BCH News - Bletchley Park MKAS Aircrew Forum 2005

Bletchley Park or "Station X" - Most secret home of British WWII code breaking, and birthplace of modern computing

The BCH Roadshow was invited to display at the Milton Keynes Aviation Society's superb "Aircrew Forum" at Bletchley Park, home of British code-breaking in WWII.

Once again the Milton Keynes Aviation Society has organized a superb event, and we were most honoured to attend with the BCH Roadshow and help entertain and inform the audience. The event on the 12th July, 2005, was basically in the form of a "forum" where a diverse panel of aircrew, drawn from different Nations, recounted stories and answered questions from the audience in the hallowed setting of the Mansion House at Bletchley Park.

"The goose that layed the golden egg, but didn't cackle" is how Winston Churchill described after the war Bletchley Park (or Station "X") and the men and women who successfully cracked the Axis cipher codes, and thus helped save lives and end WWII. As part of their complex work developments were made in computing that have put Bletchley justifiably down in history as the birthplace of the modern computer. So much secrecy has surrounded the work of Bletchley Park - it was only towards the late 1970's that some idea of the enormity and importance of the work carried out there became public. At the end of WWII in typical British-fashion, orders were issued to destroy basically everything and workers continued with their vow of silence. Hence, to this day, the world still knows little of the debt owed to Bletchley and it's historical contribution made to science and computing.

BCH is particularly interested in the WWII Story of British Air Intelligence and the work done in Hut 3 at Bletchley Park. It is against this background that we took the BCH Roadshow to this most historic of venues.

Once again the logistics of putting together the display and getting BCH volunteers over to Bletchley was a great strain on our resources. We must be getting used to it because, despite a few heart-stopping moments, everything came together in the end relatively easily, and BCH were able to present a good display with lots of interest from the crowd.

The BCH display stand had a good level of multimdia: 3x computers running presentations; plus - our new pride and joy - a large broadcast quality monitor showing a rolling DVD of various BCH things and clips of progress on Dave Hall's Kemble Mossie project.

Apart from featuring work on Dave's Project and the work of BCH and BCH Projects, we were able to use the Show as the first public launch of the BCH RAF Bicester Camapign. This is our attempt at persuading "the powers that be" and as many other people as possible, to support some level of BCH Museum/Heritage Centre facility on the mothballed Technical Site at the former RAF Bicester. Encouragingly we had many expressions of support at the Show for this, including from ex-Bicester personnel.

It was also fascinating to be able to meet and talk to members of "The Panel" and other crew and participants. We hope that we can foster these relationships in the future. It certainly made the Show worthwhile.

The audience really enjoyed the Forum. It was most heartening to hear the comradeship and spirit of reconciliation shown by the Luftwaffe nightfighter aircrew. On a personal note: quite amazing for somebody the editor's (youngish) generation to hear actual German aircrew in the flesh speaking about the subject in the 21st Century, and not just a mythical Hollywood version. Interesting too to hear the American crews and the extent to which they relied upon British Navigation technology like Gee.

Many thanks to the hospitality and generosity of both the Milton Keynes Avaition Society and the Bletchley Park Trust.

THE "AIRCREW FORUM" PANEL
Air Marshall	Sir Roger Austin	(CHAIRMAN)
	Jack Biggs	Royal Air Force Hurricane and Spitfire pilot with 17 Squadron, based in India and Ceylon from 1942 to 1944.
	Jack Bromfield	Royal Air Force, enlisted in 1942 as a Wireless Operator / Air Gunner and served with 158 (Halifax) Squadron at Lissett.
	Peter Fahy	Royal Air Force Spitfire photo-reconaissance pilot. Spent time at RAF Benson before moving on to serve with 16 Squadron in the later stages of the war.
	Sam Halpert	United States Army Air Force B-17 Navigator. Completed 35 missions with the 324th Bomb Squadron 91st Bomb Group at Bassingbourn.
	Jim Langford	Fleet Air Arm. Jim trained on the Barracuda, which he describes as a wonderful aeroplane to fly, before moving on to carrier operations in the Far East with the Grumman Avenger.
	Norbert Hannig	Lieutenant Colonel Luftwaffe, flew with JG 54 in early 1943 on Bf.109s, then Fw.190. Credited with 42 victories, he also flew with JV.44 (whose CO was Adolf Galland) towards the closing stages of the war, flying Me.262 jet fighters.
	Peter Spoden	Luftwaffe Me.110 and Ju.88 night-fighter ace with 24 victories. Flew with NJG5 and NJG6.
	Branse Burbridge	Royal Air Force. Branse spent most of his career with 85 Squadron flying Havoc and later Mosquito night fighters. With his radar operator Bill Skelton, he claimed 21 victories in ten months of operations to become the highest-scoring RAF night fighter of the war, beating Group Captain John "Cat's Eyes" Cunnigham by a single victory.
	Norm Rosholt	United States Army Air Force. A B-17 Flying Fortress pilot with the 8th Air Force's 452nd Bomb Group, based at Deopham Green, Norfolk from January 1944 to August 1945. He completed 30 missions, being shot down over the Dutch border on his 31st in March 1945 and taken prisoner for the remainder of the war.

News

NEWS

BCH ROADSHOW 2005:
MKAS "AIRCREW FORUM" AT BLETCHLEY PARK

THE "AIRCREW FORUM" PANEL

News

NEWS

BCH ROADSHOW 2005: MKAS "AIRCREW FORUM" AT BLETCHLEY PARK

THE "AIRCREW FORUM" PANEL

BCH ROADSHOW 2005:
MKAS "AIRCREW FORUM" AT BLETCHLEY PARK