Tolkien: Intelligence chiefs singled him and a 'cadre' of other intellectuals to work at Bletchley Park, the codebreaking centre in Buckinghamshire.
Posted on 09/19/2009 2:10:47 PM PDT by NYer
Tolkien, one of his generation's most respected linguists, was ''earmarked'' to crack Nazi codes in the event that Germany declared war.
Intelligence chiefs singled him and a 'cadre' of other intellectuals to work at Bletchley Park, the codebreaking centre in Buckinghamshire.
Its staff - which included Alan Turing, the gay codebreaker - would later decipher the 'impenetrable' Enigma machines.
This saved Britain from German conquest by allowing the Navy to intercept and destroy Hitler's U-Boats.
According to previously unseen records, Tolkien trained with the top-secret Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS).
He spent three days at their London HQ in March 1939 - six months before the outbreak of the Second World War and just 18 months after the publication of his first book, The Hobbit.
But although he was ''keen'', Tolkien - a professor of English literature at Oxford University - declined a £500-a-year offer to become a full-time recruit.
The reasons behind his decision are not known.
But he went on to write the Lord of the Rings trilogy, one of the most popular and influential works in 20th-Century literature.
Tolkien's involvement with the war effort was revealed for the first time this week in a new exhibition at GCHQ, the new name for GCCS, the Government's spy base in Cheltenham, Glos.
The display includes a number of previously unseen exhibits relating to Bletchley Park's war preparations.
A GCHQ historian, who would not give his name for security reasons, said: ''JRR Tolkien is known the world over for his novels, but his involvement with the war effort may take a few people by surprise.
''While he didn't sign up as was probably intended, he did complete three days' training and was 'keen' to do more.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Yes, the Nazis were big on Old Norse. Don’t code-crackers have to be good at math?
PING!
I read that one of the recruiting methods used was to find people who could solve one of those difficult English cryptic puzzles and interview them for work at Bletchley.
His sexuality had to do what with his work? The newsrag couldn't help itself to add this.
His sexuality had to do what with his work? The newsrag couldn't help itself to add this.
Ironic that he turned out to be a cunning linguist...
As an academic, Tolkien was primarily a linguist, with a good working knowledge of Old English, Old High German, Old Norse, and the rest of it. In those days, there was also considerable interest in the relations among the various Indo-European languages and the ways that they changed over time. So it was a kind of science.
I imagine Tolkien turned it down because he thought he was not needed and that he had better things to do, such as endlessly working on the Silmarilion and its various component stories.
The man was a genius.
Besides, Tolkein had been to Bree too many times and was known at the Prancing Pony. He used to summer in Frogmorton.
There was a concern in early ‘36 that Saruman had infiltrated into the shire and also had paid informants among the Bucklanders. (This proved false after the fall of the third Reich, although several extended members of the Cotton family that worked at the Green Dragon with Rosie ended up disappearing behind the Iron Curtain in the post war era.)
And?
I believe Turing was eventual expelled from intelliegence work because of his blackmailability.
Don’t code-crackers have to be good at math?Cryptanalysis, prior to the 30's, was largely linguistic. Through WWII, there was still a significant linguistic component.
JRR Tolkien was also a veteran of WWI and saw action in France.
As I recall what really helped the Brits break the Enigma code is that the Polish intelligence stole an Enigma machine from the Germans and gave it to the Brits. The Brits then reverse engineered it. Supposedly the British commanders then received German orders before the German commanders did.
Turing was a mathematician and computer scientist. He headed the code-breaking team at Bentchley Park in WWII. He used mathematical analysis to break the German codes. Tolkien was wise to refuse the job. He was not a mathematician, and had a somewhat negative opinion of science in general. At any rate Tolkien would have been totally useless in building a machine of electric circuits to break the German codes.
From what I have read the Pole in question was some sort of engineer who assembled Enigma machines for the Germans. He managed to get himself over to the Brits and pretty much assembled a working design from memory. The Brits needed a working Enigma device to confirm the info and got it in 1940 when one of Rommels signal units got ahead of the advance and the Brits snagged them. It supposedly was the basis for the 1942 propaganda movie “The Foreman Went To France”. From that point on the decodes in some cases were ahead of the info reaching the German operational units.
Likely, he cared little for war having lost all of his close friends in WW1.
At any rate Tolkien would have been totally useless in building a machine of electric circuits to break the German codes.
The Axis used a great many codes and ciphers, besides the Enigma and Lorenz. Admittedly, Tolkien's background would have been little help with those two, but he could have been a great deal of help with the others.
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