![Hut6](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Hut6.jpg)
Hut 6 was a wartime section of the
Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS)
Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence agency, intelligence and security agency, security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the G ...
at
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...
,
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...
,
Britain
Britain most often refers to:
* The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands
* Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...
, tasked with the solution of German Army and Air Force
Enigma machine cyphers.
Hut 8
Hut 8 was a section in the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park (the British World War II codebreaking station, located in Buckinghamshire) tasked with solving German naval (Kriegsmarine) Enigma messages. The section was l ...
, by contrast, attacked Naval Enigma. Hut 6 was established at the initiative of
Gordon Welchman
William Gordon Welchman (15 June 1906 – 8 October 1985) was a British mathematician. During World War II, he worked at Britain's secret codebreaking centre, "Station X" at Bletchley Park, where he was one of the most important contributors. A ...
, and was run initially by Welchman and fellow
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
mathematician
John Jeffreys.
Welchman's deputy,
Stuart Milner-Barry
Sir Philip Stuart Milner-Barry (20 September 1906 – 25 March 1995) was a British chess player, chess writer, World War II codebreaker and civil servant. He represented England in chess both before and after World War II. He worked at Bletch ...
, succeeded Welchman as head of Hut 6 in September 1943, at which point over 450 people were working in the section.
[Ralph Erskine, ''Barry, Sir (Philip) Stuart Milner- (1906–1995)'', ]Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
, 2004.
Hut 6 was partnered with
Hut 3
Hut 3 was a section of the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park during World War II. It retained the name for its functions when it moved into Block D. It produced military intelligence codenamed ULTRA from the decrypts ...
, which handled the translation and intelligence analysis of the raw decrypts provided by Hut 6.
Location
Hut 6 was originally named after the building in which the section was located. Welchman says the hut was 20 yards (18m) long by 10 yards (9m) wide, with two large rooms at the far end – and no toilets. Staff had to go to another building. Irene Young recalled that she "worked in Room 82, though in typical Bletchley fashion there were not eighty-one rooms preceding it". She was glad to move from the Decoding Room "where all the operators were constantly having nervous breakdowns on account of the pace of work and the appalling noise" to the Registration Room which arranged intercepts according to callsign and frequency.
As the number of personnel increased, the section moved to additional buildings around Bletchley Park, but its name was retained, with each new location also being known as 'Hut 6'. The original building was then renamed 'Hut 16'.
Personnel
John Jeffreys was initially in charge of the Hut with
Gordon Welchman
William Gordon Welchman (15 June 1906 – 8 October 1985) was a British mathematician. During World War II, he worked at Britain's secret codebreaking centre, "Station X" at Bletchley Park, where he was one of the most important contributors. A ...
until May 1940; Jeffreys was diagnosed ill in 1940, and died in 1944. Welchman became official head of section until autumn 1943, subsequently rising to Assistant Director of Mechanisation at Bletchley Park.
Hugh Alexander, was a member February 1940 – March 1941 before moving to become head of
Hut 8
Hut 8 was a section in the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park (the British World War II codebreaking station, located in Buckinghamshire) tasked with solving German naval (Kriegsmarine) Enigma messages. The section was l ...
.
Stuart Milner-Barry
Sir Philip Stuart Milner-Barry (20 September 1906 – 25 March 1995) was a British chess player, chess writer, World War II codebreaker and civil servant. He represented England in chess both before and after World War II. He worked at Bletch ...
joined early 1940 and was in charge from autumn 1943 to the end of the war.
One codebreaker concerned with
Cryptanalysis of the Enigma
Cryptanalysis of the Enigma ciphering system enabled the western Allies in World War II to read substantial amounts of Morse-coded radio communications of the Axis powers that had been enciphered using Enigma machines. This yielded military in ...
,
John Herivel
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Second E ...
, discovered what was soon dubbed the Herivel tip or Herivelismus. For a brief but critical few months from May 1940, the "tip", in conjunction with operating shortcomings or "
cillies", were the main techniques used to solve Enigma. The "tip" was an insight into the habits of the German machine operators allowing Hut 6 to easily deduce part of the daily
key
Key or The Key may refer to:
Common meanings
* Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm
* Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock
* Key (map ...
.
David Rees David or Dai Rees may refer to:
Entertainment
* David Rees (author) (1936–1993), British children's author
* Dave Rees (born 1969), American drummer for SNFU and Wheat Chiefs
* David Rees (cartoonist) (born 1972), American cartoonist and televis ...
is credited with the first decode using the Herivel Tip.
In 1942, Welchman recruited fellow
Marlborough Collegers
( 1 Corinthians 3:6: God gives the increase)
, established =
, type = Public SchoolIndependent day and boarding
, religion = Church of England
, president = Nicholas Holtam
, head_label = Master
, head = Louise ...
,
Bob Roseveare and Nigel Forward. Roseveare started in the ''Watch'' working on Luftwaffe messages before moving to the ''Quatch'', a small backroom group that decoded non-current messages.
In Hut 6 were the Machine Room, plus the Decoding Room and Registration Room with mainly female staff under Harold Fletcher, a school and university friend of Gordon Welchman. In 2014 one of these female staff,
Mair Russell-Jones, published a posthumous memoir of her work there.
Other notable individuals include:
*
Alexander Aitken
Alexander Craig "Alec" Aitken (1 April 1895 – 3 November 1967) was one of New Zealand's most eminent mathematicians. In a 1935 paper he introduced the concept of generalized least squares, along with now standard vector/matrix notation fo ...
, New Zealand and Scottish mathematician
*
James Macrae Aitken
James Macrae Aitken (27 October 1908 – 3 December 1983) was a Scottish chess player. Aitken was born in Calderbank, Lanarkshire, Scotland. In 1938 he received a PhD from Edinburgh University on the topic of 'The Trial of George Buchanan Befor ...
, Scottish chess player
* Madge E. Allen
*
Dennis Babbage
Dennis William Babbage (26 April 1909 – 9 June 1991) was an English mathematician associated with Magdalene College, Cambridge, and with codebreaking at Bletchley Park during World War II.
In 1980 Babbage was President of Magdalene College, Cam ...
*
Stephen Banister, English cricketer and civil servant
* Clarence Barasch, American observer to British Intelligence
*
Asa Briggs
Asa Briggs, Baron Briggs (7 May 1921 – 15 March 2016) was an English historian. He was a leading specialist on the Victorian era, and the foremost historian of broadcasting in Britain. Briggs achieved international recognition during his lon ...
, English historian
* June Canney, Registration Room later Welchman's secretary
* John Coleman and George Crawford, Intercept Control Room.
* Sheila Dunlop (later Lady Killanin)
* Harold Fletcher, administrator
*
Edna Garbutt
Edna or EDNA may refer to:
Places United States
*Edna, California, a census-designated place
*Edna Lake, Idaho
*Edna, Iowa, an unincorporated town in Lyon County
* Edna Township, Cass County, Iowa
* Edna, Kansas, a city
*Edna, Kentucky, an uni ...
, member of A watch
*
John Herivel
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Second E ...
, creator of the "Herivel Tip"
*
Jane Hughes, later Jane Hughes Fawcett, who decoded the message that led to the sinking of the
German battleship Bismarck
''Bismarck'' was the first of two s built for Nazi Germany's . Named after Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the ship was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in July 1936 and launched in February 1939. Work was completed in August 19 ...
*
Ione Jay, (Ione Roseveare) wrote an account of her experiences there
*
Oliver Lawn
Oliver may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and literature
Books
* ''Oliver the Western Engine'', volume 24 in ''The Railway Series'' by Rev. W. Awdry
* '' Oliver Twist'', a novel by Charles Dickens
Fictional characters
* Ariadne Oliver ...
, married 1948 Sheila who worked elsewhere at BP, Scottish country dancer.
*
Reginald H. Parker (Reg), discoverer of "Parkerismus", in Hut 6 Intercept Control Room
*
David Rees David or Dai Rees may refer to:
Entertainment
* David Rees (author) (1936–1993), British children's author
* Dave Rees (born 1969), American drummer for SNFU and Wheat Chiefs
* David Rees (cartoonist) (born 1972), American cartoonist and televis ...
, University of Exeter mathematics professor
* Helen C. Stanley-Baker, Oxford mathematics student
Bletchley Park Summary of Service
2013
* Derek Taunt
Derek Roy Taunt (16 November 1917 (Note 1) – 15 July 2004) was a British mathematician who worked as a codebreaker during World War II at Bletchley Park.
Taunt attended Enfield Grammar, then the City of London School. He studied mathemat ...
, Cambridge research student
* Ann Katharine Mitchell
Ann Katharine Mitchell (' Williamson; 19 November 1922 – 11 May 2020) was a British cryptanalyst and psychologist who worked on decrypting messages encoded in the German Enigma cypher at Bletchley Park during the Second World War. After the war ...
(nee Williamson), Oxford mathematics graduate
* Irene Young, University of Edinburgh, Decoding Room then Registration Room
See also
* Action This Day (memo)
* Bombe
The bombe () was an electro-mechanical device used by British cryptologists to help decipher German Enigma-machine-encrypted secret messages during World War II. The US Navy and US Army later produced their own machines to the same functiona ...
* Cryptanalysis of the Enigma
Cryptanalysis of the Enigma ciphering system enabled the western Allies in World War II to read substantial amounts of Morse-coded radio communications of the Axis powers that had been enciphered using Enigma machines. This yielded military in ...
* Hut 8
Hut 8 was a section in the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park (the British World War II codebreaking station, located in Buckinghamshire) tasked with solving German naval (Kriegsmarine) Enigma messages. The section was l ...
* Bletchley
Bletchley is a constituent town of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. It is situated in the south-west of Milton Keynes, and is split between the civil parishes of Bletchley and Fenny Stratford and West Bletchley.
Bletchley is best known ...
* Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes ( ) is a city and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was over . The River Great Ouse forms its northern boundary; a tributary ...
References
Sources
* Asa Briggs
Asa Briggs, Baron Briggs (7 May 1921 – 15 March 2016) was an English historian. He was a leading specialist on the Victorian era, and the foremost historian of broadcasting in Britain. Briggs achieved international recognition during his lon ...
, ''Secret Days: Code-breaking in Bletchley Park'' (2011, Frontline Books, London) pp. 84–85
* Stuart Milner-Barry, "Hut 6: Early days", pp. 89–99 in ''Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park'', edited by F. H. Hinsley, and Alan Stripp, Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, 2003
* Mair and Gethin Russell-Jones, ''My Secret Life in Hut Six: One woman’s experiences at Bletchley Park'' (2014; Lion Hudson, Oxford)
* Derek Taunt, "Hut 6: 1941-1945", pp. 100–112 in ''Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park', edited by F. H. Hinsley, and Alan Stripp, Oxford University Press, 2003
* Gordon Welchman, ''The Hut Six Story: Breaking the Enigma Codes'' (1982: London, Allen Lane
Sir Allen Lane (born Allen Lane Williams; 21 September 1902 – 7 July 1970) was a British publisher who together with his brothers Richard and John Lane founded Penguin Books in 1935, bringing high-quality paperback fiction and non-fictio ...
& New York, McGraw-Hill
McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referenc ...
)
* Gordon Welchman, ''The Hut Six Story: Breaking the Enigma Codes'' (1997: Cleobury Mortimer
Cleobury Mortimer (, ) is a market town and civil parish in southeast Shropshire, England, which had a population of 3,036 at the 2011 census. It was granted a market charter by Henry III in 1226.''Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum in Turri Londinensi ...
, Baldwin)
* Irene Young, ''Enigma Variations: A Memoir of Love and War'' (1990, Mainstream Publishing
Mainstream Publishing was a publishing company in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded in 1978, it ceased trading in December 2013.Charlotte WilliamsMainstream to cease publishing 1 March 2013, The Bookseller.com' (Retrieved 30 December 2016) It was ass ...
, Edinburgh)
Alan Turing, Gordon Welchman, Hugh Alexander, Stuart Milner-Barry. Letter to Winston Churchill (1941)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hut 06
Year of establishment missing
Cryptography organizations
Bletchley Park
Buildings and structures in Milton Keynes