Wednesday, April 11, 2018

How a Typo Helped End World War II



Geoffrey Tandy was a highly-regarded marine biologist at the Natural History Museum in 1939, and volunteered for the Royal Navy Reserves. The powers-that-be saw Tandy's information and immediately summoned him to Bletchley Park for a secret mission, cracking Axis codes.


Once the mistake was revealed, they couldn't just dismiss Tandy from the secret project, but what could he do? So Tandy remained attached to Bletchley Park, and two years later, became the hero of the secret cryptography department when his exact expertise was needed. Comedian Florence Schechter tells the entire story in a thread at Twitter, with illustrations. Even if you hate reading Twitter threads, this one is well worth the effort, and she has a list of sources at the end in case you want to read more about Tandy and his adventures during the war. (via Mental Floss)

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