MetaFilter posts tagged with wwii and england

Timeless Message

Miko — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 07:39:04 -0800

The story behind the iconic poster Keep Calm and Carry On rediscovered in 1991 at Barter Books, has been covered here before, but not in this lovely short video. And not with the new iPhone app.

Bletchley Park WWII Code-breaking Machines Rebuilt from Memories

filthy light thief — Mon, 30 May 2011 13:55:15 -0800

Early 1940: British police listening for radio transmissions from German spies within the UK pick up weird signals, and pass them to Bletchley Park, the United Kingdom's main decryption establishment in WWII. The source of these German messages is an unknown machine, which the Brits dub Tunny (10 minute video with Tony Sale describing the Tunny). August 30, 1941: German operators send two very similar messages with the same key, providing insight into the encryption scheme. By January 1942, British cryptographers deduced the workings of the German code machines, sight unseen. The British were able to create their own Tunny emulators to decrypt messages sent by German High Command. After the war, these and other British code-breaking and emulating machines were demolished and/or recycled for parts and their blueprints destroyed, leaving a hole in the history of the British WWII code breaking. Efforts to rebuild the British Tunny emulator started in the 1990s, and quite recently a Tunny emulator replica was completed. The German military had a number of different encrypted communications systems, from the relatively simple modified German military version of the commercially-available Enigma machine (Google Quickview / PDF). The more complex systems were based on teleprinters (wiki). The Germans had three different types of teleprinter cipher machines (Google Quickview / PDF) : three models of the Lorenz system, dubbed Tunny by the British; various models of the Siemens & Halske Schlüsselfernschreibmaschine (SFM), named Sturgen by the British; and the Siemens T43, which may have been the unbroken system nicknamed Thrasher. Tunny was used by the German army, while Sturgen was used by the navy and air force. The German nickname for the special teleprinter equipment was Sägefisch (sawfish), which is the source of the Fish nickname in England, and the subsequent fish-related nicknames for specific systems. When the British first found the "fish" messages, they realized these communications were quite important messages. The first break in Tunny came on August 30, 1941, when a German operator missed a message on first transmission and asked, in plaintext, that the message be re-sent. The key setting was the same and the message was largely similar, allowing British cryptographers to figure out the operations of the cipher machine without seeing it. About five months later, the Tunny emulator was built, allowing cipher text to be decrypted, once the decoding settings were figured out by hand. The first attempt to speed up the process was Heath Robinson, a mechanical method of figuring out the decoder settings. The second is the world's first programmable electronic computer, Colossus, and made by Thomas Harold Flowers (MBE) at the Dollis Hill Post Office Research Station. A number of Colossi were built, and all of these machines were dismantled at the end of the war, to guard against their secrets becoming known. By finding scraps of information and picking the memories of those who made and worked with the machines With the re-creation of the Tunny emulator, Bletchley Park once again has a complete set of re-created decrypting machines (photos of the exhibit at The National Museum of Computing, itself located at Bletchley Park). More interesting details and rabbit trails: * The Fish and I, Professor William T. Tutte's paper on FISH, as presented at the opening ceremony of Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research at the University of Waterloo. This paper is just one of the many fascinating features at Frode Weierud's CryptoCellar. * WW II Codes and Ciphers, Tony Sale's website on the Colossus and Tunny rebuild efforts, Enigma, and other related topics. * An introduction to Bletchley Park, a 2008 MetaFilter post.

Brown And Also Blue

The Whelk — Sun, 08 May 2011 21:29:18 -0800

VE and VJ Day, in London. In Colour.

Foyle's War

kinnakeet — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 12:13:13 -0800

History and mystery wonderfully blended. Although doubtless well-known to UK Mefites, I was only recently directed to this marvelous and engaging TV series featuring Michael Kitchen as Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle. It's a refreshing change from American fare, entirely adult, with crisp dialogue and meticulous attention to detail and historic accuracy. Speaking as a Yank weary of plasticity, it's also wonderful to see actors with real faces. The series can be seen on Youtube in pieces that can be viewed fairly seamlessly: Series One: The German Woman, The White Feather, Lesson in Murder, Eagle Day. Series Two: Fifty Ships, Among the Few, War Games, The Funk Hole. Series Three: The French Drop, Enemy Fire, They Fought in the Fields, War of Nerves. Series Four: Invasion, Bad Blood. Series Five: Bleak Midwinter, Casualties of War. Series Six: Plan of Attack, Broken Souls, All Clear. For those of us not from the Isles who are starved for intelligent drama, these films afford hours of enjoyable yet enlightening entertainment. Each episode stands alone nicely but together they form superb, beautifully developed character studies as well as a vivid picture of British life during WW II.

"A valley frozen in time."

amyms — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:11:15 -0800

In November 1943, the village of Tyneham in Dorset, England, received an unexpected letter from the War Department, informing residents that the area would soon be "cleared of all civilians" to make way for Army weapons training. A month later, the displaced villagers left a note on their church door: Please treat the church and houses with care; we have given up our homes where many of us lived for generations to help win the war to keep men free. We shall return one day and thank you for treating the village kindly. Residents were told they would be allowed to reclaim their homes after the war, but that didn't happen, and Tyneham became a ghost village. Though most of the cottages have been damaged or fallen into disrepair, the church and school have been preserved and restored. Photo galleries 1, 2, 3, 4. Panoramic tour [Java required]. Video: Death of a Village [YouTube, 9 mins.]

See? Forts!

dersins — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:04:22 -0800

Britain's Maunsell Sea Forts [wiki] were built during WWII as part of the coastal defense system. They were decommissioned in the 1950's, but many of them remain in use for non-military purposes (this is arguably the most famous). Some great photos here. [previously on metafilter]

Cry "Havoc!"and let slip the cats of war

dersins — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 09:52:18 -0800

Cats in Wartime on land, at sea, and memorialized. (With discussion of some of the most famous-- like Simon and Oscar.) Also, What Cats Know About War, previously on metafilter. On previewing the post, Simon the cat previously on metafilter.

Englandspiel - or 'Germany Game'

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 15:46:23 -0800

Secret agent Huub Lauwers was parachuted into occupied Holland in 1941 to relay intelligence back to London. His capture by the Germans marked the beginning of the Englandspiel, a deadly game of cat-and-mouse intelligence that cost the lives of over fifty agents. Lauwers frantically tried to inform the SOE that he had been caught, but the Baker Street Irregulars just didn't get it. Or did they? [more inside]