In 1939, on this day the whistleblowing codebreaker John Tolkien launched his glittering second career in modest style by taking an instructional course at the London Headquarters of the Government Code and Cypher School.

Master Codebreaker 1
by Ed & Jackie SpeelEarmarked as a codebreaker, he was asked in January whether he would be prepared to serve in the cryptographic department of the Foreign Office in the event of national emergency. He replied in the affirmative and, after completing the course, was informed in October that his services would be required full time. A £500-a-year offer was duly made, and he was asked to report for duty at Bletchley Park.

He began to work on the decryption of Ultra alongside a number of über smart Oxbridge fellows, most notably Alan Turing. A gregarious type from an older generation, he soon became a dominent influence on these younger geniuses. But the problem was that Tolkien was so much more than a master linguist, because between the wars he had developed a stark one-dimensional system of thinking when it came to really big picture morality issues. He was in fact no less than a historic figure of Churchillian stature, but with a moral compass.

Of course the idealistic staff at Bletchley Park really believed that their work could save lives by dramatically shortening the War. By then Tolkien had started to realise that Stalin was a far greater danger than Hitler. His apocalyptic vision imagined a far worse conflict after the current war was over. And he began to wonder whether the British guarantee of Polish Sovereignty could actually be honoured. These pipe-smoking reflections might not have mattered a great deal but fate intervened when Tolkien de-crypted a German transmission reporting the gruesome discovery at the Katyn Forest. Inevitably, he turned to Turing and together they made a momentous decision that changed the future: "Publish and be damned".