Gordon Welchman

[ppppenguin]

I heard a trail about this programme on R4:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b069gxz7

Welchman was one of the top guys at Bletchley Park. Besides being a very good mathematician and codebreaker it was he who first understood the need to treat codebreaking as an industrial process. He was also a good organiser, unlike Turing.

He's not as unknown as all that. I've had my copy of his "Hut 6 Story" for many years. Last year he was the subject of a biography and my copy should arrive today, along with the revised edition of the Hut 6 Story.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1848327528?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0947712348?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

[Joe]

Thanks for the tip, Jeffrey. I hadn't heard of him, though I've never had an especial interest in the 'cloak and dagger' side of military history.

I've found a copy of The Hut 6 Story though and will read it directly.

- Joe

[ppppenguin]

Apparently the new (1997) edition of Hut 6 Story contains important new information found in Welchman's papers after he diied.

[Brianc]

Don't forget the program on BBC2 at 21.00 today.

[ppppenguin]

Thanks for the reminder.

[Old Sparky]

I found the programme very interesting & thought provoking. Gordon Welchman should have been better known, and obviously will be from now on. It seems, though, that much of his work is still regarded as secret all these years later.

[ppppenguin]

It was good to see Welchman and his work honoured. They made a reasonable attempt at explaining the concept of traffic analysis and relting it to the modern idea of metadata. I don't think they sufficiently emphasised the point about modern metadata and traffic analysis being primary tools for GCHQ and NSA. And presumably their Russian, Chinese etc coutnerparts.

[pwdrive]

I was short listed for an interview for a job at Bletchley Park back in the late '60's, I had to sign the official secrets act just to have the interview....I didn't get the job...I suspect they found a record of a court hearing I had a few years before, ironically the court hearing I had was at the same court house where Alan Turing got busted back in the early '50's, that being the Sessions House in Knutsford, Cheshire.....Strange old world.

Lawrence.

[Urban Spaceman]

The programme was interesting, if somewhat lacking on any detail.
No mention of Welchman in Prof. R.V. Jones' 'Most Secret War'

The price of the book has gone sky-high, since transmission.

[ppppenguin]

The biog is still available, though not directly from Amazon. In fact its only £17 when they get it back in stock, I paid £20.


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gordon-Welchman-..._1?ie=UTF8&qid=1441990897&sr=8-1&keywords=gordon+welchman+biography

Hut 6 story has indeed gone gaga. I would hope they have in the shop at Bletchley Park at cover price. I've had the original edition for many years, glad I got the new edition before the programme was screened.