Recruitment at GC&CS: 1919–1945

Abstract

During the interwar period the British armed forces were scaled back and military spending was cut to the extent that when calls for rearmament were made in the 1930s the beleaguered armaments industry was not capable of adequately responding.¹ Britain’s newly formed cryptanalytic unit was not spared these cuts. The Admiralty’s cryptanalysis department, Room 40, ended the First World War with a staff of around a hundred individuals, while the War Office’s military cryptanalysis section comprised some 85 individuals at the armistice.² The newly formed GC&CS was formed with a staff contingent of 53 individuals, less than 30% of the wartime staff numbers.³ In the late 1930s, as the international situation changed, it became increasingly important for the agency to rebuild its ranks of specialist cryptanalysts and linguists and reverse the rot of post-war retrenchment. This chapter explores GC&CS’s efforts to recruit staff at all levels of the agency.