It’s time for justice, or at least an apology

There are some in this world that would deny the suffering of some groups during World War II. There are even some who believe that the Nazi regime is something still to aspire to. However, the majority of us, in the civilized world, know that if we were to be judged as a race World War II would be a significant low point, in fact one to be ashamed of.

That being so, the conflict against the nazis did allow some people to rise to the challenge, one such person was Alan Turing. I can already hear the majority of you saying, "who?".

Alan Turing was a cryptographer, he broke codes and he was damn good at it. He worked with a team of other code breakers at Bletchley Park, which is now a museum dedicated to the work that was done there. No one knew the work that was going on there and in fact for many years after the war, it was still classed as an official secret. So for some time it was not known that Alan and his team had broken the German Enigma code and that with the help of a post office engineer, Tommy Flowers had invented the first modern day computer, Colossus.

Because of the hard and inspirational work done at Bletchley Park the allies were able to listen into the Nazi communications. It is believed, because of this advantage, that the war was shortened by at least two years saving many thousands, possibly millions of lives on both sides.

The stuff of a Hollywood movie you would think, and yes in 2001 a film was made with Dougray Scott playing a Turing like character. There is one thing that this film and history like to conveniently forget, Alan Turing was gay.

As a gay man under a nazi leadership, Turing would have probably been locked up in a concentration camp and would have faced almost certain death. Something to fight against you would think, until you find out what the British did to him. After the war he was prosecuted for being gay, chemically castrated as a ‘cure' and at 41 took his own life.

It is time for an apology. A new petition has now been launched on the Number 10 website and has already attracted thousands of signatures. I would commend you to add your signature to this and give the credit to, in the words of Professor Dawkins "...this gentle, stammering, eccentric genius that was destroyed, for a 'crime', committed in private, which harmed nobody". Sign the petioin here.