Peter Calvocoressi, codebreaker and historian, dies at 97
Peter Calvocoressi, who died on February 5 aged 97, had a distinguished and varied career as a wartime codebreaker, historian, publisher and author; he published books about the Second World War and world politics since 1945, as well as studies of Africa, the Middle East, Britain and Europe.
As head of air intelligence at Station X — the top secret headquarters at Bletchley Park of the codebreakers who cracked Germany’s Enigma cipher during the Second World War — Calvocoressi played a critical role in the operation to intercept high-level German orders. This intelligence, known as Ultra, and provided by his team of mathematicians, linguists and other experts, not only helped win the Battle of Britain but also furnished details of Hitler’s proposed invasion in Operation Sea Lion, eventually abandoned as too risky....
His account of his wartime work at Bletchley Park, Top Secret Ultra, appeared in 1980. In it Calvocoressi emphasised the decisive role played by Ultra in intercepting communications: “Ultra took the blindfold off our eyes so that we could see the enemy in detail in a way in which he could not see us.”...
Peter John Ambrose Calvocoressi was born on November 17 1912 in Karachi, then part of British India, now Pakistan, into one of the great Greek mercantile families which could trace its roots back to Byzantium and which had flourished in a much intermarried enclave in late 19th-century London. Of these families, the most prosperous and successful were the Rallis, of whose bank his father was a director.
Moving to England at the age of three months, Peter was brought up at Holme Hey, a substantial house on the fringe of Sefton Park, Liverpool, and was dismayed to be called a “greasy Greek” at prep school in Kent. Largely on the strength of his Latin translation of Abide With Me, he won a scholarship to Eton (where he discarded God and identified himself as a political radical) and in 1934 took a first in History at Balliol. His parents wanted him to try for the Foreign Office but he was warned off by Anthony Eden, who said that with a name like Calvocoressi he would never get anywhere in the service — even if he succeeded in entering it....
After standing unsuccessfully as a Liberal candidate in the 1945 general election, Calvocoressi spent five years between 1949 and 1954 with the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House under Arnold Toynbee. He was later offered the post of director-general, but by then he had joined the board of the publishers, Chatto & Windus, which he was unwilling to leave, and where he spent the next 11 years....
He wrote a number of books on history and international affairs, including The British Experience 1945-75 (1978), Independent Africa and the World (1985) and Who’s Who in the Bible (1987). He published his brief autobiography, Threading My Way, in 1994.
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
As head of air intelligence at Station X — the top secret headquarters at Bletchley Park of the codebreakers who cracked Germany’s Enigma cipher during the Second World War — Calvocoressi played a critical role in the operation to intercept high-level German orders. This intelligence, known as Ultra, and provided by his team of mathematicians, linguists and other experts, not only helped win the Battle of Britain but also furnished details of Hitler’s proposed invasion in Operation Sea Lion, eventually abandoned as too risky....
His account of his wartime work at Bletchley Park, Top Secret Ultra, appeared in 1980. In it Calvocoressi emphasised the decisive role played by Ultra in intercepting communications: “Ultra took the blindfold off our eyes so that we could see the enemy in detail in a way in which he could not see us.”...
Peter John Ambrose Calvocoressi was born on November 17 1912 in Karachi, then part of British India, now Pakistan, into one of the great Greek mercantile families which could trace its roots back to Byzantium and which had flourished in a much intermarried enclave in late 19th-century London. Of these families, the most prosperous and successful were the Rallis, of whose bank his father was a director.
Moving to England at the age of three months, Peter was brought up at Holme Hey, a substantial house on the fringe of Sefton Park, Liverpool, and was dismayed to be called a “greasy Greek” at prep school in Kent. Largely on the strength of his Latin translation of Abide With Me, he won a scholarship to Eton (where he discarded God and identified himself as a political radical) and in 1934 took a first in History at Balliol. His parents wanted him to try for the Foreign Office but he was warned off by Anthony Eden, who said that with a name like Calvocoressi he would never get anywhere in the service — even if he succeeded in entering it....
After standing unsuccessfully as a Liberal candidate in the 1945 general election, Calvocoressi spent five years between 1949 and 1954 with the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House under Arnold Toynbee. He was later offered the post of director-general, but by then he had joined the board of the publishers, Chatto & Windus, which he was unwilling to leave, and where he spent the next 11 years....
He wrote a number of books on history and international affairs, including The British Experience 1945-75 (1978), Independent Africa and the World (1985) and Who’s Who in the Bible (1987). He published his brief autobiography, Threading My Way, in 1994.