 | Bletchley Park TourCaptain Ridley's Shooting Party Following the deaths of Sir Herbert and Lady Fanny Leon, the Park fell into the hands of property developer Captain Hubert Faulkner, who intended to demolish the buildings and sell the land as a housing site. But the Government was about to intervene. It was 1938 and the threat of war loomed as Hitler invaded first Austria and then Czechoslovakia. The Government Code and Cypher School, then based in London, needed a safer home where its intelligence work could carry on unhindered by enemy air attacks. At a junction of major road, rail and teleprinter connections to all parts of the country, Bletchley Park was eminently suitable. Shortly before the Munich crisis of September 1938, the first codebreakers began to arrive. They masqueraded as 'Captain Ridley's Shooting Party' to disguise their true identity. For 40 years, no one outside the Park would discover their true identity. After meticulous preparation and a series of trial runs, the codebreakers arrived in earnest in August 1939. It was to be the first instalment in one of the most remarkable stories of the Second World War. |
