Bletchley Park

An operation similar to Sandy Hill’s Examination Unit could be found in the U.K. Historian Diana Pepall paid homage to the comparison by naming her book about the Examination Unit “Canada’s Bletchley Park”.

The famous Bletchley Park facility is well-known for its work in cracking the German Enigma code which used advanced technology to create an ever-changing cypher. This cypher would be used on all German communications to avoid spying from enemy countries. The system “could be configured to any one of 159 quintillion (159 followed by 18 zeros) possible settings”, making Bletchley’s goal a near impossible task [1]. The machine changed its settings daily, "so even if the improbable did occur and the day’s key was broken, the cryptanalyst would be back to square one the following day” [1].

As it turns out, the only way to beat a machine, was with another machine. Alan Turing, often dubbed the father of modern computing, worked at Bletchley to aid in the war effort. Described as a “professor type” man, Turing utilized the opportunity to push machines further than most thought possible at the time [2]. Turing realized that the “mixing of instructions and data within a transmission was reminiscent of his “universal machine”” [3]. This universal machine was the impetus for computing as we know it today. Through Turing’s persistence, Bletchley Park succeeded in deciphering the Enigma machine, which ultimately turned the tide in favor of the Allies.