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Bletchley Park (BP) was the site of a secret British military intelligence operation during and just before World War II (WWII). The site was named after the mansion in the grounds of which it was established. While the mansion was part of the operation, many other buildings had to be erected to accommodate those employed on the site, these buildings were so temporary in nature that they were referred to as huts. The site is now a museum. It is located in the town of Bletchley, near Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire, England, about 50 miles (80 km) north of London. During World War II, Bletchley Park was the site of the United Kingdom's efforts to break cyphers, particularly the Enigma and Lorenz cyphers used by Nazi Germany. The estate was conveniently located on a railway line (now closed) between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which supplied many of the code breakers. It was also chosen for its proximity to a major road (the A5The A5 is a major road in the United Kingdom. It runs from London to Holyhead, on the Isle of Anglesey in Wales, following in part the route of the Roman Watling Street. Starting at Marble Arch, it runs north west up the Edgware Road. The A5 as numbered d) to London and to a route for telephoneThe telephone or phone is a telecommunications device that transmits speech by means of electric signals. Generally attributed to the inventor Alexander Graham Bell, the first was built in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1876. However, an Italian inventor Anton trunk lines.
Bletchley Park has been credited variously with shortening the war by two years (possible due its contributions during the Battle of the AtlanticThe Second Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign of World War II, running from 1939 right through to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, and was at its height from mid- 1940 through to about the end of 1943. The Battle princi, but distinctly controversial), with ending the bombing of Pearl HarborPearl Harbor is a complex embayment on the island of O'ahu, Hawai'i, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a US Navy deep water naval base: headquarters of the US Pacific Fleet. The attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan on 7 December 194 by sending information of the location of Yamamoto the head of the Japanese Combined Fleet (although some information which led to his death came from breaks into JN-25JN-25 is the name used by Western cryptography organizations for the main secure command and control communications scheme used by the Imperial Japanese Navy (JIN) during and before WWII (it was the 25th Japanese Navy system identified). It was an encyphe largely by USN cryptanalysts and happened long after December 7December 7 is the 341st day (342nd on leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 24 days remaining. Events History 1732 The Royal Opera House opens at Covent Garden, London. 1787 Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the United Stat, 19411941 is also the title of a Steven Spielberg movie made in 1979 see 1941 (film). Events January January 6 Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms Speech in the State of the Union Address. January 10 Lend-Lease is introduced into the United St). Bernard Montgomery would often talk of how the code-breaking efforts of Bletchley Park enabled him to 'know what the Jerries [Germans] are having for breakfast'.
1 Before Station X
The Bletchley Park estate had been a manor since the Norman invasion. The earliest known reference is in 1308 [1], when it was owned by the de Grey family. It is also known that Browne Willis was lord of the manor in the early 18th century, some of his buildings (now lost) dating from 1711. The manor was at some time appropriated by the Crown. The present mansion was built between 1883 and 1926 by Herbert Samuel Leon (1850-1926), a financier and Liberal MP, who extended the red brick farmhouse of 1860 [2]. Its style is a mixture of Victorian Gothic, Tudor and Dutch Baroque and was the subject of much bemused comment from those who worked there, or visited, during WWII. Leon's estate covered 581 acres (2.4 kmē), of which Bletchley Park occupied about 55 acres (0.2 kmē). Leon's wife died in 1937 [3], and in 1938 the site was sold to a builder, who was about to demolish the mansion and build a housing estate. However, just in time, Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair, the Director of Naval Intelligence, head of MI6 and founder of the Government Code and Cypher School, knowing that war was imminent, bought the site with his own money in the Spring of 1938. The fact that Sinclair, and not the Government, owned the site was not revealed until 1997 when a trust was set up to save the site from redevelopment.
