The top-secret documents of Alan Turing were found under a Bletchley Park shed roof. They are best known for their role in deciphering the German Enigma code in World War II. To stop cold drafts and leaks, the papers had been rolled up and put into holes on Hut 6. This was discovered during the restoration of Bletchley park, Churchill’s Secret Intelligence and Computers Headquarters. All that is left of the Banbury sheet system, which involved punching two different cipher text onto separate sheets, then sliding them on top and counting how many overlapped. These sheets helped to intercept and decode Nazi communications. Codebreakers had to destroy the sheets after using them. This was according to wartime regulations. They didn’t do so, and instead used some to stop the water from entering Hut 6 through its roof. Hut 6 had poor insulation and a leaky roofing. The winter conditions could make it uncomfortable to work in the shed. Victoria Worpole is the Director of Learning and Collections for Bletchley Park. She said that it is very rare that we find any new paperwork. Any that has survived was either in our archive at GCHQ, or in the National Archive. “We have conservators working on these materials in order to preserve them as much as possible. These were actually handwritten codebreaking pieces, workings out. It is quite fascinating to consider that.” Hut 6 workers found a fashion article, parts of an Atlas and a pinboard while restoration was underway. According to Ian Standen, chief executive of Bletchley Park Trust, the documents were found in September 2013.. They would then be displayed for the public, he said. He said that they would be thawed and then put on display. Alan Mathison Turing (1912-1954),, widely known as the father of artificial Intelligence and theoretical Computer Science, was an English computer scientist, mathematician and cryptanalyst. He also served as a logician and mathematical biologist. Also, he was a marathoner and an ultra-distance runner. Turing played a significant role in the advancement of computer science. With the Turing machine (which is considered to be a prototype of a general-purpose computing device), he formalized the concepts of “computation”, and “algorithm”. Three years prior to his death, Alan Turing was 1951,. Image: Wikimedia. During WWII Mr. Turing was employed at Bletchley park, Buckinghamshire’s Government Code and Cypher School, (GC&CS) – Britain’s codebreaking center. According to some military historians, the Bletchley park work cut the length of war in Europe by over two years. In 1952,, Mr. Turing was convicted of homosexual acts. In the UK, homosexual acts were a crime at the time. He was offered treatment using oestrogen injections (i.e. Chemical castration. Turing succumbed to cyanide poisoning just sixteen days prior to his 42nd Birthday in 1954,. Although he was ruled to have committed suicide by an inquest, later it became clear that he might have been poisoned accidentally. After an internet campaign, Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued an official apology for the British government in 2009. He was criticized for his treatment and received a posthumous pardon from The Queen. A new book on the WWII female codebreakers. Six women in their 90s who were codebreakers at Bletchley Park in WWII, The Debs Of Bletchley Park, was published in January. It features their stories. Michael Smith, Bletchley Park’s chief historical advisor, wrote the book “The Debs of Bletchley Park” and other stories. The authors heard from them about their lives at that time and how they felt about working in the hidden location. They were vital to the war effort and saved many lives.
Alan Turing codebreaking documents used to stop draughts at Hut 6 Bletchley Park
