secret war
Action This Day, Michael Smith and Ralph Erskine, editors. Bantam Press 2001. ISBN 0593 049101.
A collection of essays about Bletchley Park during the Second World War.
The most entertaining one is by the late John Chadwick.
This is how he describes his arrival in Heliopolis following the evacuation of Alexandria in 1942:
My arrival created administrative chaos, since I was a lone naval rating attached to an Army Intelligence Unit, itself attached to an RAF station.
He was later promoted “Temporary Sub-Lieutenant (Special Branch) RNVSR” because the material he handled was classed ‘Officers Only’.
Later, after the Italian Armistice, he wanted to promote code discipline in the Aegean:
[…] I volunteered to go on the next mission to act as liaison with the Italian Navy in Leros, in the hope of preventing any further breaches of security. My suggestion was rejected, and I was told brutally that my superiors did not mind if I were killed, but they were unwilling to take the risk of my being taken prisoner.
Chadwick later deciphered Linear B along with Michael Ventris.
Posted at 23:11,
in the books » read category. Comments [0]
Submit this story to: » del.icio.us
» digg
» reddit. Search for it on
technorati.
Submit a comment
Please enter comments as plain text only; HTML is not supported. Submitting an URL is optional.
Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately.
Comments are closed for this story.