10 Things You Need To Know About "The Imitation Game"

Intriguing film, yes. Entirely true and accurate representation? That's a big fat no. Sue Black and Stevyn Colgan, Bletchley Park experts and authors of Saving Bletchley Park, bust the myths about Turing and Enigma. Complete with Benedict Cumberbatch gifs.

1. Myth: The machine that Turing built was called Christopher.

Fact: It was actually called the Bombe machine.

2. Myth: The Bombe machine was built by Turing.

Fact: Turing produced the design for the Bombe, building on the design of the original Polish Bomba which had been produced by Marian Rejewski in 1938.

3. Myth: There was only one Bombe machine.

Fact: The Imitation Game showed Turing working on one machine. In reality there were hundreds of Bombe machines across the UK and also in the US.

4. Myth: The mansion house in the film is at Bletchley Park

Fact: The mansion house in the film is Joyce Grove in Oxfordshire.

5. Myth: A tiny team of codebreakers did the main work at Bletchley Park.

Fact: Bletchley Park is a huge place and more than 10,000 people worked there. There were many teams of codebreakers working on different areas.

6. Myth: Enigma alone shortened the war by two years.

Fact: It wasn't just Turing and Enigma who shortened the war – it was the entire secret codebreaking operation at Bletchley Park.

7. Myth: Most of the people that worked at Bletchley Park were men.

Fact: The Imitation Game gives the impression that most of the staff were men but at its peak the majority of the 10,000 staff at Bletchley Park were women.

8. Myth: Turing committed suicide.

Fact: Although a verdict of suicide was issued, there is no direct proof that Turing took his own life. There was no suicide note and Turing had cyanide at his home and was known to be clumsy about handling dangerous substances. Oh, and the story that the Apple logo is based upon the part eaten apple that contained the cyanide is completely untrue.

9. Myth: Turing was suspected of being a spy.

Fact: This is entirely fictional. Turing's biographer Andrew Hodges says that it was 'ludicrous' that two people working on separate projects at Bletchley would have ever met. The staff at Bletchley Park tended to work in isolated teams and didn't discuss their work.

10. Myth: Enigma was broken by Turing.

Fact: Initially, a group of Polish mathematicians cracked it. The Germans subsequently changed their working practices but the Polish had given the Allies all the skills they needed. Dillwyn 'Dilly' Knox, Mavis Batey and their team made the first breakthroughs. Turing's brilliance was in finding a way to automate decryption so that many more messages could be decoded per day.