Inside Alan Turing's unpublished WWII code-breaking notebooks
A fundraising campaign led by Friends of the Nations' Libraries secured the funds to purchase the notebooks, preventing their sale to an international bidder.
The notebooks detail Turing's "Delilah project," focusing on building a portable voice encoder.
A substantial donation from XTX Markets, along with contributions from other organisations and individuals, enabled King's College, Cambridge, to acquire the archive.
The notebooks will be added to the existing Turing collection at King's College and made available online for research and study.
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The Guardian
14 hours ago
- The Guardian
Australian novel attracts controversy over fictionalised depiction of gay codebreaker Alan Turing
A novel written by a prominent book industry figure in which persecuted gay man Alan Turing has sex with a woman and fathers a child has been criticised online for its portrayal of the codebreaker. The Turing Protocol was released in July and was written by Nick Croydon, the CEO of QBD Books, the largest Australian-owned bookshop chain, where the book is being heavily promoted. Published by Affirm Press, which was bought by Simon & Schuster last year, the novel's cover features the question: 'If you had the power to change history, would you dare?' In the thriller, Turing, the brilliant British wartime mathematician and computer pioneer, builds a time travel machine and has sex with Joan Clarke, with whom he secretly fathers a child. Turing is otherwise depicted as gay and the story includes details of his persecution for his sexuality. In real life, Turing was briefly engaged to Bletchley Park colleague, Clarke, when the pair were employed in vital code-breaking during the war. He was later convicted for 'gross indecency' with another man and died by suicide at the age of 41 after enduring chemical castration. Queen Elizabeth II posthumously pardoned Turing in 2013, four years after prime minister Gordon Brown apologised for his 'appalling' treatment. Croydon told The Australian newspaper he had not pretended Turing was straight, but needed to give him a child for the purpose of his plot. 'I wrote this novel as a tribute to him. I wanted to highlight the genius that he was, but also the injustice that he suffered,' he said. As of Tuesday afternoon, the book had received 115 ratings on Goodreads, with five stars making up 21% and one stars making up 64%. Many of the most positive reviews came from first-time Goodreads reviewers. The negative reviews included anger about what some claimed was the 'erasure' of gay history. 'Anyone who is aware of Alan Turing and his prosecution will be scratching their head in disbelief,' one reader wrote. 'Erasing the whole point of Alan Turing's tragedy is one of the worst things someone can do. Erasing LGBTQ history, erasing a real person's pain? … Turing was not some fictional character to straight-ify,' wrote another. The book is QBD's fiction book of the month and is being actively marketed by the company, including a promotional Channel 7 interview in which Croydon explained that his favourite subjects at school were history and mathematics. Authors who have endorsed the book include historical fiction writer Fiona McIntosh and former QBD fiction book of the month author, Chris Hammer, who compared the book to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. Prize-winning author Trent Dalton described the book as 'wildly imaginative' and urged people to 'read the Turing Protocol now', while Candice Fox said it was 'vivid'. Commenting on gay erasure broadly, Equality Australia legal director, Heather Corkhill, told Guardian Australia that 'erasing or marginalising LGBTIQ+ people and characters from historical and cultural narratives to fit a more heteronormative or 'traditional' worldview is not a new phenomenon – but it risks erasing our shared history and diminishing our understanding of the LGBTQ+ experience'. 'At no time did I say Turing wasn't gay,' Croydon said, according to the Australian. 'The book makes it very plain that he is gay. It talks about how he had to hide the fact that he was gay, and in the historical note page at the back of the book I again acknowledge the travesty of the treatment he received.' In a statement released last week, QBD said throughout the novel, Turing's 'identity as a gay man is neither erased, questioned nor diminished'. 'Speculative historical fiction often examines phenomena like lavender marriages – arrangements where LGBTQ+ individuals married opposite-sex partners due to societal pressures, ensuring protection and companionship – which were common during Turing's era and beyond. 'Regarding reviews, it's not unusual for friends, family, colleagues and peers to provide reviews of an author's work. QBD Books staff are a team of avid readers across the country who engage with literature passionately, some of whom have shared their genuine views on the book – both complimentary and critical. 'QBD Books' Book of the Month program follows a rigorous selection process that highlights debut or new authors who have written standout works. Each month submissions are received from publishers, and new releases are reviewed by our team of expert buyers, after which we select four titles for the whole calendar month to spotlight.' QBD, Simon and Schuster and Croydon have been contacted for comment.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Daily Mail
The Nazis' secret weapon: Incredibly rare Enigma machine built AFTER Alan Turing's Bletchley Park experts cracked original code
An incredibly rare four rotor Enigma machine used by the Nazis during the Second World War has emerged for sale for £300,000. The Nazis sent coded messages through the cipher machines to their ships and U-boats to plan devastating attacks on Allied shipping. The British codebreakers at Bletchley Park, led by Alan Turing, cracked the original three rotor Enigma machines in 1941. A subsequent dramatic fall in the number of Allied ships being sunk led the Germans to suspect the Enigma had been compromised. As a result, in February 1942, they introduced a new fourth rotor wheel which multiplied the number of available settings another 26 times. But the codebreakers at Bletchley were again able to crack it, enabling them to decipher a staggering 84,000 German messages a month. Some experts believe their work may have shortened the war by up to two years. Since the Nazi high command ordered the Enigma machines be destroyed towards the end of the war to prevent them falling into enemy hands, surviving examples are extremely scarce. The rare surviving example of the improved M4 cipher machine is going under the hammer at auctioneers Bonhams, of Knightsbridge, London. The machine - which measures 6ins by 11ins by 14ins - has three moving wired rotors, a fixed reflector and a plug board located behind a wooden flap at the front. A Bonhams spokesperson said: 'The M4 differs from other models in that it has a fourth, additional but non-rotating and non-interchangeable rotor that increased the complexity of the enciphering process. 'It was the fourth naval model and was particularly intended for use by the U-boat division. 'Production of this model began in late 1941 and it was introduced early into 1942. 'With the increased complexity introduced by this model, the M4 came as a shock to Allied codebreakers and went unbroken for nine months, until the capture of important key sheets aboard the U-559 by British sailors in October 1942. 'Traffic enciphered by the M4 was codenamed SHARK by Allied codebreakers and this eventual breach of this communications channel played an important role in the Battle of the Atlantic. 'The German High Command ordered that Enigma machines be destroyed in the event that capture by Allied forces was imminent, so few survive today. 'The M4 is rarer than its Army counterpart, the Enigma I, with just 70-80 surviving examples of the M4 recorded worldwide, of which only about half are in private hands. 'The M4 offered by Bonhams is a very fine, well-preserved example.' The sale takes place on September 9. Turing remains the most high-profile of the Bletchley Park codebreakers, in large part because of his incredible feats and subsequent tragic fate. The genius, who was gay at a time when homosexual relations were illegal, was convicted of gross indecency with a man in 1952. He chose to be chemically castrated over going to prison and took his life just two years later aged 41.
The Independent
06-08-2025
- The Independent
New ocean expedition captures images of 13 WWII shipwrecks from major naval battles
A new ocean expedition in the South Pacific has revealed striking new images of more than a dozen ships sunk during key World War II battles. Researchers on the Ocean Exploration Trust vessel Nautilus conducted an archaeological survey of 13 shipwrecks from the Solomon Islands campaign, one of the war's fiercest naval confrontations. Using advanced remotely operated vehicles equipped with high-definition cameras and submersible drones, they also rediscovered two long-lost vessels, the USS New Orleans and the Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer Teruzuki. While some of the wrecks were first located over 30 years ago, the latest expedition allowed for a far more detailed and comprehensive survey, thanks to cutting-edge imaging technology, researchers said. 'This expedition was special, allowing us to film these sites in a manner not possible back then, as well as document other ships, while at the same time sharing our work live to the entire world,' Ocean Exploration Trust president Robert Ballard said in a statement. The wreck site, known as Iron Bottom Sound, lies in the Solomon Islands between Guadalcanal, Savo, and Nggela islands. Between August and December 1942, Iron Bottom Sound was the site of five major naval battles during the Second World War, resulting in the loss of more than 20,000 lives, 111 naval vessels, and 1,450 aircraft. Dozens of shipwrecks lie on the seafloor at this site, just off the coast of Honiara, within a relatively compact area measuring less than 25 nautical miles wide, 40 nautical miles long, and up to 1,400 metres deep. But fewer than 100 of these American, Japanese, Australian, and New Zealand military ships and planes have been located to date. 'This survey of the ships of the United States, Australia, and Japan will add immeasurably to the understanding of one of the costliest naval campaigns in history, a campaign that hopefully will never be repeated,' said Samuel J Cox, Naval History and Heritage Command director. In the latest survey, researchers mapped more than 386 square miles of seafloor using the uncrewed surface vehicle DriX, operated by the University of New Hampshire. The crew spent nearly 140 hours exploring various wrecks using ROVs, some located more than 3,280 feet beneath the ocean's surface. For the first time, researchers took pictures of the bow that was blown off the World War II heavy cruiser USS New Orleans. The USS New Orleans was struck by a Japanese 'Long Lance' torpedo during the November 1942 Battle of Tassafaronga, off the coast of Guadalcanal. The powerful explosion sheared off nearly a third of the ship, including its entire bow, and claimed the lives of more than 180 crew members. 'The use of our uncrewed vessel allowed a tremendous increase in exploration efficiency as we were able to continuously map and identify potential targets while the Nautilus was deploying its ROVs,' said Larry Mayer, director of the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping at the University of New Hampshire. 'This technological achievement, combined with the tremendous historical significance of our discoveries, made this one of the most rewarding missions I have ever participated in.'
