Lecture | A Close-Run Thing: Trying To Lose The Codebreaking War

Everyone knows the story of Enigma and secret codebreaking in the Second World War: the triumph of Bletchley Park over world-class cipher technology. But Britain’s own codes and ciphers were hopelessly amateurish, nearly costing us the cipher war. In the war at sea, countless lives were lost through failure to recognise Germany’s own codebreaking abilities. For their part, the Germans constantly worried about the vulnerability of Enigma. Once Enigma was broken, the code war’s new question was who would win the race for communications security. In this talk, Sir Dermot Turing reveals a new side to the codebreaking story, showing how close the struggle for codebreaking victory really was.

Sir Dermot Turing is the award-winning author of X, Y and Z – the real story of how Enigma was broken and Enigma Traitors, which reveals the failings of Allied cipher security during World War II. He has written numerous other books relating to his famous uncle Alan Turing, codebreaking and computing history.  He is also a regular speaker at historical and other events. He began writing in 2014 after a career in law, principally at the international law firm Clifford Chance. As well as writing and speaking, Dermot is a trustee of the National Museum of Computing and a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College, Oxford.

6.30pm Drinks Reception (Drink included in ticket price), 7.00pm Lecture Commences

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