The Y8 Trip to Bletchley Park, as written by Oliver, Y8.
After a long two-hour bus journey, we finally arrived at Bletchley Park. The workplace of Alan Turing, the mathematician who cracked the Enigma code. It was a warm, sunny day and everyone was excited!
The Enigma Code was a code that the Germans would use in WWII to send messages to each other, including tactics and battle plans, without the British knowing. If only we were able to decipher the code, then we would know all the Germans plans! That is where Bletchley Park comes in. Bletchley Park was a place that intercepted the codes and had 9000 of the most skilled professors and students from Oxford and Cambridge University called in by the government to try and crack it.
When we arrived at Bletchley Park, we first walked through a building called the Intelligence Factory. This was where most of the recruits would sit and listen to the coded messages and try to understand them. Recruits had to sit and listen to beeps nonstop for 8 hours a day, which must have been exhausting!
Then it was lunchtime, we got to chill in the sun and eat ice cream, which was very nice! After lunch we were toured around Bletchley Park by a guide. He told us loads of interesting facts. Did you know that the people working at Bletchley Park in the war were not allowed to tell anyone about what they were doing? Imagine working hard doing one of the most important things to win the war and then having to tell everyone all you were doing was printing leaflets! That must’ve been so frustrating!
After our tour we had a workshop, I think it was the best part of the whole trip. In the workshop we learnt morse code and also learnt how the Enigma code worked. After our training we were given a message in Enigma code that we had to decipher, which was very complicated. Our group managed to figure it out though. In the workshop we also learnt about all the bluffing that the British were doing once they figured out Enigma code. The British army would fly planes over where the Germans were, and throw scarecrows out attached to parachutes to make The Germans think they were attacking there, but in fact they actually attacked on the complete opposite side! At the end of the workshop, we got to touch a real Enigma machine that was used in World War 2 to decode the messages they were sent.
I learned a lot about codes and the amount of effort that people put in to help our country. I was so impressed how clever they all were, particularly as they had no technology! I really hope I get to visit again soon!
-Oliver, Y8
