November 2023

For our tenth anniversary episode, E141 “Security & Insecurity”, we discussed one of the most important factors in wartime codebreaking – secrecy. We looked at its effects on operations at Bletchley Park and the lives of those who worked there.

We had so much to talk about on that occasion that we didn’t have the chance to explore beyond the bounds of Bletchley Park. However, as signals intelligence travelled to the battlefronts where commanders made life-and-death decisions on a daily basis, security was a bigger problem than anywhere else.

In this follow-up episode, Research Officer Dr Thomas Cheetham is again joined by a special guest, former GCHQ Departmental Historian Tony Comer, to discuss the problems of security in the field. We’ll hear how the safe use of Ultra intelligence required good planning, flexibility and, most of all, trust.

Many thanks to Owen Moogan & Dr Ben Thomson for voicing our archival documents.

Image: ©Bletchley Park Trust 2023

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