Ralph Tester

Ralph P. [Jack Good, Donald Michie, and Geoffrey Timms, "General Report on Tunny With Emphasis on Statistical Methods", 14(A), [http://www.alanturing.net/turing_archive/archive/t/t02/TR02-001.html p. 28] , PRO HW 25/4 and HW 25/5] Tester was an administrator at Bletchley Park, the British codebreaking station during World War II. He founded and supervised a section named the "Testery", whose task was to solve a high-grade German teleprinter cipher codenamed "Tunny".

Before World War II, Tester was an accountant who had worked extensively in Germany and as a result was very familiar with the German language and culture.Paul Gannon, "Colossus: Bletchley Park's Greatest Secret", 2006, p. 168, Atlantic Books, ISBN 1-84354-330-3] He held a senior position in the accountancy division of Unilever.Jerry Roberts, "Major Tester's Section", p. 250 from pp. 249-259 in B. Jack Copeland, ed., "Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park's Codebreaking Computers", Oxford University Press, 2006]

On the outbreak of war, he worked for the BBC Monitoring Service which listened in to German public radio broadcasts. [Michael Smith, "Station X", first ed. 1998, revised 2004, p. 152] He was later recruited to Bletchley Park, and during early 1942 was the head of a small group working on a double Playfair cipher used by German military police.Roberts, "Major Tester's Section", p. 250] This group formed the kernel of the "Testery", formed in July 1942. Initially staffed by a handful of codebreakers, by May 1945 the Testery employed 118 people. Tester held the British Army ranks of Captain, then Major, [Gannon, "Colossus", 2006, p. 342] and later, Colonel. [Donald Mitchie, "Codebreaking and Colossus", p. 232 from pp. 223-246 in B. Jack Copeland, ed., "Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park's Codebreaking Computers", Oxford University Press, 2006]

A former Testery codebreaker, Jerry Roberts, recalls that, "The imperturbable, pipe-smoking Tester spoke fluent German, but did not pretend to be a codebreaker. The atmosphere in his unit was always positive and friendly, and the personnel were well selected — Tester seemed to find the right niche for everybody. Thanks to Tester's influence the work of the Testery was very well organised."

Towards the end of the European war, Tester was part of a TICOM team, a mission sent to Germany to discover information about their communications technology, including Tunny machines. [Smith, "Station X", p. 203-204] After the war, Tester returned to Unilever. [Roberts, "Major Tester's Section", p. 252]

References

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