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After stepping in last year to help save Alan Turing’s papers, Google is once again supporting Bletchley Park, this time with fundraising. Realising the importance that the park has played in bringing the war to an end and in the development of computers, Google has pledged to help the Park in its efforts to restore the park. The search giant will now help Bletchley raise funds in order to rebuild Block C. During the war, this was the building used to house the vast punched card index, which Google has referred to as the “‘search engine’ at the heart of Bletchley Park’s decryption activity”. Bletchley Park cracked German codes during the war, helping the Allies work out what the Nazi’s were up to – valuable intelligence that could have been responsible for shortening the war by up to two years. In the process, the geniuses that worked there were responsible for creating Colossus, the world’s first electronic programmable computer. You can read about this innovation in our Top 10 technical innovations of World War 2 and in our Brief history of the computer.
Google kick-started its fundraising with a garden party that raised £10,000. However, a lot more is needed if Block C is to be turned from a derelict into a visitor and learning centre for Bletchley Park and the National Museum of Computing. If you’re interested in helping, pay a visit to the Park or donate online
