Bletchley Park is famous for its large analytic machines – but these would have been useless without a huge amount of work done with humble pen and paper. At Bletchley Park, a pencil and squared paper were the essential tools of the codebreaker. They were used to note indicators, rotor orders and letter chains on working sheets, carry out calculations and log results. Most codebreaking, in fact, was done by hand. The famous codebreaking machines like the Bombe and Colossus did only part of the work: a large number of tasks had to be done manually before and after the machines were used, if ciphers were to actually be broken. In intelligence analysis, too, pen and paper were the most important tools of the trade, for notetaking and writing translations and reports. Every neatly-formatted item of Ultra intelligence which landed on the desk of an Allied general began life as a rough draft scribbled by hand on a pro-forma chit. In short, even at one of the most advanced intelligence centres of WWII, much of the day-to-day codebreaking still relied on pencil, paper, and human brainpower. #BletchleyPark #WW2History #Codebreaking
7D! The price on the pencil box. 6D was half a shilling which when decimalized years later was 5pence, but probably during the war these were quite pricey for mere pencils. My codebreaking mother must have got through quite a few, working manually on Japanese codes (mostly).
I'm with the codebreakers, you can't beat pen or pencil and paper. My beautiful fountain pen is used for note taking because I just can't use a desktop or phone for notes.
Even after years working in IT, I still prefer a good quality pencil and notebook for taking notes.
I love to hear the stories of the #Women that worked at #Bletchley
Yes yes yes 🙌
You have receved some great comments.....good job!
My mother Winifred, who worked at Bletchley Park (Hut 6) 1943-45, had two little red leather notebooks she used (with her lovely handwriting) for her accounts, meanings/etymology of new words, items of general knowledge...and puzzles! I like to think this was part of what kept her brain so sharp for her wartime work :)