''Station X'' is a British

television documentary Television documentaries are televised media productions that screen documentaries. Television documentaries exist either as a television documentary series or as a television documentary film. *Television documentary series, sometimes called d ...

series detailing the story of how Germany's Enigma code was broken. It was broadcast on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

in 1999.Brown, Maggie,

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

, 15 March 1999

John Smithson John Smithson (* March 1952) is a British film and television producer. Family John's brother is the political blogger Mike Smithson. Together with David Darlow he co-founded the production company Darlow Smithson Productions in 1988. In Jun ...

was executive producer. It was accompanied by the "Channel 4 Books" publication ''Station X: The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park'' (1998), authored by Michael Smith which became a UK Number 1 bestseller. The first episode aired on

on 19 January 1999.

Tim Gardam Timothy David Gardam (born 14 January 1956), is a British journalist, media executive and educator. He was Director of Television at Channel 4 until 2003, after which he served as Principal of St Anne's College, Oxford until 2016. He now serves ...

, Channel 4's director of programmes, insisted that ''Station X'' be broadcast at the peak viewing time. The programme maker Peter Bate used full-scale reconstructions. Instead of a chronological narrative; Bate relied on short dramatised shots and anecdotes by various Bletchley veterans.Hanks, Robert. ''Television Review''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

20 January 1999Burge, Jim. Essay: ''On the reconstruction... '',

, 14 February 1999 Those featured included

Peter Calvocoressi Peter John Ambrose Calvocoressi (17 November 1912 – 5 February 2010) was a British lawyer, Liberal politician, historian, and publisher. He served as an intelligence officer at Bletchley Park during World War II. Early years Calvocoressi w ...

, Ralph Bennett,

Mavis Batey Mavis Lilian Batey, MBE (née Lever; 5 May 1921 – 12 November 2013), was a British code-breaker during World War II. She was one of the leading female codebreakers at Bletchley Park. She later became a historian of gardening who campaign ...

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 ...

Lord Briggs Michael Townley Featherstone Briggs, Lord Briggs of Westbourne, (born 23 December 1954) is a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. He served earlier as a judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales. By Royal Warrant, he bea ...

Donald Michie Donald Michie (; 11 November 1923 – 7 July 2007) was a British researcher in artificial intelligence. During World War II, Michie worked for the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, contributing to the effort to solve " Tunny ...

Shaun Wylie Shaun Wylie (17 January 1913 – 2 October 2009Leslie Yoxall and Alan Rogers. The story covered the contributions of various real life characters including

Hans-Thilo Schmidt Hans-Thilo Schmidt (13 May 1888 – 19 September 1943) codenamed Asché or Source D, was a spy who, during the 1930s, sold secrets about the Germans' Enigma machine to the French. The materials he provided facilitated Polish mathematician Maria ...

, Marian Rejewski,

Henryk Zygalski Henryk Zygalski (; 15 July 1908 – 30 August 1978) was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist who worked at breaking German Enigma ciphers before and during World War II. Life Zygalski was born on 15 July 1908 in Posen, German Empire (now Pozn ...

Jerzy Różycki Jerzy Witold Różycki (; Vilshana, Ukraine, 24 July 1909 – 9 January 1942, Mediterranean Sea, near the Balearic Islands) was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist who worked at breaking German Enigma-machine ciphers before and during World ...

Geoffrey Tandy Geoffrey A. Tandy (1900–1969) was a British marine biologist and broadcaster. Life Tandy graduated from Oxford University in 1921, and pursued graduate studies at Birkbeck College, in the University of London. He was employed at the Natural Hi ...

Dilly Knox Alfred Dillwyn "Dilly" Knox, CMG (23 July 1884 – 27 February 1943) was a British classics scholar and papyrologist at King's College, Cambridge and a codebreaker. As a member of the Room 40 codebreaking unit he helped decrypt the Zimm ...

, Josh Cooper and Andrew Cunningham. The stories covered various aspects of the breaking of the

Enigma naval codes 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 ...

, the captures from the

U-boat U-110 German submarine ''U-110'' was a Type IXB U-boat of Nazi Germany's '' Kriegsmarine'' that operated during World War II. She was captured by the Royal Navy on 9 May 1941 and provided a number of secret cipher documents to the British. ''U-110' ...

and other relevant material from German weather ship ''Lauenburg'' and ''München'' and the German

armed trawler Naval trawlers are vessels built along the lines of a fishing trawler but fitted out for naval purposes; they were widely used during the First and Second World Wars. Some—known in the Royal Navy as "Admiralty trawlers"— were purpose-built t ...

''Krebs'' during the

Lofoten raid Operation Claymore was a British commando raid on the Norwegian Lofoten Islands during the Second World War. The Lofoten Islands were an important centre for the production of fish oil and glycerine, used in the German war economy. The landings ...

Episodes

The series was split into four episodes 1. The keys to the Reich,Hewson, David. ''A cracking good story'' Sunday Times 17 January 1999 2. The goose, that laid the golden eggs, 3. The Ultra Secret, and 4. The war of the machines.

The keys to the Reich

The first episode revealed that Station X was the cover name for the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

radio interception station co-located with the

Government Code & Cypher School Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Uni ...

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 followin ...

. In 1938 the

British Secret Service The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

bought

, installing wireless receiver (

call-sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assigne ...

: "Station X") to pick up German messages. A small group of aristocratic codebreakers visited the Country house with their staff and butlers under the guise of "Captain Ridley's shooting party" to establish its suitability. With war Military Intelligence began to recruit various skillsets. Geoffrey Tandy, a marine biologist expert in

Cryptogams A cryptogam (scientific name Cryptogamae) is a plant (in the wide sense of the word) or a plant-like organism that reproduces by spores, without flowers or seeds. The name ''Cryptogamae'' () means "hidden reproduction", referring to the fact ...

, was selected when someone confused these with

cryptograms A cryptogram is a type of puzzle that consists of a short piece of encrypted text. Generally the cipher used to encrypt the text is simple enough that the cryptogram can be solved by hand. Substitution ciphers where each letter is replaced by ...

.Smithies, Sandy. ''Television Tuesday Watching brief'',

19 January 1999 The youthfulness of many staff was noted by biographer

Andrew Hodges Andrew Philip Hodges (; born 1949) is a British mathematician, author and emeritus senior research fellow at Wadham College, Oxford. Education Hodges was born in London in 1949 and educated at Birkbeck, University of London where he was award ...

, who noted that young people had ''the keys to the Reich''.

The goose, that laid the golden eggs

The programme includes analysis of discusses The Herivel Tip, an imaginative cracking method which relied on the laziness of the Enigma operators when setting up their machines in the morning.

The Ultra Secret

The programme starts with the 1941 Invasion of Russia. Contributors include David Kahn In a speech Winston Churchill publicises mass executions and the systematic slaughter of Jews, feeling the outrage greater than the imperative to protect the source. Loris Gherardi's role in the Theft of the Black Code, and its continued use under Colonel Norman Fiske and

Bonner Fellers Brigadier General Bonner Frank Fellers (February 7, 1896 – October 7, 1973) was a United States Army officer who served during World War II as a military attaché and director of psychological warfare. He is notable as the military attaché in ...

, is reconstructed.

The war of the machines

Critical reception

Tom Hibbert Tom Hibbert (28 May 1952 – 28 August 2011) was an English music journalist and film critic. In the 1980s and 1990s, he was a regular writer for music magazines such as ''Smash Hits'', '' Q'' and ''Mojo'', and reviewed films for ''Empire'' magaz ...

of ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...

'' and Sandy Smithies of ''

'' both found the first episode fascinating.Hibbert, Tom, ''Preview''

, 17 January 1999

James Delingpole James Mark Court Delingpole (born 6 August 1965) is an English writer, journalist, and columnist who has written for a number of publications, including the '' Daily Mail'', the '' Daily Express'', ''The Times'', ''The Daily Telegraph'', and ' ...

Ludovic Kennedy Sir Ludovic Henry Coverley Kennedy (3 November 191918 October 2009) was a Scottish journalist, broadcaster, humanist and author best known for re-examining cases such as the Lindbergh kidnapping and the murder convictions of Timothy Evans an ...

and other critics found the documentary portentous and plodding.''Letters'', ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...

'', 13 February 1999 Robert Hanks of ''

'' found the ''explanations were too brief to make the technicalities penetrable''.

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, id=4881644, title=Station X 1999 British television series debuts 1999 British television series endings 1990s British documentary television series Channel 4 documentaries English-language television shows Enigma machine