One of the last surviving wartime codebreakers has died aged 93.
Captain Raymond "Jerry" Roberts, who died yesterday following a short illness, was part of a team at Bletchley Park, in Buckinghamshire, which helped to crack the German Tunny system used by Hitler, Mussolini and other high ranking generals during the Second World War, a Bletchley Park spokeswoman said.
Capt Roberts joined Bletchley Park at a cryptographer and linguist in 1941 and was one of four founder members of the Testery, an elite unit named after the man leading it, Ralph Tester, which cracked the Tunny code making it possible to read Hitler's messages during the war.
The team managed to reverse engineer the Tunny, which had 12 encryption wheels to the Enigma machine's three, described by Bletchley Park as "an incredible feat of dedication".
The spokeswoman said: "Jerry came to Bletchley Park straight from university but they were all in unchartered territory. It was new ground for everybody."
The intelligence gathered at Bletchley Park is credited with providing strategic information that was passing between the top level commanders and is believed to have shortened the war by two years and helped to save millions of lives.
The spokeswoman said: "In the last six years of his life he campaigned absolutely tirelessly for awareness and the achievements made at Bletchley Park.
"During the war, people in one room did not know what people were doing in the next room, never mind another department. It's still a jigsaw puzzle even now."
Describing Capt Roberts as "lovely" and "absolutely charming", she said: "He was passionate about what he and his colleagues achieved.
"He did not want to blow his own trumpet but to have the work of his colleagues recognised."
Capt Roberts worked at Bletchley Park until 1945 before moving to the War Crimes Investigation Unit followed by a 50-year career in marketing and research.
ends
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article