The Secrets of Station X by Michael Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

Bletchley Park really did have the relaxed air of a weekend party at an English country mansion.
    ‘None of us quite knew what would happen next,’ said Abernethy. ‘War had not been declared and most people thought and hoped that nothing would happen and we would go back to London.’ Given their experience the previous year, when Chamberlain’s agreement with Hitler at Münich had averted war, most of the staff were highly sceptical about the likelihood of Britain becoming involved in war. ‘As one cynic put it: “The Poles are going to be sold down the same river the Czechs were sold down last year”,’ said Henry Dryden, a member of the Military Section. The codebreakers began mounting a ‘sleeping watch’ with duty officers staying overnight in the few bedrooms that had not been taken over as offices, or simply putting up a cot in their own offices. ‘The news in the papers was grave enough but there was still nothing in our material to indicate that Germany was on the brink of war,’ recalled Cooper. ‘Early in the morning of 1 September 1939, I met the admiral’s deputy, Colonel Menzies, over breakfast in the old dining room in the house. I must have made some fatuous remark about another quiet night, to which he replied tersely: “Heavy fighting all along the Polish frontier”.’
    In the early hours of the morning, the German Army had swept into Poland. The Polish infantry divisions were unable to hold back the Blitzkrieg launched by the highly mechanised Wehrmacht . When the British told Hitler to withdraw, he responded by accusing the Poles of being the aggressors. Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, then gave him anultimatum. If he did not withdraw his troops from Poland, Britain would declare war on Germany. At 11am on 3 September 1939, the deadline set in the ultimatum expired without any response. Britain was at war with Germany, standing virtually alone against the might of Hitler’s forces. Bletchley Park was now faced with a race against time to break the German Enigma cypher.
    With more and more people arriving, the cramped conditions in the mansion were soon getting on everyone’s nerves. Sinclair died of cancer shortly after the start of the war, so Denniston wrote to Menzies, who had taken over as head of both MI6 and Bletchley, suggesting that the MI6 sections be moved elsewhere.
    Many of our recruits are men of considerable distinction and it is definitely felt that in the allocation of accommodation such facts should be taken into account. It appears to me improper to invite such as these to try to do work requiring a high degree of concentration in overcrowded rooms. There is a real spirit of discontent growing among my colleagues. I have congratulated them on the good work that is being done under trying conditions and the natural reply is ‘improve our conditions and you will get more results’. The Naval Section is now grossly overcrowded and we have to remember that we have added to our staff volunteers of very considerable standing and the research work they will undertake is of extreme national importance and one which calls for some degree of comfort in their surroundings in order to get the best out of them. It seems that there is not room to house MI6 and GC&CS in Bletchley Park efficiently . The only alternative therefore is to separate. It therefore remains to examine whether alternative accommodation can be found for some or all sections of MI6.
    MI6 sections began to move out; the GC&CS Commercial and Diplomatic Sections had already moved into the neighbouringElmer’s School and a programme of construction of temporary wooden huts began. Soon the various sections began to move out of the mansion into the newly constructed buildings, adopting the name of the hut they were in as their section title, in part for security reasons. The first to move was the Naval Section, which moved into Hut 4, next to the mansion, in November 1939.
    The accommodation