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LONDON — Almost 100 of Britain's top computer scientists have called for action to be taken to save Bletchley Park, the code-breaking centre that played a crucial role decrypting German messages during the Second World War.
The scientists say Bletchley, a country house 40 kilometres north of London, is falling into disrepair and will decay further unless it received much needed investment. They want it properly funded and turned into a National Museum of Computing.
"As a nation, we cannot allow this crucial and unique piece of British and world heritage to be neglected in this way," the 97 experts and top university computer academics said in a letter to the Times newspaper.
"The future of the site, buildings, resources and equipment at Bletchley Park must be preserved for future generations by providing long-term financial backing."
Former Bombe operator Jean Valentine holds up a drum of Britain's Turing Bombe machine in the Bletchley Park Museum. The Bombe – the brainchild of mathematical geniuses Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman – helped Bletchley Park's cryptographers decode more than 3000 enemy messages a day after breaking the cyphers created by Germany's Enigma machine during the Second World War. (Alessia Pierdomenico/Reuters files)
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The cryptographers who worked at the site, once the most secret place in Britain, are credited with helping to shorten the Second World War by up to two years and to save countless lives by deciphering around 3,000 German military messages a day.
Most famously, a team working under the brilliant mathematician Alan Turing cracked the Nazi's Enigma code, which the Germans regarded as unbreakable.
Scientists at Bletchley also designed and developed Colossus, a truck-sized machine that was one of the world's first programmable electronic computers.
After the war, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the destruction of both the Colossus computers and 200 Bombe machines, used to crack the Enigma code, to keep them secret from the Soviet Union.
Bletchley's existence came to light only in the 1970s when the veil of secrecy was lifted and its role in the war revealed.
In their letter, the scientists said that many of the huts where the cryptographers worked are now in a terrible state of disrepair.
Although the site is open visitors as a museum, it is run by a trust and receives no external funding.
"Is it too much to ask that Bletchley Park be provided with the same financial stability as some of out other great museums such as the Imperial War Museum, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum?" the letter asked.
