Look what showed up at the Bletchly Park mansion's library. Book two in the LaCost series. Imagine that.
What's even harder to imagine is the incredible job done by the codebrakers and support staff who cracked the German codes in World War 2. At it's height Bletchley Park employed 9000 people, making it the biggest covert intelligence agency on the planet.
The Germans had built an enigma machine that could be configured for any particular message in 150 million, million, million ways. To break such an unbreakable code at first seemed impossible. Alan Turing, (a personal hero of yours truly), was instrumental in inventing what is considered to be the first computer, without which the job quite surely would not have gotten done.
It is estimated that Turing's work shortened the war by two years, saving 14 million lives. That bears repeating—14 MILLION LIVES.
After the war Turing was prosecuted for being gay. He became so distraught that he was driven to suicide, dying on June 7th, 1954. This is so tragic that it defies comment.
We really need to be clear on who our real heros are. This man deserved so much better.