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Watch Station X online: Episode 1 The Keys to the Reich

This told the early beginnings of code breaking at Bletchley Park, from when the Mansion was purchased in 1938, leading to the gathering of crossword addicts, mathematicians and a large cross section of men and women of various ages who were to intercept and later decode the morse code messages which were originated by the network of Enigma machines. Intercepts of German messages were received by numerous Y stations throughout the world and the newly formed Station X (call sign) of the installation at BP. The programme gave an insight into how the Enigma machine, by a use of rotor wheels and a 26 letter plug-board, could produce a 150 million, million, million combinations. It was discovered that the mapping of the keyboard to the entry rotor was in the sequence ABCD and that the German's use of double indicator encryption, lead to the first stage of code breaking using the 'Jeffries Sheets' to determine the starting positions for the rotor wheels. Old film sequences were interspersed with interviews of people who worked at the Park together with explanations from Tony Sale (of the BP Trust) and enacted scenes at BP today, to make for an intriguing reconstruction of events...

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