LETTERS
Educating Turin
I was pleased to see that you included with Joel Greenberg’s recent article about Alan Turing ( Alan Turing: The Man, The Enigma, October) a photograph of the 16-year-old Alan Turing taken in 1928 while at Sherborne School. But I was sorry that no mention was made of his time at the school.
The years Turing spent at Sherborne School (1926–31) played an important part in his later development. We can trace Turing’s interest in cryptography directly back to his school years. In 1928, Turing borrowed a copy of Rouse Ball’s Mathematical Recreations and Essays from the school library. The book includes a chapter on the art of constructing cryptographs and ciphers, stating: “Their usefulness on certain occasions, especially in time of war, is obvious, while it may be a matter of great importance to those from whom the key is concealed to discover it.”
Turing also studied German while at Sherborne, although his German master’s comments on his school report, “He does not seem to have an aptitude for language”, suggests that he wasn’t a natural linguist. However, there is an interesting twist to this story. During the Second World War, the
The shock of abolition
Matt Elton writes eloquently on the shocking normality of the slave trade ( News, September). However, I believe what was really shocking about slavery was its abolition. Slavery had been an accepted institution in human societies for millennia – the ancient Greeks and Romans had it, the contemporary Ottomans and Persians had it, as did virtually every civilised nation in western Europe and the states of northern Africa (who supplied the raw material to European slave traders).
Given that historical and contemporary context, I can understand why we indulged in slavery and the trade. Slavery was an accepted and legally sanctioned institution in the colonies (although not in England, as proved by the court case Somerset v Stewart in 1772). It took very British notions of fairness, justice and same German master worked in military intelligence and would have seen many of the Ultra messages decoded by the Turing machine, although neither would have known that the German master was reading the messages decoded by his former pupil.
When Turing left Sherborne, his housemaster wrote to him saying: “I will guarantee that Turing will be a household word until the present generation has disappeared.” Rachel Hassall, school archivist, Sherborne School, Dorset decency to work out, with no external pressure, that the trade was cruel, immoral and wrong.
Banning the trade in 1807, followed by abolition of the institution itself in 1833, were actions that we took of our own account. Yes, we should never have instituted slavery in the empire in the first place, but I am immensely proud of the role that we played in stopping it (bearing in mind, particularly, that it took a four-year civil war to do so in the United States). We should also never forget the thousands of British seamen who gave their lives in the early 19th century off west African shores, both to disease and to combat, in order to enforce the ban on the trade. Nick Ridout, Lincolnshire
The relief of Hiroshima
I have just read your article on Hiroshima ( Should America Have Dropped the Bomb?, August). My father fought in the Indian army in Burma and told us many stories of what they had to endure. For these soldiers fighting in jungle terrain in a monsoon and having to endure foot-rot and having no access to medical care – unable to light fires for fear of detection and in some instances unable to smoke or even talk – Hiroshima couldn’t come soon enough.
He was fortunate to miss the battle of Imphal as he had been recalled to India for a few days but had several friends killed in that most ferocious battle around a tennis court. The Indian army then started pushing the Japanese back down Burma and they had to repeat all the horror of the retreat campaign again, but this time with the upper hand.
Although we all regret the civilian deaths at Hiroshima and again at Nagasaki, for those Allied troops who were on the ground it came as a massive relief that there would be no more loss of life there. We can argue as much as we like over the point but we weren’t the ones facing death every day. Hiroshima was horrific but what price would our troops have had to pay without it? Louise Kelly, Johannesburg
Spitfire solution?
I have now discovered the following information regarding the Spitfire depicted on page 19 of your August issue ( Letters). Squadron code DV B was on a mark 1X Spitfire which joined 129 (Mysore) squadron on 14 August 1943 and was destroyed on the ground in a raid on RAF Hornchurch when with 504 squadron on 23 February 1944. 129 squadron moved from Tangmere to Ibsley, Hampshire on 13 March 1943, to Hornchurch on 28 June 1943 and to Peterhead on 17 January 1944. It is likely therefore that your picture was taken at RAF Hornchurch between 14 August 1943 and 17 January 1944. Derek Tilson, aircrew volunteer, 1943, Norwich