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Government to honour Bletchley veterans

Tom Espiner ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 13 Jul 2009 16:54 BST

The government is to give Bletchley Park WWII codebreakers a badge to commemorate their efforts during the war.

The commemorative scheme, which will be open to all military and civilian personnel who served at Bletchley Park and its outstations, will be launched in a ceremony on Thursday.

Simon Greenish, director of Bletchley Park Trust, welcomed the public recognition by the government.

"I think it's wonderful," Greenish told ZDNet UK on Monday. "At long last the government is finally recognising the enormous contribution of the WWII code-breakers."

Greenish said that government had taken 64 years to recognise the efforts at Bletchley because the work there had been so secret, and because the innovations in mathematics and cryptography from Bletchley Park until recently still had a bearing on UK intelligence work.

"The work at Bletchley gave us a significant start in intelligence work throughout the Cold War," said Greenish. "I'm told the maths was so advanced the government was very reluctant until extremely recently to say anything, particularly the work around Colossus."

Colossus is widely held to be the first true electronic digital reprogrammable computer. It was used in WWII to decrypt high-level German communications, but Colossus itself and its designs were destroyed or hidden at the end of the war.

The badge, which will not be awarded posthumously, will be available to approximately 1,700 people, Greenish added. It was devised by the government, in conjunction with GCHQ.