A memorial to commemorate the vital work of the code breakers of WWII is to be sited at Bletchley Park, the wartime home of the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS).
The memorial follows on from the launch of the Bletchley Park Commemorative badge in July 2009 and will provide recognition to all those that provided vital service at Bletchley Park and its outstations during WWII.
At the height of WWII, the codebreakers of Bletchley Park decoded enemy radio messages, including ciphers generated by the famous Enigma machine, on an industrial scale, giving the Allies a huge advantage. Many historians believe that the Bletchley Park codebreaking effort shortened the war by at least two years, saving an incalculable number of lives.
Bletchley Park is now recognised (having been kept completely secret until 1975) as one of the most important sites of the 20th Century in the UK. Now a museum, it tells the unique story of codebreaking in WWII. Locating the memorial here fulfils the overwhelming wishes of many veterans and their families who were consulted as part of the project.
Commissioned by The Bletchley Park Trust and GCHQ (successors to GC&CS), the memorial will fulfil a commitment by the previous Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, to provide a lasting tribute to this remarkable group of people, many of whom took their secret wartime experiences to the grave.
The memorial will be designed and sculpted by the artist Charles Gurrey. It will be dedicated later this year.
26 April 2011
Notes to Editors:
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Bletchley Park
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