Code-Breakers: Bletchley Park's Lost Heroes

[caption at start of programme:
comment made in his book "A Mathematician's Apology", 1940]

G H Hardy:
Real mathematics has no effect on war.

[voiceover introduction:
showing a photograph of Bill Tutte]

Narrator:
This is a British mathematician called Bill Tutte. You won't have heard of him, but in 1942 he pulled off what many believe was the greatest intellectual feat of World War Two. It shortened the war and saved millions of lives. He died in 2002 without ever being officially recognised for his achievement.

[showing a photograph of Tommy Flowers]

Narrator:
This is a former GPO engineer called Tommy Flowers. In 1944, he turned Tutte's mathematical ideas into the world's first computer. He died in 1998. Chances are, you won't have heard of him, either. Backed by the brightest talents of Bletchley Park, they allowed Britain to break a top secret machine employed by Hitler to dictate the course of the war.

[showing a photograph of a coding machine]

Narrator:
This machine was *not* Enigma. It was something far more secret and significant. And you *definitely* won't have heard of that. This is the story of a secret war and how two men changed the world - and then disappeared from history.