The Other Codebreakers: Breaking the non-military Codes at Bletchley Park and Beyond

The work of the Military codebreakers at Bletchley Park is now rightly and justly celebrated for its contribution to the Allied victory in World War Two.The ability to read enemy communications allowed strategic and tactical information to be understood and utilized.However less attention has been given to a range of other non-military codes, and the organisations involved with them, yet their significance on the development of the war is profound.This account outlines how these other areas functioned, who was there and what was achieved.In particular it covers the working of the Diplomatic and Commercial section of the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), which was evacuated to Bletchley Park in August 1939 with the military codebreakers as war loomed, and remained there until early 1942 when the section went back to London to be housed in Berkeley Street and other nearby buildings.The section did not handle military material except where military matters appeared in diplomatic