Like Turing, Welchman was a Cambridge mathematician when he was recruited to join the British codebreaking effort before the outbreak of war. Welchman made an important improvement to Turing’s 1939 Bombe design. The Turing-Welchman Bombe was an electromechanical device that aimed to discover the daily settings of the Enigma machines used by German military forces for its coded communications. The Register reports that, “Welchman adapted Turing’s Bombe designs to create the workable machine for decrypting German military messages through a device known as the ‘diagonal board’. He also established and headed Hut Six, which decrypted more than one million German messages over the course of the war.”

His wartime colleagues described Welchman as inventive and inspiring. One colleague reportedly said he was, “one of the most original minds I have ever known.”

A statement from Bletchley Park announcing the exhibit’s opening says, “After the war ended Welchman continued to be a major influence on the modern world, emigrating to America where he brought the computer age to air traffic control, developed digital computers and taught one of the first ever computing courses. His work prefigured cloud computing.”

The Register reports “In 1982, Welchman – in his book, The Hut Six Story – published more details of the traffic analysis the Bletchley-based codebreakers had committed. The details…led to…GCHQ describing him as ‘a disastrous example to others’, and Greenberg suggested the agency was particularly sensitive to the revelations of its traffic analysis programme.”

Welchman died 30 years ago at age 79. His granddaughter Jennifer attended the exhibition’s opening in late September. She said, “I’m thrilled to see my grandfather’s work recognized here at Bletchley Park, the scene of his proudest achievements.”

The new book, Prof: Alan Turing Decoded, is written by Sir Dermot Turing, nephew of the British Mathematician. CODEBREAKER features an interview with Dermot Turing. His book will be released this fall. You can pre-order copies here in the US and here in the UK.

In one letter, Turing wrote, “I have had a dream indicating rather clearly that I am on the way to being hetero, though I don’t accept it with much enthusiasm either awake or in the dreams.”

This is one of the letters from Alan Turing to his friend.

He also wrote to Furbank: “Mother has been staying here, and we seem to be getting on a good deal better. I have been subjecting her to a good deal of sexual enlightenment and she seems to have stood up to it very well. There was a rather absurd dream I had the other night in which I asked mother’s opinion about going to bed with some men and she said, ‘Oh very well, but don’t go walking about the place naked like you did before.’”

He also wrote about a planned vacation in Greece (a trip mentioned in CODEBREAKER): “I expect to lie in the sun, talk French and modern Greek, and make love, though the sex and nationality… has yet to be decided: in fact it is quite possible that this item will be altogether omitted. I want a permanent relationship and I might feel inclined to reject anything which of its nature could not be permanent.”

Dermot Turing told The Guardian, “At the same time that he was having his psychotherapy, and… his hormones taken out… [the correspondence] indicates that he was in a good deal of a turmoil, which… has historically been what everyone had assumed, but now is confirmed.”

Here are links to the subtitled versions of CODEBREAKER: German, Spanish, and French.

You can buy the original English language version using the following links: United States, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.

Another option is to buy the DVD. It’s in English with subtitles available in German, French, and Spanish. The DVD can be shipped anywhere in the world.

In January of 2015, Executive Producer Patrick Sammon wrote a post about the film for The Bilerco Project. Sammon wrote, “The film’s drama scenes and documentary elements combine to offer a three-dimensional picture of Alan Turing, his accomplishments, his tragic end, and his lasting legacy. Read more.

Sammon also wrote a post for Campus Pride in late January of 2015.

The Movie Network offered a positive review of CODEBREAKER in January of 2015.

In December of 2014, CODEBREAKER Executive Producer Patrick Sammon wrote a post about the film for MoviePilot.com.

INSIGHT Into Diversity highlighted CODEBREAKER in its July/August 2014 issue. The magazine focuses on diversity issues in US higher education. This article explains how the film is being used as a diversity education tool at colleges and universities.

In December of 2014, Patrick Sammon discussed Alan Turing and CODEBREAKER with The Analogies Project.

In September of 2014, Sammon appeared on a cable TV program in Westchester County, New York. Patrick spent 30 minutes discussing the film with host Alice Bloom.

Plans still are being finalized to make the film available on iTunes for the rest of the world. CODEBREAKER will be available on other digital platforms in the months ahead.

British Justice Minister Chris Grayling requested the pardon from Queen Elizabeth II. He said: “Dr Alan Turing was an exceptional man with a brilliant mind…His later life was overshadowed by his conviction for homosexual activity, a sentence we would now consider unjust and discriminatory and which has now been repealed. Dr Turing deserves to be remembered and recognised for his fantastic contribution to the war effort and his legacy to science. A pardon from the Queen is a fitting tribute to an exceptional man.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron said, “His action saved countless lives. He also left a remarkable national legacy through his substantial scientific achievements, often being referred to as the ‘father of modern computing.’”

Liberal Democrat peer Lord Sharkey, the man who introduced the Turing pardon bill in the House of Lords, said: “This has demonstrated wisdom and compassion. It has recognised a very great British hero and made some amends for the cruelty and injustice with which Turing was treated. It’s a wonderful thing, but we are not quite finished yet. I will continue to campaign for all those convicted as Turing was, simply for being gay, to have their convictions disregarded. That will be a proper and fitting and final end to the Turing story.”

Openly gay Conservative Member of Parliament Iain Stewart told the Associated Press: “He helped preserve our liberty. We owed it to him in recognition of what he did for the country — and indeed the free world — that his name should be cleared.”

Actor Stephen Fry tweeted, “At bloody last. Next step a banknote if there’s any justice!”

S. Barry Cooper, a University of Leeds mathematician who has written about Turing’s work, told the AP that future generations would struggle to understand how Turing was persecuted. “You take one of your greatest scientists, and you invade his body with hormones. It was a national failure,” said Cooper.

Turing biographer Dr Andrew Hodges told The Guardian: “Alan Turing suffered appalling treatment 60 years ago and there has been a very well-intended and deeply felt campaign to remedy it in some way. Unfortunately, I cannot feel that such a ‘pardon’ embodies any good legal principle. If anything, it suggests that a sufficiently valuable individual should be above the law which applies to everyone else. It’s far more important that in the 30 years since I brought the story to public attention, LGBT rights movements have succeeded with a complete change in the law – for all. So, for me, this symbolic action adds nothing. A more substantial action would be the release of files on Turing’s secret work for GCHQ in the cold war. Loss of security clearance, state distrust and surveillance may have been crucial factors in the two years leading up to his death in 1954.”

Turing biographer David Leavitt told the AP: “It could be argued and it has been argued that he shortened the war, and that possibly without him the Allies might not have won the war. That’s highly speculative, but I don’t think his contribution can be underestimated. It was immense.”

Patrick Sammon, the Executive Producer and Creator of CODEBREAKER said, “The pardon of Alan Turing is an important gesture, but of course nothing can be done to change the injustice that he suffered. It should never be forgotten. And it’s important to remember that tens of thousands of other men in the UK were arrested for the same ‘crime.’ Many men, like Turing, had their lives destroyed.”

British human rights activist Peter Tatchell told the AP that all the men who were arrested for the same “crime” as Turing should also be pardoned. “Everyone should be equal under the law. It’s wrong to give famous privileged pardons.”

Tatchell told BBC: “I pay tribute to the government for ensuring Alan Turing has a royal pardon at last but I do think it’s very wrong that other men convicted of exactly the same offence are not even being given an apology, let alone a royal pardon. We’re talking about at least 50,000 other men who were convicted of the same offence, of so-called gross indecency, which is simply a sexual act between men with consent.”

Dr Sue Black, a computer scientist, who was part of the campaign to gain a pardon for Turing, told BBC that she hoped all men convicted under the same law would now be pardoned. “This is one small step on the way to making some real positive change happen to all the people that were convicted. It’s a disgrace that so many people were treated so disrespectfully.”

Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, the president and vice chancellor of the University of Manchester, where Turing worked the last years of his life told The Telegraph: “He was a hugely significant figure in the world of mathematics and the development of the modern computer at the University of Manchester. His legacy will live on as one of the most significant scientists of his or any other generation.”

Iain Standen, the chief executive of the Bletchley Park Trust, called Turing, “a visionary mathematician and genius whose work contributed enormously both to the outcome of the war and the computer age. The pardon gives further recognition for his outstanding contribution not only to second world war codebreaking but also the development of computing.”

British home computing pioneer Sir Clive Sinclair told BBC, “I just think it’s ridiculous, frankly. He’s been dead these many years so what’s the point? It’s a silly nonsense. He was such a fine, great man, and what was done was appalling of course. It makes no sense to me, because what’s done is done.”

Turing Award winner and internet pioneer Vint Cerf told BBC that he welcomed the development. “The royal pardon for Alan Turing rights a long-standing wrong and properly honours a man whose imagination and intellect made him legendary in our field.”

“His later life was overshadowed by his conviction for homosexual activity, a sentence we would now consider unjust and discriminatory and which has now been repealed,” Grayling said. “A pardon from the Queen is a fitting tribute to an exceptional man.”

The Queen used the little known Royal Prerogative of Mercy to make the pardon. It has been only used three times since 1945. The effort to get a pardon for Turing gained momentum late last year when 37,000 people in the United Kingdom signed an online petition asking for the pardon. After initial resistance in parliament, a bill to grant the pardon had been moving toward passage. It was expected to get final approval in The House of Lords in two months.

Turing’s pardon is gaining media attention from around the world. Here are links to some of the news coverage:

• Washington Post
• New York Times
• The Guardian
• BBC
• India Today
• The Independent
• NBC News
• CNN
• The Telegraph
• SkyNews
• BuzzFeed
• FrontiersLA

People in the United Kingdom can buy the DVD here!

More than two million people across the globe have seen the film so far. “I appreciate the enthusiastic response that people have given CODEBREAKER,” says Executive Producer Patrick Sammon. “We’re excited to be offering this DVD to people around the world.”

Vada, a magazine and website in the United Kingdom, featured a glowing review of CODEBREAKER in October of 2013. Entertainment writer Rakshita Patel described the film as, “a powerful, moving and truthful account of Turing’s life, his work and his achievements.” She continued, “CODEBREAKER is a film that is rich in depth and detail…A remarkable film about a remarkable man. Highly recommended.”

Here’s more from the Daily Mail. “In the House of Lords yesterday, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, a whip, said the Government would not stand in the way of a Bill brought by Liberal Democrat peer Lord Sharkey, which offers him a full parliamentary pardon.

“He said: ‘The Government know that Turing was a hero and a very great man. They acknowledge that he was cruelly treated. They must have seen the esteem in which he is held.

“‘The Government therefore is very aware of the cause to pardon Turing given his outstanding achievement and therefore has great sympathy with the objective of the Bill.’ If there were no amendments, the bill could be passed in the House of Commons as early as October, he said.” Read more.

Here’s more from The Guardian.

And this article from Huffington Post.

In the decades after the war, Bletchley Park fell into disrepair. Eventually, the facility was preserved and certain areas of it restored. However, much restoration work remains because parts of the codebreaking center are dilapidated. A £7.4 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, along with private and corporate support is funding the restoration project. The BBC reports that renovation work will begin very soon.

The project is due to be completed by June of 2014, in time for the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings. “If Bletchley could do it on time then I’ve got to do it on time,” says project manager Steve Prowse. “Some of the Bletchley atmosphere rubs off. If they were able to do this sort of work in these sort of conditions, then there’s no excuse why we can’t make it work.” Read more.