Soh Kam Yung reviewed Saving Bletchley Park by Sue Black
A book about the campaign to save Bletchley Park
4 stars
A fantastic and fascinating book about Dr. Sue Black's campaign to save Bletchley Park, which was where the various codes used by the German forces in World War II for communication were broken. This allowed the Allied forces to know what the Axis forces were up to, contributing to the success of the Normandy landings and the eventual shortening of the war itself, and possibly saving numerous lives.
The book has two parallel stories, mostly alternating in chapters (and in the font used) in the book. The first one tells the story of the setting up of Bletchley Park as the home for the codebreakers. This part mainly focuses on the many women, mainly teenagers, who were called to come to Bletchley Park, sworn to secrecy, and then put to work breaking codes or, later, maintaining the numerous machines created by people like Alan Turing and others. It tells …
A fantastic and fascinating book about Dr. Sue Black's campaign to save Bletchley Park, which was where the various codes used by the German forces in World War II for communication were broken. This allowed the Allied forces to know what the Axis forces were up to, contributing to the success of the Normandy landings and the eventual shortening of the war itself, and possibly saving numerous lives.
The book has two parallel stories, mostly alternating in chapters (and in the font used) in the book. The first one tells the story of the setting up of Bletchley Park as the home for the codebreakers. This part mainly focuses on the many women, mainly teenagers, who were called to come to Bletchley Park, sworn to secrecy, and then put to work breaking codes or, later, maintaining the numerous machines created by people like Alan Turing and others. It tells of the physical and emotional hardship they had to endure during the war for they had to keep their work secret from outside people and live in poorly maintained housing.
It ends with the closing of Bletchley Park after the end of the war. With secrecy still important, the women now had to live the rest of their lives unable to tell people just what they did. Worse still, the equipment used at Bletchley Park was destroyed, including the plans, all in the name of secrecy.
The second part is Dr. Black's personal story, starting with her first visit to Bletchley Park in its initial dilapidated condition, and learning just what the place did during the war. Appalled by its condition, she starts a campaign to ask the government to provide funds to help maintain and restore Bletchley Park.
Initially using email, and interviews on TV and radio, she helps to build up interest in Bletchley Park. But the act of using Twitter would prove to be vital for it instantly puts her in touch with a lot of other people and personalities, allowing her to virally spread the message that Bletchley Park needs saving.
And, in the end, Bletchley Park was saved.
Because the historical Bletchley Park chapters concentrate more on the women who worked there, details like how Alan Turing and the other codebreakers actually broke the codes are only briefly covered; but there are other books that cover this. But the brief technical details on codebreaking given in this book is probably enough to give readers an idea of what Bletchley Park did and the pressures they had to work under to keep up to date on what Germany was doing.
The personal chapters on the campaign to save Bletchley Park were an entertaining and interesting look at how a person can run a social media campaign to drum up interest on a topic. However, these chapters assume the reader is already familiar with some of the personalities mentioned (like Stephen Fry) which may or may not be true, depending on the social media circles you are in. But these are momentary interruptions in reading the book.
All in all, an entertaining read about Dr. Black's campaign to save Bletchley Park, along with a glimpse of the lives of the people (mainly women) who worked there during the war. I helped to support this book during its crowdfunding and I proud to be listed at the back of this book as a supporter.