E68 - Turning Points

Bletchley Park

January 2018

January is a good time to take stock and look at the year ahead. 75 years ago, it was January 1943 and, after a dark and difficult year, things were starting to look up.

By this time, Hut 8 had broken back into the naval Enigma codenamed Shark, after a devastating ten-month blackout. The daring raid on a sinking submarine which cost the lives of two brave sailors became a huge turning point in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Elsewhere, five gruelling months drew to a close with the German army’s surrender at Stalingrad, against Hitler’s wishes, and not before 2 million people had been killed, injured or captured.

Intelligence played its part in both of these turning points, and more, in 1943. Bletchley Park itself was beginning to look quite different. No more were wooden huts hastily thrown together. Now, solid brick blocks were taking shape, showing a serious commitment to code breaking. In this episode we examine these - and more - turning points in 1943 with Bletchley Park’s Research Historian, Dr David Kenyon, and a rich archive of audio from the time.

Image: ©Crown. Reproduced by kind permission, Director, GCHQ

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #Enigma, #WW2