Enigma Variations
The intercept control room in Hut 6 at Bletchley Park, 1943—
Photo: GETTY
The above photo is from today's London Telegraph obituary of Keith Batey, a Bletchley Park codebreaker who died at 91 on St. Augustine's Day, 2010. Also from that obituary—
Batey himself was responsible for some important breakthroughs in decrypting the Abwehr Enigma system, helping MI5 to control the entire German espionage network in Britain. The intelligence was crucial to the Double Cross system – under which MI5 turned German agents sent to Britain and used them to feed the Abwehr false information – as it showed that the information was being accepted as genuine; it further revealed what the Germans did and did not know about the D-Day invasion plans.