Ralph Tester
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Ralph Paterson Tester (2 June 1902 – 1 May 1998) was an administrator at Bletchley Park, the British codebreaking station during World War II.[1] He founded and supervised a section named the Testery for breaking Tunny (a Fish cipher).
The Lorenz cipher machine had twelve wheels, and was thus most advanced, complex, faster and far more secure than the three-wheeled Enigma. Lorenz was used to encipher top-secret messages between German Army H.Q. in Berlin, and the top generals and field-marshals on all fronts, including Adolf Hitler himself.
Career
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.[2] He held a senior position in the accountancy division of Unilever.[3]: 250 On the outbreak of war, he worked for the BBC Monitoring Service which listened in to German public radio broadcasts.[4]