Bletchley Park WWII Staff Finally Recognized

99luftballon writes "Nearly 70 years after Station X (aka the Bletchley Park cryptanalysis unit) was set up, the surviving members are to be honored by the British government. Bletchley was one of the most important computing centers of its time and housed giants of the technology industry (as it was) like Tommy Flowers, who built Colossus, and Dr. Alan Turing. I was lucky enough to meet one of the staff at the site 11 years ago, and she was very bitter that their work was never recognized, and that they were bound by the Official Secrets Act and couldn't talk about it. It's just a shame that so few of the staff are still alive to receive the award."

Comments

Only for the living?

[allaunjsilverfox2]

Why not a posthumous award for those that aren't among us fleshbags?

Their value system is out of whack

[BadAnalogyGuy]

What the British government did, by covering up and hiding the work these people did, is an affront to the very concept of a free society.

But what's wrong with the people involved that they can't do it for anything more than love of their country? Barring that, why aren't they satisfied with the money they received for it?

Re:Their value system is out of whack

[GreenTech11]

I'm sure they enjoyed what they did, but if you have given most of your life to a cause, then you'll want some form of recognition for it. These people received no such public recognition, while many people in similar fields have, so it is understandable that they are upset by the lack of recognition.

.

As for the British Government hiding this work, they likely believed that by revealing it at the time they were endangering the staff of the facillity, as well as the country as a whole.

Re:Their value system is out of whack

[Antique Geekmeister]

This was not ordinary work. It was extraordinary work, with some of the most brilliant minds of the time and with amazing mathematical and scientific developments worth of Nobel Prizes.

A lack of recognition might have also helped so many of them work quietly in the "BBC World Service" for decades after the war.

Re:Their value system is out of whack

[reverseengineer]

"It was thanks to Ultra that we won the war." -Winston Churchill, to King George VI

I must disagree with the notion that the work at Bletchley Park was not done at peril to those involved. No, the codebreakers didn't die in the mud taking back pieces of Europe, but what they did was so important that when they went to work, they too went to battle. Secrecy was their armor. If Nazi Germany had truly known what was going on at Bletchley Park, they would have sent every plane in the Luftwaffe to turn it into a crater. Honoring those that served there does not diminish the honors bestowed on those who died on battlefields.

Let's Start With an Apology

[Comatose51]

Let's start with an apology to Alan Turing and a public recognition for the grave injustice dealt to him for being homosexual, despite his enormous service to his country, the allies, philosophy, and, of course, computer science.

Re:Let's Start With an Apology

[BadAnalogyGuy]

The two things are separate.

First, he worked for the government as a code breaker. While he has not received official recognition until now, it must be remembered that this was a top-secret operation and there was always the possibility that the operation would never be recognized.

Second, he was gay. Like other gays in Britain at that time, he was persecuted and prosecuted.

Now if you want to say that he should be recognized above and beyond his workmates at Bletchley because he was also gay, that simply doesn't make any sense.

If you want to say he should be apologized to more than any other persecuted gay person because he was somehow more useful to the government than the others, that also doesn't make any sense.

Putting these two things together is a non-sequitor.

Re:Let's Start With an Apology

[superdana]

Oh good, let's keep equating gay people with pedophiles, and let's do it on hearsay and rumor. Lovely.

Re:Let's Start With an Apology

[bogjobber]

If you want to say he should be apologized to more than any other persecuted gay person because he was somehow more useful to the government than the others, that also doesn't make any sense.

It does, though. I don't think anyone would suggest that the UK government apologize to Turing and Turing alone, but singling him out as a symbol of the terrible things done to homosexuals at the time isn't unfair. His torture and eventual suicide have become symbolic for what hideously repressive things were done to homosexuals back then, at least to the small percentage of people who know and care of such things.

Remember, society is all about symbolism and people care about symbolic gestures very much. Alan Turing wouldn't be the first person to be made into a symbol of repression. Rosa Parks wasn't the first black woman told to move to the front of the bus, but it wasn't unfair to single her out and give her a state funeral. Nelson Mandela wasn't the only black leader imprisoned in South Africa, but he was the symbol of apartheid and elected to be president in 1994. Muhammad Ali wasn't the only draft dodger to be stripped of his livelihood and publicly ridiculed, but his was the case that went to the US Supreme Court.