IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2015 - 9

In a footnote, Hodges gives as
his source for this statement a "letter to the author from D. B. Eperson, 16.1.78" (i. e., 50 years after
the events in question)!
Given such meticulous attention
to detail, it is no surprise Hodges's
book was then and remains today
the single most important source
of information about Turing's life
before and after the war. But for
the war itself - and in particular Turing's work during it - the
sources available to Hodges were
quite limited. Some of these have
been noted above. Much more has
become available since, such as
the "internal" history of Hut 8, the
section of Bletchley Park devoted
to the cryptanalysis of the Naval
Enigma, the most secure of the
different German military versions
of the Enigma. The release of this
document in 1996 (but written in
1945) provided a great deal of information about the operations of Hut
8 as a whole, as well as the vital
role Turing played in developing the
attack on the Naval Enigma. Before
Turing, Naval ciphers "had received
scant attention" (p. 12) and the
"Naval Enigma was generally considered in 1939 to be unbreakable"
(p, 14). So why did Turing turn to so
unpromising a nut to crack?

became "the fundamental process
which Hut 8 performed for the next
2 or 3 years." The ability of the Allies to read German U-boat traffic
played a vital role in the battle of
the Atlantic, and saved thousands
of lives.
Since 1983 a tsunami of information has become available about
almost every aspect of the operations of Bletchley Park and its parent
organization GCCS (the predecessor of GCHQ, the present-day U.K.
signals intelligence and information
security organization). This includes
the release of the 500+ page "General Report on Tunny" in 2000
("Tunny" was the code name for an
important online German teleprinter
encryption device), as well as wartime manuals and technical papers
of Turing, Alexander, and others,
other archival materials, and memoirs of many people who worked in
the different units at Bletchley.
The book under review is a reissue of Hodges's original 1983 biography. One can certainly sympathize
with his decision not to write a new
edition. The book is a unified whole,
and any attempt to incorporate the
flood of information about Turing's
wartime activities and the cryptologic war would have been a daunting
task. Instead, Hodges has limited
himself to writing a brief preface
touching on a few topics in light of
the new information now available
(although even here the discussion
of the period of the war is minimal).
It would have been appropriate
to use the preface to mention at
least a few of the most important
books and papers that have since
appeared. Not to do so is a curious
omission. Instead, Hodges points
us to a website, saying "further additional and corrective material may
be found on www.turing.org.uk."
And what of the film The Imitation Game, whose appearance was
the impetus for this reissue? Alas,

When Turing joined the organization in 1939 no work was being done on Naval Enigma and
he himself became interested in
it "because no one else was doing anything about it and I
could have it to myself". Machine cryptographers were on
the whole working on the Army
and Air Force cyphers with
which considerable success had
been obtained. ...

Turing's successful attack, which
came online in 1941, involved a
method called "Banburismus"; it

september 2015

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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

despite Benedict Cumberbach's
masterful performance, no actor
can surmount the limitations of his
script, and The Imitation Game
is a Hollywood biopic, inaccurate
on many fronts. One can of course
appreciate the challenges in producing a successful movie centered on
cryptanalysis, and the reasons for
simplifying complex ideas, merging
events or characters, and so on. But
the main frustration of The Imitation Game is that it often takes liberties where the underlying reality is
every bit as romantic or gripping.
Here is one particularly egregious example. In the movie Hugh
Alexander, a Bletchley Park cryptanalyst, is portrayed as obstructing Turing, and Turing responds
by writing a letter of protest to
Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
Now a letter was indeed written
to Churchill on October 21, 1941,
six weeks after he visited Bletchley Park on September 6, 1941. It
noted with frustration impediments
to the cryptanalysts's work, such as
the absurdity that some messages
were not being decrypted due solely to a "shortage of trained typists."
The letter was hand-delivered to
Churchill's private secretary at 10
Downing, who promised it would be
given directly to Churchill. This was
done and Churchill promptly wrote
a memo (headed "Action This Day")
directing his principal staff officer:
"Make sure they have all they want
on extreme priority and report to
me that this has been done." Not
surprisingly, there were no problems after that!
But the letter had been signed by
four people, not just Turing. These
were the head and deputy head of
Hut 6, namely Gordon Welchman
(who drafted the letter) and P.S.
Milner-Barry (who delivered it), and
the head and deputy head of Hut 8,
(continued on page 16)

http://www.turing.org.uk."

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2015