Code-Breakers Are Us!

Having a great belly-laugh over the book "Secret Days: Code-breaking in Bletchley Park", about top-secret intelligence work in Britain during World War II.

And the bit I find so hilarious is an account of a huge fight among the bigwigs at Bletchley Park about who make the best problem-solvers, Physicists or Historians.  The physicist and novelist C.P. Snow was adamant that every Historian he'd ever come across was a far better problem solver and recogniser of complex patterns than any Physicist, so, to test this theory, they brought a herd of Historians into the British Intelligence Service headquarters and gave them sets of complex problems to solve.

Guess who won?

Yup, hands down and without question, Historians were better problem-solvers and pattern-recognisers than Physicists ... so take that, Dr Sheldon Cooper!

And thus they had a great many Historians working on the code-breaking problem during WWII.

And speaking of code-breaking, I actually met one of the Enigma code-breakers. It was over a decade ago in Townsville one ANZAC Day on the afternoon after the ANZAC March when Keith's band was playing at an Irish bar full of veterans.

This was the first year that the ANZACs had instigated the policy of outing the frauds - those men who buy medals to wear on such occasions - so as Keith's band played I was having the best chat with a lot of lovely old veterans about how to spot frauds. They were telling me that the medals a fellow sported should always tell a coherent story and since this was a mind-blowing thought for me - that a person's medals tell a story. Wow! -  I was pointing out different ex-soldiers and getting my sweet veterans to tell me all they could about each of them.  And, yes, they were right: you can indeed tell an ex-soldier's entire war-time history from the honours they wear. And, yes, we spotted four frauds among their number who the other veterans at the bar asked to leave. And yes, violence was threatened.

And that's when an old man came in who was literally covered in medals; practically more than his uniform could handle, and all the vets at the bar practically fell over themselves in the rush to buy him a drink. "Tell me about him." I said, very definitely intrigued.

"Polish Army, British Intelligence." they told me.  "Very important." "Those are the most important honours from every one of the Allied Nations" "Did something seriously big deal and very important.", "Hazarding a guess, I'd say he's most probably one of the Polish fellows who broke the Enigma Code." said one.

Karen was there that afternoon so, because her husband was Polish and she spent a lot of time at the Polish Club, I immediately went to ask her.  "Yes, that's XXXX (I'm sorry but I've forgotten his name.) He's one of the five fellows who broke the Enigma Code." she says and so I'm immediately clambering for an introduction.

But that afternoon we couldn't even get close because he was surrounded and swamped by ex-soldiers and when I told Karen I was after a historical subject for my PhD thesis and I'd love to talk with him sometime, she said she'd arrange a meeting between us at the Townsville Polish Club for the following week ... which we did ... a very pleasant dinner where we talked about Mick Jagger of all people, who, it seems, was in close personal contact with this lovely Polish fellow because he had the most intense interest in Everything Enigma.  Who knew?

However the bad news was that he'd already got a historian getting down his story so I couldn't have him, dammit. And since I've never come across anyone else who I'd like to do a PhD on, I still haven't got around to it.

So, yes, I once met one of the five Polish men who broke the Enigma Code, but not on that ANZAC Day afternoon, because I then went back to snuggling in the corner with my lovely elderly veterans, confirming their guess and learning how to read medals and ousting frauds ... but now my memory has pulled up that entire afternoon, I can tell you that I did meet him that day because later, after many drinks, I taught Enigma-cracker and an elderly Hasidic Rabbi from Israel how to dance an Irish jig and learning how to dance "Hava Nagila" to Irish shanties in return; the most hilarious experience imaginable. Yup, that was a really, really lovely day.

But look at that.  Once again wayyyy off topic.  I was meant to be talking about we HISTORIANS!!!

And I meant to tell you that once, while doing my first Masters, I was asked to take part in a brain functions experiment.  The theory being tested was that Science folks do their problem solving in the left half of the brain (or is it the right?) while Humanities folk do their problem solving in the right half of the brain (or is it the left?).  Naturally I was thrilled to take part, and so I was rigged up to a great many machines for the afternoon and given various problems to solve ...

... and the results of the tests showed that while Science folk do indeed problem solve in one half of their brain, we Humanities sorts use ALL our brains.  Yup, we light up all over the place in both brain hemispheres.

So I guess C.P. Snow really did nail it and we Historians do indeed have what it takes to make meaning out of complex patterns.  So ... yeah ... GO US!!!!