Jerry Roberts - Lorenz: Breaking Hitler’s Top Secret Code at Bletchley Park

LORENZ

First published in 2017

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2017

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Jerry Roberts, 2017

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Captain Jerry Roberts MBE was a true gentleman and to the last days of his long life an outstanding ambassador for Bletchley Park. In World War Two he was a key member of the team who deciphered the most secret communications that changed the outcome of the war. Unfailingly modest about his own achievements, he was committed to the end to achieving recognition for the work of his colleagues and the contribution of all those who worked at Bletchley Park. He will be greatly missed. Our thoughts are with his devoted wife Mei.

Sir John Scarlett KCMG OBE, chairman of the Bletchley Park Trust, responding to the news of Jerrys death.

Jerry remained, into his high 80s and early 90s, a terrific speaker who could hold large audiences spellbound. His intelligence, humour and generosity endeared him instantly to all who knew him, whether slightly or well. He leaves his family, many friends and countless admirers worldwide.

Professor Susanne Kord, University College London (UCL).

Today Bletchleys fortunes have dramatically improved thanks, in no small measure, to Jerrys work on so many fronts. And so it was hardly surprising that Jerry, at the end of his life, was honoured several times for his historic achievements. Almost at the end, he wryly remarked to me; Funny thing Charles sixty years later I still find myself trying to break car number plates!

Jerry, we all owe you a great debt, and we miss your smile and your hat!

Lord Charles Brocket, a friend of Jerry and Bletchley Park, TV presenter and journalist, talking at Jerrys memorial service at St Martin-in-the-Fields in London.

Jerry was an extraordinary man and he made a real impression upon me I felt his presence and spirit every day that I worked on the Codebreakers film. In fact, his honesty, attitude and belief in Bletchley and his need to tell those stories all combined to give that programme a moral core and sense of purpose and decency which made for something very special. As such it couldnt have existed without him and I hope it serves as one of many tributes to him.

Julian Carey, BBC film director and producer of the 2011 BBC Timewatch programme on the Lorenz story, Codebreakers: Bletchley Parks Lost Heroes.

We all owe an immense debt of gratitude to you and your colleagues who worked tirelessly throughout the war to decode information vital to the Allied efforts. Your work helped not just to save lives, but to bring this dark period in our history to a swifter conclusion than could have been achieved without your efforts.

David Cameron (British prime minister, 201016), in a letter to Jerry Roberts on 21 November 2012.

To my fellow codebreakers and colleagues in the Testery team at Bletchley Park, who broke every Lorenz code by hand until the end of the Second World War.

To Bill Tutte, in particular, who broke Hitlers Lorenz cipher system in 1942 without ever having seen this complex machine, which was vastly more secret and significant than Enigma.

To Tommy Flowers, who designed and built a machine called Colossus for speeding up the Lorenz codebreaking this was the worlds first ever electronic computer in 1944. We all owe a huge debt to his work for inventing the modern computer.

To all those men and women who worked at Bletchley Park where ciphers and codes were decrypted. Sadly, most of them are no longer with us and they have never received the recognition they deserved for their extraordinary achievements.

Finally, to my dear wife Mei, for her dedicated support of twenty-five years, without whom this book would not have been written.

They were often signed with the two initials A.H. Adolf Hitler and we received them for much of the war.

Jerry Roberts deciphered Hitlers most secret messages and there were many others, too, between his top generals, all encrypted on the specially designed Lorenz machine. The information ended up not just in the German High Command where it was intended but on the desk of Winston Churchill too. Jerry yearned to reveal how, but as a codebreaker and a German linguist at Bletchley Park, he was sworn to secrecy for years. Then, as the story of the Enigma machine became much better known, this separate tale of the cipher nicknamed Tunny by the British often became confused in the public mind and merged into one.

It was a staggering achievement, as statistically impossible as it was unimaginable. Whilst this brainpower was later boosted by machines (specifically Colossus), much of it still was done by hand. Jerry wanted future generations to understand how key linguists, codebeakers, engineers, mathematicians and more worked together in a feat of reverse-engineering. The team at Bletchley cracked Lorenz without ever seeing the twelve-wheeled device.

Jerry worried that this risked being forgotten or misunderstood. He wanted to name the names of the key people involved, and to describe in detail how the information they mined was passed not just to Churchill but to the Allied commanders planning for D-Day and to the Russians too.

I met him many times with my mum, who was a Wren working at Bletchley Park. This is the account of one of those few men in life who wants all the others to get the credit. We promised him to help get this story told, and its as humbling as it is an honour to write these few lines of introduction.

Paddy OConnell, presenter BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 2, 2017

My husband Jerry Roberts died on 25 March 2014, aged 93, shortly after completing this memoir. BBC News and almost every major newspaper from The Times to The New York Times, national and international, featured a formal obituary.

During the final six years of his life, Jerry dedicated an enormous amount of time and effort to raising public awareness of Bletchley Parks major achievements on the Lorenz cipher, and the extraordinarily important work carried out by his team at Bletchley Park, much of which is still largely unknown to the public. He travelled extensively, giving public talks and working tirelessly for better recognition of his colleagues. Jerry was awarded an MBE in 2013, but he hoped that one day his whole team would be recognised for their contribution.

He was calm, humorous and a great character, with generosity and determination an outstanding Englishman. I sorely miss his amazing and unique stories. I have such a vivid memory of Jerry talking with Her Majesty the Queen in July 2011 at Bletchley Park, recounting his experiences of breaking the Lorenz code. I heard him tell the Queen what it was like to read messages signed, Adolf Hitler, Fhrer, before they were even received by the German High Command in the field. Who else has stories like that?