ULTRA cool field trip!

Honk if you love field trips! I know I do. So. Good thing we got to go on one.

On Sunday we took a trip out to Bletchley Park, and on the way we stopped at the American World War II Cemetery at Madingley. It was so reverent and pristine. The sacrifice of those young men is staggering. The cemetery contains the remains of 3,812 soldiers, along with the names of 5,127 of the missing. It was a very powerful experience.

Thumbs up for photo placement! 

Crud, I can't get it right. It's fine.


After about an hour we left Madingley and headed to Bletchley Park. 10 points to Gryffindor for anybody who knows what they did at Bletchley. Don't worry I didn't know before I took this class. Here's the skinny:

Bletchley Park was the top-secret location of the top-secret code and cypher school where they worked on the top-secret decryption project called "ULTRA" (I bet you understand the title now), which decrypted codes from Germany's top-secret Enigma machine.

The Germans thought the Enigma was impossible to crack, but thanks to some fortuitous U-boat captures, Hitler's arrogance, and, of course, Poland, the Brits were able to crack the codes and read the German's mail for the rest of the war. It's pretty cool.

So Bletchley is where they stuck the boffins from Cambridge and Oxford. These guys were the best and the brightest. Harry Hinsley, Tommy Flowers, Max Newman, Alan Turing. If not for them, we'd all be speaking German right now. And I'd have a brother named Fritz. Also, I wouldn't be writing this, because they kind of invented computers.

You may be asking yourself how they chose Bletchley Park. Or you may be waiting to see pictures. If it's the latter, feel free to skip this paragraph. Otherwise, stick around.
The best part about Bletchley is its location. 60 miles north of London (out of range of prime bombing targets), and halfway between Oxford and Cambridge. All kinds of young minds ripe for the picking. So they decided they needed to get a feel for the pace, so they sent a load of officers undercover as servants at an artificially contrived social weekend. They liked it, so they took it.The place was built by some 19th century "new money" individuals with poor taste. It's kind a hodge podge of architectural design. And here it is, for your viewing pleasure:

Dr. Martland. Sometimes he reps the ivies. 

The COLOSSUS. Pretty sure I could build that.

Killer propaganda. 

That's definitely a real gun.

High-fives all around.

In all its glory.

Ohp, here's another cool story.

How secret was Bletchley?

Bletchley was so secret (yo mamma so secret), that a husband and wife that worked there didn't know the other worked there until after the war. 

Also, the secret wasn't released until the 1970's, because they used it through the Cold War. Neat huh?

Finally, I want you to know what I woke up to on Sunday morning.

Beautiful, no?