Re: Bletchley Park commander not the 'baddy' he is in 'The Imitation Game' (fwd)

I never had the privilege of meeting Commander Denniston, but I was well 
acquainted with two people who worked closely with him.  They were 
united in praising him highly as an administrator and as a person.

Ronald Wyllys
NSAer during 1952-1959


On 11/27/2014 04:44 AM, Martin Postranecky wrote:
> y
> Letters to The Telegraph
> ========================
> Thursday 27 November 2014
>
>
> The man who recruited Bletchley’s codebreakers
> ----------------------------------------------
>
> SIR – While the much-acclaimed film The Imitation Game rightly
> acknowledges Alan Turing’s vital role in the war effort, it is sad that it
> does so by taking a side-swipe at Commander Alastair Denniston, portraying
> him as a mere hindrance to Turing’s work.
>
> We, his descendants, prefer to remember his extraordinary achievements in
> the First and Second World War, as well as his unstinting devotion to
> Britain’s security for more than 30 years. Cdr Denniston was one of the
> founding fathers of Bletchley Park. On his final visit to Poland in the
> summer of 1939, he was briefed by Polish mathematicians on the electrical
> equipment they had developed to break the German cipher machine, Enigma.
> The Enigma machine that Denniston took back to Bletchley ultimately
> allowed Britain to read the German High Command’s coded instructions. Such
> was the secrecy surrounding his work that his retirement in 1945, and
> death in 1961, passed virtually unnoticed, and he remains the only former
> head of GC&CS ( the precursor to the intelligence agency GCHQ ) never to
> have been awarded a knighthood.
>
> It was he who recruited Turing and many other leading mathematicians and
> linguists to Bletchley, where he fostered an environment that enabled
> these brilliant but unmanageable individuals to break the Enigma codes.
> The GCHQ of today owes much to the foundation he created there.
>
> Nick Denniston
> Dr Susanna Everitt
> Libby Buchanan
> Judith Finch
> Simon Finch
> Alison Finch
> Hilary Greenman
> Candida Connolly
> Clifton-upon-Teme, Worcestershire
>
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/11256138/Letters-State-schools-suffer-because-the-most-demanding-parents-go-independent.html
>
> ---------
>
> 26 Nov 2014
>
> Bletchley Park commander not the 'baddy' he is in 'The Imitation Game',
> family say
>
>
> Cdr Alastair Denniston was not a 'hectoring character’ and the Alan Turing
> film starring Benedict Cumberbatch is a sideswipe at his memory, his
> grandchildren say
>
> The grandchildren of a Bletchley Park commander depicted in the film The
> Imitation Game have spoken of their dismay as they claim he was portrayed
> as a “baddy” on screen.
>
> The family of Cdr Alastair Denniston claims the film takes an “unwarranted
> sideswipe” at his memory, showing him to be a “hectoring character” who
> hinders the work of Alan Turing, the codebreaker and computer science
> pioneer played by Benedict Cumberbatch.
>
> In real life, relatives say, he was a “humble” man devoted to his work,
> and they want his true contribution to the war effort to be recognised.
>
> Denniston, who died in 1961, was a cryptologist during the First World
> War. He continued in the Government Code and Cypher School — the
> forerunner of GCHQ — afterwards and moved his team to Bletchley Park at
> the outbreak of the Second World War.
>
> There, he was responsible for hiring the mathematicians who went on to
> crack the Enigma code, including Turing.
>
>
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/11256888/Bletchley-Park-commander-not-the-baddy-he-is-in-The-Imitation-Game-family-say.html
>
> http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03119/PX11371353wa_bletc_3119528b.jpg
>
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/11256295/Secret-histories-of-Bletchley-Park.html
>
>
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/11229240/The-Imitation-Game-who-were-the-real-Bletchley-Park-codebreakers.html
>