The Second World War.

[jokerman]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

Off to Bletchley Park tomorrow.

I've been there twice. It's well worth the visit.

[Historian]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

. In 1944 the Mark 12 Spitfire became the tool of choice for intercepting V1 rockets due to its speed at low altitudes and its four 20mm cannons, but it was already being phased out in favour of the Mark 14, which had a Griffon engine with a two-stage supercharger.

.

The RAF's other favoured V1 killer was the Hawker Tempest. After the Typhoon (originally conceived as a replacement for the Hurricane) had proved to be a slight disappointment as a fighter (although it became a lethally-effective ground attack aircraft) with it's thick wing and consequent high drag compromising top speed and performance at altitude, Hawker refined the concept with a new, thinner, laminar flow wing to produce the Tempest.



Capable of over 430 mph, and armed with 4x20mm cannon, it was an ideal weapon for tackling the V1 threat, Tempests accounting for 638 of the 1846 V1s destroyed by RAF aircraft.

Tackling these small, fast-moving targets was a difficult and dangerous business- Only the fastest fighters had the performance needed to catch them at low-level, without having a height advantage enabling a diving attack to gain extra speed. The V1's sheet-steel structure meant that machine-gun fire was fairly ineffective, and hitting one with cannon fire always meant the risk of the warhead detonating and the fighter being caught in the explosion...

One favoured tactic was to fly alongside the V1, the RAF pilot closing in until his wingtip was within 6 inches or so of the underside of the V1's wing, enabling him to use the airflow (or in some cases a quick tap!) to raise one wing of the V1, overriding the gyro guidance and tipping it into an uncontrollable dive.



The first air interception of a V1 was carried out by a Mosquito nighfighter of 605 Sqn, flown by F/Lt J.G. Musgrave on the night of 14/15 June 1944.
Top-scoring pilots against the V1 would be S/Ldr Joseph Berry with 59 V1 kills to his name, S/Ldr Remy van Lierde with 44 plus 9 'shared', and Wing Commander Roland Beamont with 32- All flew the Tempest.

[scoundrel]

On the negative side it is very badly signposted. I went there on my motorbike following a friend of mine who was a despatch rider for many years and he managed to get lost on the way there; although a lot of the problem was that he had his directions from AA Routefinder, which is pants. I did have a giggle thinking that the choice of location was perfect. Its so secret that no bugger can find it.

When we did find it the effort was very worthwhile. Although I knew a bit about the place already from having read The Secret Life of Bletchely Park and seen one or two documentaries, you learn a lot just from treading the same ground and smelling the air. Those huts were very cramped for the number of people and the machinery they contained and they weren't comfortable. They would have been extremely hot and close in summer and colder than the ninth circle of Hell in winter. They were heated with coke burning stoves the size of a large fire bucket and the stoves made so much smoke you had to have the windows open, which somewhat defeats the point. There is a rather pretty duckpond in front of the manor house and they have a picture of some of the ladies skating on it in January 1940. I have lived over 50 years and I have never seen a winter so hard for so long that it was safe to skate on a public lake, but the 1940s were notable for a string of several extremely bitter winters, whole winters rather than mere cold spells. The Bletchley Park wooden huts have no insulation at all, and the windows are not a very tight fit. Even with windows shut they would have been full of nasty little drafts. If it was cold enough outside that the girls could skate on the duckpond, those drafts would have been like razors.

Yet I sat on a bench on the lawn in front of the manor. It was cold and grey when we arrived but by about 2pm the sun was out and the outside area was pleasant. It crossed my mind that even though the working conditions were tough enough that the ancient Spartans would have approved, it was still a nice place. I would have reflected, in 1940-45, on what things were like on active service with the RN escorting the convoys and I would have emphatically regarded myself as one of the lucky ones. But the Bletchley Park people, while safe enough from enemy action, weren't on a cushy number.

[jokerman]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

On the negative side it is very badly signposted. I went there on my motorbike following a friend of mine who was a despatch rider for many years and he managed to get lost on the way there; although a lot of the problem was that he had his directions from AA Routefinder, which is pants. I did have a giggle thinking that the choice of location was perfect. Its so secret that no bugger can find it.

When we did find it the effort was very worthwhile. Although I knew a bit about the place already from having read The Secret Life of Bletchely Park and seen one or two documentaries, you learn a lot just from treading the same ground and smelling the air. Those huts were very cramped for the number of people and the machinery they contained and they weren't comfortable. They would have been extremely hot and close in summer and colder than the ninth circle of Hell in winter. They were heated with coke burning stoves the size of a large fire bucket and the stoves made so much smoke you had to have the windows open, which somewhat defeats the point. There is a rather pretty duckpond in front of the manor house and they have a picture of some of the ladies skating on it in January 1940. I have lived over 50 years and I have never seen a winter so hard for so long that it was safe to skate on a public lake, but the 1940s were notable for a string of several extremely bitter winters, whole winters rather than merel cold spells. The Bletchley Park wooden huts have no insulation at all, and the windows are not a very tight fit. Even with windows shut they would have been full of nasty little drafts. If it was cold enough outside that the girls could skate on the duckpond, those drafts would have been like razors.

Yet I sat on a bench on the lawn in front of the manor. It was cold and grey when we arrived but by about 2pm the sun was out and the outside area was pleasant. It crossed my mind that even though the working conditions were tough enough that the ancient Spartans would have approved, it was still a nice place. I would have reflected, in 1940-45, on what things were like on active service with the RN escorting the convoys and I would have emphatically regarded myself as one of the lucky ones. But the Bletchley Park people, while safe enough from enemy action, weren't on a cushy number.

At least they've kept it that way that it really was. And the monument to the Poles is well worth seeing.
By the way did you go into the S.O.E./Ian Flemming hut. Or the hut that's dedicated to Winston Churchill.? But if my memory serves me right, the Churchill hut is only open on Saturdays. And I'm not certain if the bloke who tells you about his Churchill collection is Canadian or American. He's got a north American accent.

[Dr Pepper]

Originally Posted by Historian

Tackling these small, fast-moving targets was a difficult and dangerous business- Only the fastest fighters had the performance needed to catch them at low-level, without having a height advantage enabling a diving attack to gain extra speed. The V1's sheet-steel structure meant that machine-gun fire was fairly ineffective, and hitting one with cannon fire always meant the risk of the warhead detonating and the fighter being caught in the explosion...

Ohh please!! The V1 flew a constant course, straight and level, at constant speed (till the motor cut) at constant height, had no ability to manoeuvre-and no defenses-in terms of hostile aerial targets it doesn't get any easier for an attacking fighter! (except a barrage balloon...!) The only difficulty was sufficient speed in the attacking aircraft to overhaul it. In terms of difficulty-realistically they were no harder than a practice towed gunnery target, once you'd taken speed into account. OK they could blow up if hit in the wrong place-but so could any WW2 bomber that still held bombs on board....

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by jokerman

At least they've kept it that way that it really was. And the monument to the Poles is well worth seeing.
By the way did you go into the S.O.E./Ian Flemming hut. Or the hut that's dedicated to Winston Churchill.? But if my memory serves me right, the Churchill hut is only open on Saturdays. And I'm not certain if the bloke who tells you about his Churchill collection is Canadian or American. He's got a north American accent.

We were there for about 6 hours and I reckon we saw only about 50% of it properly. Quite early on we decided that we were not going to see it all in one day (the place in only open from 9am to 5pm) and we weren't going to flog ourselves to death trying to. It deserves a much more leisurely inspection. The ticket costs £17.25 and is a one year membership so you can come back most days anytime in 12 months and carry on looking: special event days and ten specific days are excluded, so they tell you to check the website before coming back to make sure the season ticket is valid that day.

Basically, we started in the entrance block, where there are useful background exhibits including a brief tapeloop explaining the WW1 and interwar history of MI1b and the British Intelligence Cypher School, which I found valuable because it gives a clear idea who these people were whoi suddenly appeared and bought Bletchley Manor in 1939 and that they didn't just suddenly hatch out of an egg.

From there we wended our way towards the Manor House down a driveway which takes you past Block B. Block B contains the working replica of one of the dozens of "Bombe" machines and also the surviving examples of the enigma machines. They were clever machines, neatly designed and made, extemely practical. But they weren't more clever than Professor Turing. Block B in a way is a monument to Professor Turing. The work on the exhibits was partly financed by Google and there is a brief statement from Google that their corporation and its work could not have happened the way it did without Alan Turing. Alan Turing and his permutation number/letter machines could run through 156 million million combinations of letters many times every 15 minutes and unravel the encrypted letters to spit out a plain language text. They were the world's first search engine. That was how he defeated the enigma machine; one of the most important victories of WW2.

We also saw Hut 8 and stood right behind Alan Turing's rather small desk and old style typewriter; he worked in a cubicle side office with only room for two desks and a few filing cabinets. It is walled by MDF/chipboard partitions in the middle of a cheaply built wooden shed and it reminded me of a site foreman's portakabin on a construction site; not like a real office at all. He worked there for about five years, probably the best five years of his life, the only time he was surrounded by colleagues and staff who really appreciated him and couldn't care less if he was gay. That I suppose is all the reward he got in return for being instrumental in the survival of his country. To give an idea, when he broke the naval code, Bletchley Park reported the numbers and locations and intended courses of 15 U Boats within three hours of starting to read the signals. Not only were the RN able to divert convoys away from the U Boats, they were also able to give their locations to aeroplanes and surface ships who would then pay them a visit. That's enormous: it was as useful as radar in the Battle of Britain, but with a much longer and broader application.

Hut 8 also contains a short film projection telling the bleak and powerful story of U559, sunk between Crete and Egypt on 30 October 1942 by combined action from Coastal Command aircraft and a destroyer group which included HMS Petard. When the German submarine surfaced after being depthcharged for 16 hours non-stop, her crew abandoned ship and the British sportingly fished them out. But the submarine, though clearly sinking, did not go down as quickly as the Germans expected and three British sailors swam over to her. They were led by Lt Anthony Fasson, the first officer of HMS Petard. The documents they passed out of the conning tower to a ships boat included the enigma machine daily settings sheets for the whole of that month. Two German survivors in the ship's boat retrieving the documents were shown the revolvers of the boat crew to stop them from interfering, as they obviously would have liked to do. But the submarine suddenly and without prior notice rolled over and sank. Lt Fasson and Able Seaman Colin Crazier were inside and trapped: their bodies presumably still there to this day. NAAFI Canteen Assistant Thomas Brown, to whom they had been passing the documents and who had been passing them to the boat, was saved.

Lt Fasson and Seaman Grazier knew what risk they were taking, but the bigger picture came first and their own lives came second. It wasn't in the face of the enemy, it was courage in cold blood, an act of supreme bravery. Because it wasn't "in the face of the enemy" but in the face of the cruel sea, they were posthumously awarded the George Cross. Tommy Brown was awarded the George Medal; his part was just as brave as theirs but of course he didn't actually die, only staked his life for the greater good of his country. The naval authorities, once they took notice of Tommy Brown, quickly found out that he had lied about his age to join up and was only 16 when the action took place, so they sent him home to North Shields in Tyneside. They wanted to save him from danger but life had one more cruel, cruel trick to play. Two years later the family's house burned down and Tommy Brown lost his life trying in vain to rescue his baby sister. Poor, poor Tommy Brown: he deserved so much better; fate is a heartless bitch.

That little cubicle in Hut 8 devoted to Lt Fasson, Seaman Grazier and Tommy Brown is the single saddest and most sobering thing I saw there and is what made me realise as I sat on the bench in the lawn, resting my feet, that Bletchley Park was such a remarkable place. The people there were safe as houses and their only sacrifice was that they worked extremely hard and under a lot of pressure, well aware that they were vital to others who were in terrible danger and owed it to them to give all they had to the job they were doing. This was the Home Front to the nth degree. No one could ever publicly acknowledge them and what they did, though there are some private letters to them on display, including one from General Eisenhower which makes plain he knew their secret and could not praise them highly enough because he had no words sufficient to express what he felt towards them for the difference they made to his army on 6th June 1944. But in the ordinary world they were little regarded, thought to have done nothing important in the war, sometimes even looked down on as having shirked their duty to the country, as even Bevin Boys never shirked, and even (metaphorically) given the white feather as successful draft evaders. They kept their silence and bore with being thought to have done nothing when their country was calling; it was part of the price for serving your country and they thought it a small price indeed. I am in awe of such unselfish devotion to duty.

Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh - I really think that that requires spirit.
~ Daddy Longlegs by Jean Webster.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by Dr Pepper

Ohh please!! The V1 flew a constant course, straight and level, at constant speed (till the motor cut) at constant height, had no ability to manoeuvre-and no defenses-in terms of hostile aerial targets it doesn't get any easier for an attacking fighter! (except a barrage balloon...!) The only difficulty was sufficient speed in the attacking aircraft to overhaul it. In terms of difficulty-realistically they were no harder than a practice towed gunnery target, once you'd taken speed into account. OK they could blow up if hit in the wrong place-but so could any WW2 bomber that still held bombs on board....

The V1 was the world's first cruise missile. It typically skimmed along at 340mph, which was slower than modern fighters in 1944. But it was very tricky to intercept one, requiring a good aeroplane and a skilful pilot. Of the Few, even fewer were good shots. You could do it, but it was not just like falling off a log; it was hard to do. The only aircraft fast enough to catch a V1 were the Tempest, of which less than 30 were operational in late June 1944 when the V1s started, and the specialist low altitude intruder Mark 12 version of the Spitfire, which did just under 400mph at V1 altitudes, but which was already being phased out when the V1 campaign started. All other types were only fast enough if they could dive from height advantage. Later, the Allies adapted P47s and P51s by reducing their fuel and ammunition by half, removing all the armour and tuning up the engines as you would for a race car, and that helped.

[Historian]

Originally Posted by Scoundrel/

Lt Fasson and Seaman Grazier knew what risk they were taking, but the bigger picture came first and their own lives came second. It wasn't in the face of the enemy, it was courage in cold blood, an act of supreme bravery. Because it wasn't "in the face of the enemy" but in the face of the cruel sea, they were posthumously awarded the George Cross. Tommy Brown was awarded the George Medal; his part was just as brave as theirs but of course he didn't actually die, only staked his life for the greater good of his country.

IIRC I've read suggestions that the decision to award Fasson and Grazier the George Cross rather than the VC wasn't just driven by the 'in the face of the enemy' factor, but by the need to keep the capture of those documents a secret from the Germans- Fasson and Grazier's actual GC citation is unusually brief and very vague...

Originally Posted by London Gazette 14th Sept 1943/

The King has been graciously pleased to approve the posthumous award of the George Cross to: — Lieutenant Anthony Blair Fasson, Royal Navy. Able Seaman Colin Grazier, P/SSX.25550 - for outstanding bravery and steadfast devotion to duty in the face of danger.

...giving no indication at all of the nature of the act of heroism that cost them their lives.

[rupertramjet]

A Victoria Cross citation could have been this brief too. But the award of the George Cross would make sense in the actual and very complex criteria for the award of the Victoria Cross. The key element here, would have been that these two heroic men where not under enemy fire.

A similar situation to that which has caused the award of the George Cross on several occasions in Afghanistan. There was a long discussion on this forum of this very issue some while ago.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by Historian

IIRC I've read suggestions that the decision to award Fasson and Grazier the George Cross rather than the VC wasn't just driven by the 'in the face of the enemy' factor, but by the need to keep the capture of those documents a secret from the Germans- Fasson and Grazier's actual GC citation is unusually brief and very vague...



...giving no indication at all of the nature of the act of heroism that cost them their lives.

They couldn't possibly draw public attention to the substance of the heroic act these men performed. It was utterly vital that the German side mustn't know that their codes were broken. Already, and for most of 1942, Britain had been unable to read the German naval codes simply because the German navy moved over to a better four rotor enigma machine. They did this because Admiral Doenitz had realised something was wrong. In December 1941 the Royal Navy sank every single one of Doenitz's surface auxilliary supply ships in less than three weeks, plus the German surface raider Atlantis, which was being used to refuel a U Boat at the time. Doenitz figured out that this couldn't be an accident; Britain had overplayed her hand.

The key fact which emerged from the U559 evidence was that the tables for the fourth rotor had only 25 settings, not 26. Why? There was a blank setting. The four rotor enigma had to be able to talk to three rotor enigma machines as well. When the fourth rotor was blank, it became a three rotor enigma. This is how Turing broke it. Once he knew about the blank setting, the solution sprang to that man's very unusual mind almost instantly.

1. First crack the three rotor settings as usual.
2. Then re-run the bombe machine to crack the fourth rotor, which had only 25 settings and could be solved much faster.

It was nothing like as simple as that, but that was the basic premise for breaking the naval enigma. Once it was done, Bletchley Park were back in the game.


But the price for the lost ten months of the naval enigma was complex as well as high, and political as well as military. The Americans had learned to depend on the Bletchley Park data, which we shared even when America was still neutral, but until 1942 Britain was cagey about how they got the info. Suddenly the info dried up and, to make it even worse, the British were much too slow to fess up to the Americans that they were in trouble. The Americans, not knowing the whole story, felt that Britain had severely let them down: their Atlantic shipping and naval losses had skyrocketed as well. They told the British that they were going to withdraw intelligence cooperation and they were not bluffing, they meant exactly that. Churchill and FDR settled the dispute by jointly ordering the two sides to meet (in Washington) and pool all information. It was the only way to convince the Americans that the British were both playing totally fair and that the British were not a bunch of idiots.


It was probably for the best in the end. Soon after that the first American code experts came to Bletchley to see the whole thing for themselves. To everyones surprise, the two sides got on like a house on fire. The Americans were really impressed by what the British were doing, and pleasantly surprised by how open and friendly the British were as colleagues: the British of course had strict orders to conceal nothing, as otherwise they would have been extremely secretive. In turn, the British benefitted almost at once from the American perspective: the Americans were really good at organising processes to make them leaner and quicker. They also quickly warmed to the Americans as people who wanted to achieve the exact self same goals and cared as passionately about the work as the British side cared. Very soon, the top brass in America were convinced that the British weren't idiots and that they were straining every nerve to solve the German naval enigma, and had been all along. Though still intensely impatient with the delays and exerting merciless pressure, the Americans were no longer angry with the British, and instead became supportive. Of course they could afford to be a little bit more gentle with the servants who had just handed over the crown jewels.


It was one more step in the process whereby Britain ceased to be a Great Power and became a second tier power, but an important second tier power; and much of that importance stemmed and still stems from the American alliance. The friendship of Britain and America was forged in many places during WW2 but Bletchley Park was a very important link in that chain. By 1945, the only real dispute in Bletchley Park was that the Americans were rather scathing about the way the British persistently cheated when playing baseball (rounders) on the lawn.