the top-secret world of Bletchley Park during World War Two. Perfect for fans of Sinclair McKay, Tessa Dunlop and Andrew Hodges. In 1938, Sarah Baring was enjoying life as a young debutante. Only a few years later, at the height of World War Two, she was working alongside some of the greatest minds of Britain in their code-breaking operations at Bletchley Park. How did she end up in the top-secret world of cyphers and codes? And what did she do within the confines of Bletchley's Hut 4 that allowed the British Navy to be always one step ahead of their foes? Like many young men and women across all levels of British society, the outbreak of war in 1939 dramatically altered the course of Sarah's life. Knowing that she could not stand by while others were enlisting, she left her position in Vogue magazine and signed up to work as a telephonist at an Air Raid Precautions Centre before working in a fighter plane factory to do her bit. The women that she worked alongside were unlike those she had known in her high society life and opened her eyes to a completely different world. Yet, after just a few months, she was requested to leave the factory behind and was thrust into the world of intelligence, code-breaking and huge computers, rubbing shoulders with awkward geniuses like Alan Turing. The Road to Station X provides a window into the life of a young woman that shifted from being a carefree debutante to factory girl to working with code-breakers in Bletchley Park as a result of the turbulent events of World War Two. As the Daily Mail stated, "her natural modesty meant she hardly mentioned her vital contribution to Britain's war effort." However, shortly before she died she wrote her memoir which "revealed the truth about her role in the war."

Around 100 people arrived at Bletchley in August 1939, but by the beginning of 1944 there were around 10,000 people from a wide range of backgrounds. Young women who had left school at 15 worked alongside senior academics and service officers with everyone treated as equals. To quote an American who worked there: "Their whole structure was one where you might readily find a major working under a lieutenant or a civilian, somewhat younger. Whoever was in charge was the person judged to be more effective at doing it. The result was an extraordinary group of people in an extraordinary organisation."_x000B__x000B_This book gives a remarkable insight into life at the legendary code-breaking centre at Bletchley Park, where a team of code-breakers helped to win the Second World War by intercepted secret German messages. It reveals how they lived, worked and played, by focusing on the memories of the wide range of people who worked there. TOC: I: Moving Into Bletchley /II: Breaking Enigma /III: Naval Breakthrough /IV: Americans Arrive /V: Bletchley expands /VI: Creating Colossus /VI: Bletchley Inheritance /Suggested Reading /Places to visit /Index

'A typical day on the 4 to 12 shift, as I am at present, so that the sheer agony of it may be placed on record for me to look back on, perhaps one day in the far distant future when this period may be seen like a nightmare and be mercifully semi-observed in oblivion so that I shall remember only the glory of my position as the first and only woman on the watch and holding the most responsible position of any woman in the Hut.' October 12th 1942. When Elisa Segrave uncovered a cache of wartime diaries written by her mother, she had no idea that she would be brought face to face with a character utterly different from the troubled woman who had become so reliant on her. Now, on the pages before her, Segrave encountered Anne Hamilton-Grace, a young woman who had grown up in immense privilege and luxury but who leapt at the first opportunity to join the war effort. Through determination she excelled in the world of secret intelligence. Leaving the world of finishing school and hunt balls behind her, Anne’s journey took her to Hut 3 at Bletchley Park, to Bomber Command in Grantham and, finally, to a newly liberated Germany. In The Girl From Station X, Segrave opens the pages of her mother’s diaries to us and recreates her life both before and after the war. At once a vivid recreation of a dramatic era and a powerful portrait of a mother-daughter relationship, this is an original and affecting work about what it means to come to know someone through their writing; about how Anne unwittingly found a way to link her life with her daughter’s decades after they had given up trying to communicate.

The astonishing story of how the British codebreakers of Bletchley Park cracked the Nazi Enigma cyphers, cutting an estimated two years off the Second World War, never ceases to amaze. No one is better placed to tell that story than Michael Smith, whose number one bestseller Station X was one of the earliest accounts. Using recently released secret files, along with personal interviews with many of the codebreakers themselves, Smith now provides the definitive account of everything that happened at Bletchley Park during the war, from breaking the German, Italian and Japanese codes to creating the world's first electronic computer. The familiar picture of Bletchley Park is of eccentric elderly professors breaking German codes, but in fact the vast majority of people who worked at Bletchley Park were young women. For them and for the young graduates plucked from Britain's best universities who did the bulk of the day-to-day codebreaking, this was truly the time of their lives. The Secrets of Station X tells their story in full, providing an enthralling account of one of the most remarkable British success stories of all time.

An intriguing page-turning and personal account of that most secretive of wartime institutions, Bletchley Park, and of the often eccentric people who helped to win the war Beryl BainbridgeBletchley Park, or 'Station X', was home to the most famous code breakers of the Second World War. The 19th-century mansion was the key center for cracking German, Italian and Japanese codes, providing the allies with vital information. After the war, many intercepts, traffic-slips and paperwork were burned (allegedly at Churchill's behest). The truth about Bletchley was not revealed until F. Winterbotham's The Ultra Secret was published in 1974. However, nothing until now has been written on the German Air Section. In Cracking the Luftwaffe Codes, former WAAF (Women's Auxiliary Air Force) Gwen Watkins brings to life the reality of this crucial division. In a highly informative, lyrical account, she details her eventful interview, eventual appointment at the 'the biggest lunatic asylum in Britain', methods for cracking codes, the day-to-day routine and decommissioning of her section.

Anne Glyn-Jones opens up the secret world of the interceptors of German Morse Code signals during World War II. Leaving her girls' boarding school with romantic ideas about joining the navy as a Wren, Anne had no idea that she would be working for the mysterious 'Station X', which we now know to be Bletchley Park. Round the clock shifts, bed bugs, rats and poor diet took its toll, as well as the ongoing lack of recognition from the Navy hierarchy. Morse Code Wrens of Station X is a very personal memoir of a young woman's experiences of war time service, as well as providing fascinating insights into the daily realities of the battle for military intelligence superiority.