Joan Clarke

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Joan Elisabeth Lowther Murray, b. Clarke MBE (born  June 24, 1917 in West Norwood , a district of London in the district of Lambeth , †  September 4, 1996 in Headington , a current district of Oxford ) was a British cryptanalyst . During the Second World War she was one of the women in Bletchley Park in the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) (German: "Staatliche Code- und Chiffrenschule") in the English Bletchley Park , so in the military service, which is successful dealt with the deciphering of German communications. There she contributed significantly to the breakage of the German rotor key machine Enigma .

Life

The Enigma-M4 key machine, which is used exclusively by the German submarines, has four rollers in contrast to the other models

After leaving school in Dulwich , south London, she studied mathematics at Newnham College of Cambridge University , where she in the Tripos examinations as a Wrangler in sections and 1939 graduate made, according to a bachelor, but was not then awarded in Cambridge to women. She was recruited in June 1940 by Gordon Welchman , who was her tutor in geometry in Cambridge, in the services of the GC&CS in Bletchley Park (BP), 70 km northwest of London . She worked there in Hut 8 (German: Baracke 8) under the direction of Alan Turing and, from October 1941, his deputy Hugh Alexander on the deciphering of radio messages from the German Navy . It was of vital interest to the British to decipher the secret radio traffic specifically to the German submarines operating in the Atlantic , which endangered supplies and thus the British lifeline by sinking allied freighters. For secret communication, the submarines use an improved version of the Enigma, initially the Enigma-M3 (with three rollers) and from February 1, 1942 the Enigma-M4 with four rollers.

Joan Clarke and Alan Turing not only worked together successfully on the deciphering of the German machine, but they were also close friends. In 1941 the friendship even resulted in an engagement, but it only lasted for a short time and remained platonic. She and Turing exchanged engagement rings and introduced each other to their own families. At work, however, the engagement was kept secret. She was soon resolved after Turing confessed his homosexuality to her.

In 1944, Joan Clarke succeeded Hugh Alexander as deputy head of Hut 8 . Even after the war she stayed with the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) , the successor organization to the GC&CS . In 1952 she married her colleague Lieutenant Colonel Jock Murray. Both moved to Scotland and Joan began to be interested in the Scottish baroque coin history and to publish about it. From 1962 until her retirement in 1977 she was back at GCHQ in Cheltenham . After the death of her husband, she moved to Oxford in 1986 and continued studying numismatics . In 1987 she received the Sandford Saltus Medal for her services in this field .

Cinematic reception

British actress Keira Knightley embodies the British-US co-production The Imitation Game from 2014, which is about the life of Alan Turing and his relationship with Joan Clarke . Turing's biographer Andrew Hodges , for whose Turing biography Clarke was an important source, criticized the script because it portrays this relationship more intensely than it actually was (English: “built up the relationship with Joan much more than it actually was”) .

literature

  • Anthony J. Randall: Joan Clarke: the biography of a Bletchley Park enigma: the life of Joah Clarke; her work at Bletchley Park, her lost ten years in Scotland, and a life spent in the shadows. The Cloister House Press, Gloucester, ISBN 978-1-909465-96-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bletchley Park Research: Women Codebreakers . Retrieved January 22, 2015.
  2. ↑ Obituary Mrs. JEL Murray Retrieved March 25, 2015. PDF; 4.5 MB
  3. ↑ Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley's Imitation Game romance labeled inaccurate . Retrieved January 22, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Clarke, Joan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Murray, Joan Elisabeth Lowther (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British code breaker during World War II
DATE OF BIRTH June 24, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH West Norwood , London
DATE OF DEATH 4th September 1996
Place of death Headington , Oxford