Computer scientist who built a working replica of the wartime code-cracking Colossus machine which is on display at Bletchley Park
A computer scientist and historian who worked at the Science Museum in London and was a founding member of the Computer Conservation Society, Tony Sale was best known for his remarkable feat in building a replica of the wartime Colossus machine, Britain’s first real computer and the device that played a decisive role in code breaking at Bletchley Park.
The early code breaking that played such a part in winning many of the vital campaigns of the Second World War, ranging from the fight against Rommel in the Western Desert through the Battle of the Atlantic fought against the U-boats to the campaign in northwest Europe in 1944-45, had been done by hand at Bletchley. As the war progressed the mathematician and cryptanalyst Alan Turing became convinced that aspects of this process could be mechanised.
Through a number of evolutionary stages, beginning with a 24-valve machine christened Heath Robinson, the first computer-style machine called Colossus, which was largely the brainchild of the telecommunications engineer Tommy Flowers (obituary November 10, 1998), was built at Dollis Hill, Northwest London, in 1943, and transported to Bletchley. Although Flowers himself described it as a “string and sealing wax affair” the code-cracking Colossus could do in hours what had previously taken weeks. Although Colossus was not what today would be recognised as a computer, its development was a decisive step in the intelligence war, and it arrived just in time to tackle the flood of information interception and collating problems that were to be associated with the Normandy campaign. A 2,400-valve Colossus Mk II, replacing the original 1,500-valve Colossus, was ready in time for D-Day itself.
Eleven such machines were built, but at the end of the war all but two were destroyed on the orders of Churchill, as were all the plans for them. The survivors were removed to GCHQ at Cheltenham where they were thought to have remained in operation until 1958, eventually being dismantled some time between then and 1960. Extraordinary secrecy surrounded the details of Colossus long after they could have had any interest to modern computer scientists or to any potential enemy.
In 1991 Sale was working at the Science Museum in London, restoring some early British computers, when he became convinced that it would be possible to rebuild Colossus. He began the search for information on the machine which amounted only to eight wartime photographs that had been taken of the machine in addition to some fragments of circuit diagrams “which some engineers had kept illegally, as engineers always do”, as Sale later remarked.
Over the next 14 years Sale led a team that re-created the Colossus computer from scratch. At the same time he and colleagues also started a campaign to save Bletchley Park from demolition by property developers. As a result of this great effort, today the Colossus replica may be seen in all its antiquated splendour at the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park.
Anthony Edgar Sale (Tony to friends and colleagues) was born in 1931 and educated at Dulwich College. At the age of 12 he demonstrated his engineering genius by building a robot which he called George out of Meccano. This prototype was to be substantially improved when in 1949 he joined the RAF as a radar specialist at RAF Debden in Essex, and embarked on a new George, using scrap metal from a crashed RAF Wellington bomber. Powered by a pair of motorcycle batteries inside his chest, this new George could walk, turn his head, move his arms and sit down. George attracted official attention and approval at Debden, and was put on display at open days at the RAF base.
After leaving the RAF Sale worked at Marconi Research Laboratories, and later for the Security Service (MI5) where he served for six years as a scientific officer, rising to become the intelligence agency’s principal scientific officer. In the meantime he had become a member of the British Computer Society of which he was subsequently to become its technical director, and in 1988 a Fellow.
For a number of years after leaving the Security Service he established and ran a computer software company before, in 1989, joining the Science Museum, where he became interested in the history of the British computer and as a curator managed the museum’s Computer Restoration Project. From this he came to believe that it would be possible to reconstruct the Colossus computer.
In 1989 he was one of a group that established the Computer Conservation Society. He was also involved in the campaign to save Bletchley Park from property development.
At Bletchley he founded the National Museum of Computing to preserve the nation’s ageing computers and it was there that the re-created wartime Colossus found a home and became the centrepiece on its completion in 2007. Visitors to the museum can also see Sale’s robot George among the other creations on display.
Last November Sale had reactivated the robot after decades of inactivity, replacing the original motorcycle batteries with lithium ones. As Sale said at the time: “I dug him out of the garage where he had been standing for 45 years, I had a fair bit of confidence he would work again and luckily I was right. I put some oil on the bearings and added a couple of new lithium batteries in his legs, switched him on and away he went. It was a lovely moment.”
In 1992 Sale had become secretary of the Bletchley Park Trust of which he was later a trustee. For his Colossus work he was awarded the Comdex IT Personality of the Year in 1997 and in 2000 received the Silver Medal of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts.
Sale is survived by his wife Margaret and by three children.
Tony Sale, computer historian and conservationist, was born on January 30, 1931. He died on August 28, 2011, aged 80
Lt-Col 'Joe’ Cêtre
Комроты, который во время битвы в Арденнах вёл роту в атаку по колено в снегу (прошу учесть поправку на аудиторию -- "снег по колено" тут явление достаточно редкое)
Special forces soldier who in 1980 led the daring SAS assault on the Iranian Embassy that freed hostages
The principal recollection of those watching events unfold at the Iranian Embassy on May 5, 1980, was of the hooded figure on the balcony in Princes Gate, just seconds before the first explosion. That figure was Sergeant John McAleese — John Mac to his comrades— whose task it was to blast the first point of entry for the 22 SAS team dedicated to the rescue of the hostages. The SAS had advance notice of their likely commitment thanks to one of their former members on the staff of Scotland Yard having telephoned Hereford. This gave it time to form a coherent plan.
Although the final rescue was accomplished with breathtaking speed in seven minutes, the five-day long build up had been agonisingly slow. The terrorists’ aim was to give maximum publicity to their minority cause within Iran, which it has to be acknowledged they assembled the means to achieve. By chance, five journalists were in the embassy when the terrorists seized control; after five days, there were more than 200 at the scene with television cameras poised to cover the rescue. The irony was that the worldwide publicity of the almost entirely successful rescue and of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who had authorised the SAS operation, totally obscured the terrorists’ cause.
The task facing the SAS rescue group, operating under the control of the commanding officer 22nd SAS Lieutenant-Colonel (later General Sir) Michael Rose, was to effect the safe release of 20 civilian hostages at minimum risk of the six terrorist gunmen from killing any of them. (One hostage had already been murdered and his body pushed out onto the street as a demonstration of the terrorists’ resolve). The hostages were in two groups on the embassy’s second floor, each group guarded by a gunman, with four more situated at tactical points in the building.
The first entry achieved by McAleese had the required effect of creating shock and surprise — the terrorist leader was talking to the police on the telephone at the time — and thereafter events moved swiftly. The main assault was made into a room that was unexpectedly empty and possibly due to the consequent brief delay this gave time for one hostage to be shot. The remaining 19 were rescued and five of the six gunman shot dead.
The SAS operation, codenamed “Nimrod” was specifically authorised by the Prime Minister and the responsibility for the use of military force was passed from the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to the CO of 22nd SAS. For the first time an SAS operations was shown live, with ITV and the BBC interrupting their schedules to broadcast the raid.
In the perception of the British public, the regiment had taken on an almost mystical nature, rather like MI5 and MI6. It has been reported that, on taking office as Prime Minister, Tony Blair believed the organisation to be around 40,000 strong — the actual figure was close to 1,200, including the two Territorial Army regiments of 21st and 23rd SAS.
The part in the rescue played by McAleese, beyond the firing of the entry charge, received no publicity at the time or has since. Originally from Laurieston, Stirlingshire, he served 16 years years in the SAS and received the Military Medal for gallantry in Northern Ireland in 1988. Subsequently, he served as a bodyguard to three successive British Prime Ministers.
Having left the service, he first ran a pub in Hereford and then went into the security business. He also helped present a BBC programme alongside Dermot O’Leary called SAS: Are You Tough Enough?. Once, when speaking in a documentary programme, he relived the moment he began the embassy rescue operation by saying, “They were on our home soil, like invaders. We knew what our mission was — it was to release the hostages. My only job at this point is to get on to the balcony, place the charge, stand back, blow it, turn around and go back in through the window.”
In 2009 Paul, the elder child from McAleese’s first marriage, joined 2nd Battalion The Rifles with the ambition of moving into the special forces. Having become a sergeant and a trained sniper who had served in Iraq, he was killed on August 20, 2009 in an explosion in Helmand province, Afghanistan. A fellow soldier had been hit by a roadside bomb and Paul McAleese was hit by a second blast as he tried to reach him.
McAleese campaigned tirelessly for better government and public support for British troops in Afghanistan, particularly after his son died. “Top brass have repeatedly told Gordon Brown what they need, but he will not listen,” he said. “The military must be allowed to get on with the job. If not, Brown should sack himself now.”
Grief-stricken by his son’s death, it is thought by his friends that this began the decline in his health that led to his death, seemingly from a heart attack in his sleep, while working for a security company in Thessalonika, Greece.
His marriage to his first wife Kim was dissolved. He is survived by his second wife, a daughter from his first marriage and a son and daughter from his second.
Sergeant John McAleese, MM, soldier of special forces, died on August 26, 2011. He was in his early sixties.
'Бій відлунав. Жовто-сині знамена затріпотіли на станції знов'
