Harry Hinsley Sir Francis Harry Hinsley OBE ( 26 November 1918 – 16 February 1998 ) was an English historian and cryptanalyst . He worked at Bletchley Park during the Second World War and wrote widely on the history of international relations and British Intelligence during the Second World War . He was known as Harry Hinsley . Early life . Hinsley was the son of a miner . His mother Emma Hinsley ( née Adey ) was a school caretaker , and they lived in Birchills , then in the parish of Bloxwich , Walsall . Harry was educated at Queen Mary ' s Grammar School , Walsall , and in 1937 won a scholarship to study history at St . John ' s College , Cambridge . In October 1939 , while still studying at St . John ' s , he was summoned to an interview with Alastair Denniston , head of the Government Code and Cypher School ( GC & CS ) , and was thereby recruited to Bletchley Park ' s naval section in Hut 4 . Bletchley Park . At Bletchley Park , Hinsley studied the external characteristics of intercepted German messages , a process sometimes termed " traffic analysis " : from call signs , frequencies , times of interception and so forth , he was able to deduce a great deal of information about the structure of the German Navy ' s communication networks , and even about the structure of the German Navy itself . Hinsley helped initiate a programme of seizing Enigma machine s and keys from German weather ships , such as the " Lauenburg " , thereby facilitating Bletchley Park ' s resumption of interrupted breaking of German Naval Enigma . In late 1943 , Hinsley was sent to liaise with the U . S . Navy in Washington , with the result that an agreement was reached in January 1944 to cooperate in exchanging results on Japanese Naval signals Towards the end of the war , Hinsley , by then a key aide to Bletchley Park chief Edward Travis , was part of a committee which argued for a post - war intelligence agency that would combine both signals intelligence and human intelligence in a single organisation . In the event , the opposite occurred , with GC & CS becoming GCHQ . On 6 April 1946 , Hinsley married Hilary Brett - Smith who had also worked at Bletchley Park , in Hut 8 . Hinsley was awarded the OBE in 1946 , and was knighted in 1985 . Sir Harry Hinsley was cremated , and his family buried the ashes privately in Cambridge . Career as a historian . After the war , Hinsley returned to St John ' s College and lectured in history , being in 1969 appointed " Professor of the History of International Relations " . From 1979 to 1989 he was Master of St John ' s College and from 1981 to 1983 he was vice - chancellor of the University of Cambridge . Hinsley edited the multi - volume official history " British Intelligence in the Second World War " , and argued that Enigma decryption had speeded Allied victory by 1 – 4 years while not fundamentally altering the war ' s outcome . He was criticised by Marian Rejewski and Gordon Welchman , who took exception to inaccuracies in Hinsley ' s accounts of the history of Enigma decryption in the early volumes of his official history , including crucial errors in chronology . Subsequently a revised account of the Polish , French and British contribution was included in volume 3 , part 2 . The volumes of " British Intelligence in the Second World War " edited by Hinsley and published by Her Majesty ' s Stationery Office ( HMSO ) London are : Hinsley also co - edited ( with Alan Stripp ) and contributed to " Codebreakers : The Inside Story of Bletchley Park " ( 1993 ) , which contains personal accounts from those who worked at Bletchley Park . The Hinsley Memorial Lecture , an annual lecture on an international relations topic , is held every year at St John ' s College , Cambridge , in memory of Harry Hinsley .