Gordon Welchman: Bletchley Park's Architect of Ultra Intelligence

by Joel Greenberg, Rosamond Welchman (Foreword)

Gordon Welchman was one of Bletchley Park's most important figures. Like Turing, his pioneering work was fundamental to the success of Bletchley Park and helped pave the way for the birth of the digital age. Yet, his story is largely unknown to many. This book draws on Welchman's personal papers and correspondence with wartime colleagues which lay undisturbed in his son's loft for many years. Packed with fascinating new insights, including Welchman's thoughts on key Bletchley figures and the development of the Bombe machine, this book sheds light on the clandestine activities at Bletchley Park.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Espionage, World War II, Military Fiction, Military History

431 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2014

About the author

Joel Greenberg is a research associate of the Chicago Academy of Sciences Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and the Field Museum. Author of three books, including A Natural History of the Chicago Region, Greenberg has taught natural history courses for the Morton Arboretum, Brookfield Zoo, and Chicago Botanic Garden. He helped spearhead Project Passenger Pigeon to focus attention on human-caused extinctions. Greenberg lives in Westmont, Illinois. Visit his blog at Birdzilla.com.

Reviews

[Frumenty · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t remember when I first read Andrew Hodges’ masterful Alan Turing, the enigma of intelligence; it first appeared in 1983. My mother died the following year, never having told my brothers and I anything to suggest that her wartime work was of any great significance; I suppose it wasn’t, since she was so junior, but she was part of something that was of the most immense importance to the outcome of the Second World War, the work of Bletchley Park. After leaving high school, my mother, Gloria Stevens, joined the WRNS (Women’s Royal Naval Service, a.k.a. the Wrens), she was billeted at Woburn Abbey, and was engaged in “naval intelligence” work; that much I remembered of what she had told me (and that one of her bosses was a Scot, who on festive occasions would entertain by doing a sword dance), but it wasn’t until I read Hodges’ book that I realized the significance of those simple facts. Scouring the internet in later years, I came across the Bletchley Park website. My mother didn’t make the Roll of Honour (I suppose that is for people whose role is known and known to be significant), but her name had turned up twice in lists of those who were there - a GP Stevens appeared on a roster, and a veteran of Bletchley remembered a Gloria Stevens; on a visit to Bletchley a few years ago I was able to assure the staff that these were one and the same person. The website today says that she was “possibly” attached to “Hut 7, Naval Section, Japanese”, so probably not engaged on Enigma work. The Japanese used machines constructed on similar principles to the Enigma machine, so it may be that my mother tended a modified version of the “bombe” machines that were deployed to find the daily settings of German Enigma machines. I don’t suppose that I will ever know.

Gordon Welchman’s role at Bletchley was very different from Alan Turing’s role. Welchman too was a mathematician, but he also proved to be a gifted project manager and strategic thinker. He, as much as Turing, was an indispensable contributor to the success of the Bletchley Park project; he turned code-breaking from a craft in which the decryption of a single message was reckoned a success into an industrial-scale project for which nothing less than the decryption of huge swathes, even a majority, of enemy daily traffic could be reckoned a success. Greenberg has a technical bias, and if that is what interests you this is an excellent book; there are 60 pages of appendices explaining the functioning of the Enigma machine and the techniques used to break its codes, and a table of over 200 keys identified and broken. Like Turing, Welchman was treated shamefully after the war by the intelligence services to which he had given such distinguished service. For all that, Welchman’s story, as told by Greenberg, failed to engage my sympathy in the way that Turing’s story, as told by Hodges, did; reading Greenberg’s account of Welchman’s war, I felt very little sense that there was a war on at all, it was just a thrilling intellectual exercise; and the sporty, urbane, heterosexual Welchman doesn’t have the eccentric charm of an Alan Turing. While this is an important complement to the Turing book, and perhaps it gives a clearer overview of how Bletchley Park functioned, I cannot deny that I was mildly disappointed.

[Dan Cohen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good account of Welchman's life, focussed on his time at Bletchley Park and his subsequent career and retirement, including a lot on the writing, publishing, and aftermath of Welchman's "The Hut 6 Story". It also includes extensive technical details on Enigma and methods of breaking Engima codes, including details of the Bombes.

I found the first half of the book (covering Welchman's time at BP) very interesting. The second half less so. I was grateful for the technical details but did find them surprisingly hard to follow at times. - I think the author might have been advised to do more first on the strategy for solving the cypher before diving into details, but that's a minor quibble.

All in, it's well worth a read for those interested in getting beyond the better known parts of the BP story.

[Ray Noyes · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want to really get inside a codebreaker's mind, one that was key to both the organisational and technical functioning of Bletchley Park, then this is it. Greenberg has described Welchman as an interesting, warm character and one who was determined to maintain his integrity. The book stands up technically too. It is that rare combination of a warm, readable biography and technical reference book. This book is one I shall keep on my shelves alongside several others on the amazing UK code breaking success in WW2.

[John Gribbin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one for the dedicated Bletchley Park buffs, among whom I include myself. It is packed with information but so dull that I only managed one chapter each evening while diligently ploughing through it. Gordon Welchman was a key figure at BP and his own memoir The Hut Six Story is required reading for anyone interested in codebreaking and Enigma. The story surrounding publication of that book and the repercussions for Welchman is what drew me to Greenberg's book, and as far as information goes I got what I wanted. But it surely could have been presented in a more entertaining fashion.

[Dale · Rating 3 out of 5]

If interested in the technical, as well as historical, aspects of Bletchley Park and the unraveling of the Enigma Machine, code-breaking, and the people behind the scenes of this aspect of World War II, this book is right up your alley. While not the easiest biography to read, the insight into how BP came into being and morphed throughout the war is fascinating, as are all the characters involved.

[Garth · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the major characters who had a role in Bletchley Park's significant contribution to the Allies victory in World War 2, this book helped me better understand the process of decoding German signals (although I still don't actually get how the Bombes worked....).

[Michael Stoudt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read with interest this book, as I am interested in WWII history. I did not know anything about the code breaking workings of Bletchley Park and its people. I got a better understanding of the inner workings of this subject by reading this book.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone who watched The Imitation Game, and thinks that Bletchley Park's success was all about one brilliant mathematician: read this! Welchman was the man who transformed the codebreaking operation from an almost academic study to a fully functioning part of the war machine. It's a fascinating story. The book also shows how much valuable intelligence could be extracted even without breaking the cipher.

The story of what happened after the war, when Welchamn started to publish, has strong parallels in today's world, with the battles between transparency and secrecy, and between privacy advocates and law enforcement.

[Garry Wyatt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little too superficial for me.