The Imitation Game : Film

[CoffmanStarter]

For those PPRuNe Members who have an interest in the history of WWII Enigma, Cryptography and Ultra Ops in general, I would thoroughly recommend watching the recently released film entitled 'The Imitation Game'. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing with Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke. The story is very well told IMHO.

http://images.radiotimes.com/namedimage/The_Imitation_Game_starring_Benedict_Cumberbatch_gets_a_UK_r elease_date.jpg?quality=85&mode=crop&width=620&height=374&404=tv&url=/uploads/images/original/49922.jpg

Image Credit : Radio Times

It makes you shudder to think of the consequences had Turing not been successful in developing one of the first computers to help decrypt enemy message traffic. Even more chilling is the fact that not all decrypts could be used for fear of revealing the fact we had broken the Enigma Code.

[Heathrow Harry]

Actually it has been pointed out that being able to decrypt enemy comms is only useful if you can do something about it

You have to have ships/troops/aircraft able to respond.........

[Danny42C]

Heathrow Harry,

True, but it enables you to deploy your limited resources in the most efficient way (of vital importance in the anti-U boat campaign).

I believe that, right to the end, Hitler and the German Intelligence believed that the Enigma system was inherently impregnable (and really, if you examine it closely, most people would agree).

It was the special genius of Turing and all who worked at Bletchley Park that achieved the seemingly impossible. It is arguable that he saved Britain.

D.

[CoffmanStarter]

Well said Danny :ok:

[ricardian]

And the single weakness of Enigma was that no letter was ever encrypted as itself!

[Vendee]

If I may be allowed to lower the tone for a moment....... anything with Keira Knightley in it is worth watching :D

[Wensleydale]

A good film with a few factual errors (not just the trivial such as a PzIV Ausf H supposedly running over a British tin hat in 1941, but also that it depicted Bently Priory as virtually empty until mid-war! Adds to the drama I suppose). Well put together though and worth the watch. (Also saw "Mr Turner" this week - superb acting and photography but let down by the total inadequacy of the script and screenplay leaving more questions than answers).

[VinRouge]

Worth pointing out that ENIGMA continued to be used as a source of Intelligence long after the end of WW2... I believe a number of South American countries (Chile springs to mind) were gifted Enigma sets, will the knowledge their usage could be monitored...


all in here ( a fantastic book btw) : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intelligence-War-Knowledge-Napoleon-Al-Qaeda-ebook/dp/B003IQ16B0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416427636&sr=8-1&keywords=Intelligence+in+war

Worth pointing out it T'was the poles who did the first crack of Enigma; Turing was exceptional at industrialising its exploitation and providing direction when the system changed (increased rotors on SHARK etc)

[ValMORNA]

Quote: It was the special genius of Turing and all who worked at Bletchley Park that achieved the seemingly impossible. It is arguable that he saved Britain. unquote . . .
. . . and not forgetting all the military Y-service operators and their civilian counterparts who provided the raw material for Bletchley to play with.

[Wander00]

By coincidence, one of our French masters at school was Maj Hugh Skillen, pivotal in the "Y" Service, and later historian of Bletchley Park, and a member of the yacht club of which I was Secretary for 10 years was (Sub Lt) David Balme, who took an Enigma machine off U-110 . Small world

[Tankertrashnav]

This film will be appreciated by me if it means that every single reference to Benedict Cumberbatch will cease to be bracketed with a reference to Sherlock, which was unadulterated piffle fit only for kids.

Personally I always associate him with the role of the captain in the excellent Radio 4 comedy Cabin Pressure, and he was a pretty good Peter Gwillam in the film version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Looking forward to seeing the flick.

[ORAC]

The Emperor's Codes: The role of Bletchley Park in breaking Japan’s secret ciphers (http://www.historytoday.com/john-crossland/emperors-codes-role-bletchley-park-breaking-japan%E2%80%99s-secret-ciphers)

[just another jocky]

Indeed, must go and see it.

Don't tell me how it ends! :}

[Lima Juliet]

I like Sherlock - must be time to grow up, then! :ok:

[FantomZorbin]

LJ
I tried 'growing up' but didn't rate it so binned it ... a lot happier now :E

[CoffmanStarter]

Leon ...

I'd still keep the SD Deerstalker though :ok:

[Courtney Mil]

For those, like me, that haven't seen it yet...

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S5CjKEFb-sM

I like the look of it. Waiting for Amazon to have it.

[althenick]

Fully intend to go see the film but I hope this guy gets a mention. Little known fact but the UK had a working digital Exchange by 1968 through no small input from Tommy

Tommy Flowers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flowers)

THE EMPRESS PCM DIGITAL TANDEM EXCHANGE (http://strowger-net.telefoonmuseum.com/tel_hist_empress.html)

[t43562]

Does it mention the Poles?

[Pontius Navigator]

A good film with a few factual errors (not just the trivial such as a PzIV Ausf H supposedly running over a British tin hat in 1941,
Better than an M48 or M60 even.

[Wensleydale]

I did say that that one was trivial! Perhaps the film showing the team of 5 position every ship in the Atlantic within an hour or so of getting the machine to work was more of a howler - given that the Kriegsmarine used a different 4 rotor version of the enigma (and it took the capture of German code books to defeat this).

[Melchett01]

and not forgetting all the military Y-service operators and their civilian counterparts who provided the raw material for Bletchley to play with

Indeed, and with the RAF making a not insignificant contribution through the site at RAF Chicksands!

[Basil]

CoffmanStarter, Thanks for the tip. I'd wondered if it would be interesting.

[Wander00]

Obviously I am missing the point somewhere - tin hat run over by a......whatever it was - or is that that whatever ran over the tin hat was not in service then - ie the "Routemaster" issue!

[Pontius Navigator]

Wander, correct, just the big cheese demonstrating his trivia knowledge. It would have been II and not IV.

[Wensleydale]

PN - not necessarily - had the Pz IV been an Ausf F2, a "special", (or earlier) and the British helmet been in the desert then fair enough! As it was, an obvious CGI of a tank that came into being in 1943 and would not have faced the British until later in the year (and even then, not painted grey) was used to demonstrate Britain's low ebb in 1941. A symbolic moment but not a plausible one.


Perhaps they used a newspaper reporter from the Guardian to identify the equipment? I was only doing for tanks what countless contributors have done for aircraft on previous threads.

[Wander00]

That will be like the Friedland door chime and up-and-over garage door in the BoB film then

[jonw66]

Oh good grief the Blenheim has just flown again at Duxford.
Apologises for horrendous drift.
Cheers
Jon

[MAINJAFAD]

Wensleydale

Best you update this then

Main/Tanks, but No Tanks - Television Tropes & Idioms (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TanksButNoTanks)

[Wander00]

nW66 - I guess that "drift" is permissible - great news

[Wensleydale]

Thanks for that! I am indeed a "rivet counter". (Particularly in the road wheels for German WW2 AFVs)! I once told the curator of Bovington that they had labelled their PzIV special as an F2, when it clearly had escape hatches in the lower superstructure and the gun had a double baffle muzzle brake! It now carries the correct designation.

[jonw66]

The long winter night shifts must fly by only kidding.
Best regards
Jon

[MAINJAFAD]

Thanks for that! I am indeed a "rivet counter"

Snap in the case of any project I'm involved in.

The Aircraft one is a bit of a hoot as well.

Main/Just Plane Wrong - Television Tropes & Idioms (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JustPlaneWrong)

'Concorde, X-15, what the hell's the difference?'

To be honest, the only TV program or film drama that covered scientific achievements in WWII with any accuracy in my view, was the mini series that the BBC (and others) did about Oppenheimer in the early 1980s. Of course having a project that was stuffed with a number of people with huge ego's as the Manhattan Project did make invented drama totally unnecessary.

[Pontius Navigator]

Drift, aye, the Gibraltar Siege Tunnel had a late WW 2 helmet on a couple of Manikins and back to front to boot. They have the Mk 3 now :)

[jonw66]

Pontius you now officially owe me a keyboard.
Best regards
Jon

[Basil]

My father's WW2 ARP helmet and our gas masks were all junked. Should have kept them for the grandkids.

[Mechta]

My father's WW2 ARP helmet and our gas masks were all junked. Should have kept them for the grand kids.

Mechta Minor took a home guard gas mask and helmet into school when they were doing WWII in history. Turns out they all had a go with the gas mask. Not sure the parents would have been too happy if they had known about the asbestos in the filter...

With regard to the tank/helmet authenticity issue; given how little the tank had sunk into the ground before reaching the helmet, I rather doubt a helmet could take 25 tons of tank without being flattened.

[Heathrow Harry]

IIRC it was the Poles who first started on Enigma well before the war and GCHQ built on their work - the special genius of the British as to build computing machines to speed up the decoding

And of course the British used women, gays, refugees, foreigners, Jews and all sorts of what the Germans labeled "undesirables" in the work - a whole pool of immense talent that was denied to the Germans due to ideology

[Heathrow Harry]

"With regard to the tank/helmet authenticity issue; given how little the tank had sunk into the ground before reaching the helmet, I rather doubt a helmet could take 25 tons of tank without being flattened"

if there had been a British Guardsman inside the helmet it would have been pristine.......................

[Mechta]

And of course the British used women, gays, refugees, foreigners, Jews and all sorts of what the Germans labeled "undesirables" in the work - a whole pool of immense talent that was denied to the Germans due to ideology

Isn't that part of the story in this film, that despite Turing having contributed so much to the allied victory , once he was outed he was convicted for being a homosexual, and ultimately killed himself as a result?

[Heathrow Harry]

that's the film - it was pretty clear that a number of people at Bletchley and elsewhere were gay but no - one was interested in pursuing it

It was 7 years after the war that they prosecuted him

[Buster Hyman]

Whilst we're drifting, I distinctly remember seeing a historical documentary about how the Americans captured that U-boat.....

[oldmansquipper]

Filmed (in part, at least,) at RAF Bicester - Now Bicester Heritage . The old Parachute section was used as one of the `huts`:)


https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bicester-Heritage/558643060833836?fref=ts

I just hope they can see fit to let us keep our glider there ...at an affordable price!!!:eek:

[Wander00]

Film was U-571, and the British guy who actually did the deed persuaded the producers to put a footnote at the end of the movie that said the film was based on his taking the Enigma machine off U-110

[MAINJAFAD]

The US Navy did capture a U-boat plus all the coding equipment/books and did sail it back to the USA (U-505). Adm. Ernest King went nuts over the US Task group commander not sinking the thing after they got the Enigma stuff off.

[Tankertrashnav]

a whole pool of immense talent that was denied to the Germans due to ideology

It wasn't always the case. The Germans created a team of expert printers from Jews taken from various concentration camps, notably Sachsenhausen, to work on Operation Bernhard, the plot to forge millions of pounds worth of Bank of England notes with a view to destabilising the IUK currency. It had been a fact that in pre-war Germany Jews were very prevalent in the printing trade. With the offer of regular food and good living conditions it would have been strange if those offered a chance to work on the project had not seized the opportunity enthusiastically.

Given then that the Nazis were prepared to be pragmatic and put ideology to one side if Jews could offer scarce skills, I would be surprised if at least a few top Jewish mathematicians had not been involved on the German side working on the creation of the Enigma code.