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Down Memory Lane
ОглавлениеAt the end of the war the decoding machines and many relevant papers were destroyed. (The machines now on display at the museum in Bletchley Park are recently constructed replicas.) Due to the loyalty of those who worked there during the war, all of whom were bound by the Official Secrets Act, the whole Bletchley Park operation remained unknown to the public until the 1970s and 1980s when there started to be leaks about its activities; following this some of those involved wrote their memoirs. Lately its operations have been described in a number of books and portrayed in films and television programmes. Bletchley Park’s present-day successor is the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) at Cheltenham.
The decoded information, called Ultra, had a profound effect on the outcome of the Battles of the Atlantic and Alamein, and the North Africa and north-west Europe campaigns. It has been claimed that the knowledge gained through Ultra shortened the war by two years. After the entry of the USA into the war American cryptanalysts worked alongside their British counterparts at Bletchley Park. ‘It was thanks to Ultra,’ Churchill is credited with saying, ‘that we won the war.’