Harry Hinsley
Encyclopedia
Sir Francis Harry Hinsley OBE
(26 November 1918 – 16 February 1998) was an English
historian
and cryptanalyst. He worked at Bletchley Park
during the Second World War
and wrote widely on the history
of international relations
and British Intelligence during the Second World War. He was known as Harry Hinsley.
, Walsall
, and in 1937 won a scholarship to study history at St. John's College
, Cambridge
. In October 1939, while still studying at St. John's, he was summoned to an interview with Alastair Denniston
, head of the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), and was thereby recruited to Bletchley Park's naval section in Hut 4.
": from call signs, frequencies, times of interception and so forth, he was able to deduce a great deal of information about the structure of the German Navy
's communication networks, and even about the structure of the German Navy itself.
Hinsley helped initiate a programme of seizing Enigma machine
s and keys from German weather ship
s, such as the Lauenburg
, thereby facilitating Bletchley Park
's resumption of interrupted breaking of German Naval Enigma.
In late 1943, Hinsley was sent to liaise with the U.S. Navy in Washington
, with the result that an agreement was reached in January 1944 to cooperate in exchanging results on Japanese Naval
signals
Towards the end of the war, Hinsley, by then a key aide to Bletchley Park chief Edward Travis
, was part of a committee which argued for a post-war intelligence agency that would combine both signals intelligence and human intelligence in a single organisation. In the event, the opposite occurred, with GC&CS becoming GCHQ.
On 6 April 1946, Hinsley married Hilary Brett-Smith who had also worked at Bletchley Park, in Hut 8
.
Hinsley was awarded the OBE
in 1946, and was knighted in 1985.
. From 1981 to 1983 he was vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge.
Hinsley edited the multi-volume official history of British Intelligence in the Second World War, and argued that Enigma decryption had speeded Allied victory by 1-4 years while not fundamentally altering the war's outcome.
He was criticised by Marian Rejewski
and Gordon Welchman
, who took exception to inaccuracies in Hinsley's accounts of the history of Enigma decryption in the early volumes of his official history, including crucial errors in chronology. Subsequently a revised account of the Polish
, French
and British contribution was included in volume 3, part 2.
The volumes of British Intelligence in the Second World War edited by Hinsley and published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) London are:
Hinsley also co-edited (with Alan Stripp) and contributed to Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park (1993), which contains personal accounts from those who worked at Bletchley Park.
NB: Volume 5 of British Intelligence in the Second World War: Strategic Deception was written by Michael Howard
(1990, HMSO) ISBN 0 11 630954 7
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(26 November 1918 – 16 February 1998) was an English
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
and cryptanalyst. He worked at Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an estate located in the town of Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire, England, which currently houses the National Museum of Computing...
during the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and wrote widely on the history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
of international relations
International relations
International relations is the study of relationships between countries, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations , international nongovernmental organizations , non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations...
and British Intelligence during the Second World War. He was known as Harry Hinsley.
Early life
Hinsley was the son of a miner and was educated at Queen Mary's Grammar SchoolQueen Mary's Grammar School
Queen Mary's Grammar School is a selective grammar school located in Sutton Road, Walsall, England, about a mile from the town centre.-Admissions:...
, Walsall
Walsall
Walsall is a large industrial town in the West Midlands of England. It is located northwest of Birmingham and east of Wolverhampton. Historically a part of Staffordshire, Walsall is a component area of the West Midlands conurbation and part of the Black Country.Walsall is the administrative...
, and in 1937 won a scholarship to study history at St. John's College
St John's College, Cambridge
St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's alumni include nine Nobel Prize winners, six Prime Ministers, three archbishops, at least two princes, and three Saints....
, Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
. In October 1939, while still studying at St. John's, he was summoned to an interview with Alastair Denniston
Alastair Denniston
Commander Alexander Guthrie Denniston CMG CBE RNVR was a British codebreaker in Room 40 and first head of the Government Code and Cypher School and field hockey player...
, head of the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), and was thereby recruited to Bletchley Park's naval section in Hut 4.
Bletchley Park
At Bletchley Park, Hinsley studied the external characteristics of intercepted German messages, a process sometimes termed "traffic analysisTraffic analysis
Traffic analysis is the process of intercepting and examining messages in order to deduce information from patterns in communication. It can be performed even when the messages are encrypted and cannot be decrypted. In general, the greater the number of messages observed, or even intercepted and...
": from call signs, frequencies, times of interception and so forth, he was able to deduce a great deal of information about the structure of the German Navy
Kriegsmarine
The Kriegsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Nazi regime . It superseded the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I and the post-war Reichsmarine. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany.The Kriegsmarine grew rapidly...
's communication networks, and even about the structure of the German Navy itself.
Hinsley helped initiate a programme of seizing Enigma machine
Enigma machine
An Enigma machine is any of a family of related electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines used for the encryption and decryption of secret messages. Enigma was invented by German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War I...
s and keys from German weather ship
Weather ship
A weather ship was a ship stationed in the ocean as a platform for surface and upper air meteorological observations for use in weather forecasting. They were primarily located in the north Atlantic and north Pacific oceans, reporting via radio...
s, such as the Lauenburg
German weather ship Lauenburg
The Lauenburg was a German weather ship used in the early years of the Second World War to provide weather reports for German shipping, particularly German U-boats...
, thereby facilitating Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an estate located in the town of Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire, England, which currently houses the National Museum of Computing...
's resumption of interrupted breaking of German Naval Enigma.
In late 1943, Hinsley was sent to liaise with the U.S. Navy in Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, with the result that an agreement was reached in January 1944 to cooperate in exchanging results on Japanese Naval
Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...
signals
Towards the end of the war, Hinsley, by then a key aide to Bletchley Park chief Edward Travis
Edward Travis
Sir Edward Wilfred Harry Travis KCMG CBE was a British cryptographer and intelligence officer, becoming the operational head of Bletchley Park during World War II, and later the head of GCHQ.-Career:...
, was part of a committee which argued for a post-war intelligence agency that would combine both signals intelligence and human intelligence in a single organisation. In the event, the opposite occurred, with GC&CS becoming GCHQ.
On 6 April 1946, Hinsley married Hilary Brett-Smith who had also worked at Bletchley Park, in Hut 8
Hut 8
Hut 8 was a section at Bletchley Park tasked with solving German naval Enigma messages. The section was led initially by Alan Turing...
.
Hinsley was awarded the OBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
in 1946, and was knighted in 1985.
Career as a historian
After the war, Hinsley returned to St John's College and lectured in history, being in 1969 appointed Professor of the History of International RelationsInternational relations
International relations is the study of relationships between countries, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations , international nongovernmental organizations , non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations...
. From 1981 to 1983 he was vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge.
Hinsley edited the multi-volume official history of British Intelligence in the Second World War, and argued that Enigma decryption had speeded Allied victory by 1-4 years while not fundamentally altering the war's outcome.
He was criticised by Marian Rejewski
Marian Rejewski
Marian Adam Rejewski was a Polish mathematician and cryptologist who in 1932 solved the plugboard-equipped Enigma machine, the main cipher device used by Germany...
and Gordon Welchman
Gordon Welchman
Gordon Welchman was a British-American mathematician, university professor, World War II codebreaker at Bletchley Park, and author.-Education and early career:...
, who took exception to inaccuracies in Hinsley's accounts of the history of Enigma decryption in the early volumes of his official history, including crucial errors in chronology. Subsequently a revised account of the Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and British contribution was included in volume 3, part 2.
The volumes of British Intelligence in the Second World War edited by Hinsley and published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) London are:
- Volume 1: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations, F. H. Hinsley with E. E. Thomas, C. F. G. Ransome and R. C. Knight, (1979, HMSO) ISBN 0 11 630933 4
- Volume 2: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations, F. H. Hinsley with E. E. Thomas, C. F. G. Ransome and R. C. Knight, (1981, HMSO) ISBN 0 11 630934 2
- Volume 3, Part 1: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations, F. H. Hinsley with E. E. Thomas, C. F. G. Ransome and R. C. Knight, (1984, HMSO) ISBN 0 11 630935 0
- Volume 3, Part 2: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations, F. H. Hinsley with E. E. Thomas, C. A. G. Simkins, and C. F. G. Ransom, (1988, HMSO) ISBN 0 11 630940 7
- Includes Bibliography (pages 961-974), and The Polish, French and British Contributions to the Breaking of the Enigma; a Revised Account (Appendix 30, pages 945-959).
- Volume 4: Security and Counter-Intelligence, F. H. Hinsley and C. A. G. Simkins, (1990, HMSO) ISBN 0 11 630952 0
- Abridged Version, F. H. Hinsley, (1993, HMSO) ISBN 0 11 630956 3 (& 1993, Cambridge University Press) ISBN 0 521 44304 0
Hinsley also co-edited (with Alan Stripp) and contributed to Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park (1993), which contains personal accounts from those who worked at Bletchley Park.
NB: Volume 5 of British Intelligence in the Second World War: Strategic Deception was written by Michael Howard
Michael Howard (historian)
Sir Michael Eliot Howard, OM, CH, CBE, MC, FBA is a British military historian, formerly Chichele Professor of the History of War and Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford University, and Robert A...
(1990, HMSO) ISBN 0 11 630954 7