The World War 2 German naval code Enigma, was broken at Bletchley Park, the center of major British Intelligence activities during WW2. But even if you are familiar with Enigma, you may have not heard about the much more complex machine cipher known as Tunny. This was the cipher used by Adolf Hitler himself and his top commanders to communicate with one another. Those who worked to break this cipher at Bletchley Park were prohibited from discussing it until the mid-1980s. The author is one of few living individuals with firsthand knowledge of the Tunny cipher. He was one of the young intelligence officers tasked with the project of breaking Adolph Hitler's personal encryption, an eyewittness to history, and arguably a history-maker himself. This is his memoir of the experience.
About the Author: Dr. Ian Mayo-Smith is an Emeritus Professor of the University of Connecticut, and former Director of the Institute of Public Service International. Before joining the University in 1973 his career took him to many parts of the world. He served in the Intelligence Corps in the British army from 1943 to 1946, in the Testery at Bletchley Park. After graduating from Cambridge University with a degree in French, Russian and Serbo-Croat, he worked as an Intelligence Corps member with the British Military Mission to Greece from 1948 to 1952. This was followed by a year and a half of dreary work in the War Office. Then he took advantage of a transfer to the former Colonial Service and worked in the Government of the Northern Region of Nigeria. He stayed on after Nigerian Independence and, after leaving the Civil Service, returned as a Ford Foundation "advisor." For his work in Nigeria he was awarded the M.B.E. by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth. He returned to Cambridge, and later took another Ford Foundation assignment, this time in Kenya. There, he met and married Krishna Sondhi. A Kenyan of Punjabi origin, Sondhi was the highest ranking woman in the Kenya Civil Service, of whom he was somewhat in awe. (He still is.) In Kenya he was recruited by the University of Connecticut and moved to the U.S.A. and eventually became a citizen. For two years he took an assignment with the United Nations in Arusha, Tanzania. He retired from the University of Connecticut in 1988, becoming an Emeritus Professor. Harvard University then recruited him for a two year term in Brunei as resident representative of the Harvard Institute for International Development, engaged in the reform of the Brunei civil service. Consulting work, mostly at the International Training Center of the I.L.O. in Turin, continued until the author's 70th birthday. Since then he has tried to live the life of the idle rich, the only snag being that he is not rich and he is not very good at staying idle. However for several months each year he does manage to get closer to this ideal, as he and his wife, Krishna, spend the winter months in Thailand. He and his wife Krishna have become a part of the Thai family they stay with. Aged 88, he still finds life worth living and has plenty to do. He is turning out books at the rate of about one a year. And he still remembers those wonderful years when he was a part of an extraordinary team of gifted men and women at Bletchley Park.