2007-2008 Winter Lecture Series

The 2007-2008 series is now over. This year's programme was as follows:

October 11, 2007, The Merchant Navy and the Battle of the Atlantic
Speaker: Captain Richard Woodman
Capt. Richard Woodman began his 30 year sea-going career in cargo liners trading to the Far East and America, and became fascinated by the history of merchant shipping. In his lecture he will examine the pre-war state of British merchant shipping, its change from a private, civilian enterprise to its war-time role as the Merchant Navy.

November 8, 2007, How the Y-Service and Bletchley Park supported the Allied Combined Bombing Offensive between 1943 and 1945
Speaker: John Stubbington, Wing Commander retired
Electronic warfare and defence intelligence figured largely in John's RAF career and since his retirement he has been researching an earlier period of intelligence work. The results of this research will form his lecture tonight.

December 13, 2007, The Hunt for U247, June - September 1944
Speaker: Dr Malcolm Llewellyn-Jones
The chase and hunt for a U-boat over several months and all the way down from Scotland to the  English Channel. Dr Llewellyn-Jones MBE, formerly of he Royal Navy and now an historian at the Naval Historical Branch, Ministry of Defence, will describe this fascinating story from his personal researches.

January 10, 2008, Hidden Broadcasts
Speaker: Ralph Barrett CEng FIEE MIERE
Ralph Barrett is making a return visit to Bletchley Park. This time he will talk about the ingenious methods employed by our prisoners of war to enable them to listen to radio broadcasts in their camps.

February 14, 2008, The Breaking of the Lorenz Cipher before Colossus
Speaker: Tony Sale
Tony has spent the last 13 years rebuilding the WWII Colossus computer and researching the codebreaking work in wartime Bletchley Park. He will describe how the German Lorenz SZ42 cipher was first broken in Bletchley Park, the birth of the Testery and Newmanry, and how this led to Heath Robinson, the forerunner of Colossus.

March 13, 2008, Bletchley Park and the Holocaust - Did the Codebreakers Ignore Mass Murder?
Speaker: Michael Smith
This age old question will be examined by Michael Smith, journalist and broadcaster. Michael is a long-standing friend of Bletchley Park and author of many books among them the best seller Station X - The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park.