University of Waterloo professor featured on stamp for his role in cracking Nazi code

An image of William Tutte is seen on a stamp by Great Britain's Royal Mail. (Courtesy: Royal Mail)

The United Kingdom is honouring a University of Waterloo professor by featuring him on a stamp.

Great Britain’s Royal Mail commemorated the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe day with a new stamp series.

Victory in Europe Day, also known as V.E. Day, is celebrated on May 8 and marks the end of the Second World War.

Dr. William T. Tutte was selected as one of ten people who will appear on the stamps.

Tutte worked at Bletchley Park, a legendary organization of code-breakers in the U.K. who cracked Nazi ciphers. Some of their work was featured in the movie ‘The Imitation Game’ starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

Tutte’s work centred on a code known as TUNNY and the Germans’ Lorenz machine. According to the University of Waterloo, it was used for high level communication between Berlin and field commanders.

He also developed a statistical method to help Bletchley Park decrypt Nazi messages in hours instead of weeks.

After the war, Tutte eventually moved to Canada and worked at the University of Toronto. He was then invited to join a new school, the University of Waterloo.

For most of his life, the public didn’t know the role he played in the Second World War, as he was sworn to secrecy. The fruits of his labour remained a closely guarded secret until the late 1990s when his TUNNY work was declassified.

He died in 2002 at the age of 84.

The stamp will recognize Tutte’s work in the fight against Hitler’s Nazis, featuring him in front of a Lorenz cipher machine.