D-Day hero’s secret: I knew war was over 48hrs before anyone
FOR more than 50 years D-Day veteran Bernard Morgan spoke to no- one about the secret message he received on May 6, 1945.
While the rest of the world waited for the Nazis to surrender, the codebreaker took a telex message two days before the official end of the Second World War which simply said: ‘The German war is now over.’
For decades, even his close friends and family had no idea he knew 48 hours in advance.
But Mr Morgan, 95, an ex-RAF sergeant, kept hold of the original message and now shares it with younger generations during school talks to highlight the 75th anniversary of VE Day. He volunteered for the Forces on his 18th birthday, becoming a codebreaker and landing on Gold Beach in Normandy on D-Day.
Mr Morgan, a former clerk from Crewe, Cheshire, was working for the RAF in northern Germany when the historic message was delivered to the cipher office.
‘I was stationed in Schneverdingen when I got the telex to let me know that the war was ending and that the German surrender was imminent,’ he said. ‘I received it from ground control and the message read, “The German war is now over.”
‘ I had to sign the Official Secrets Act as part of my training, so I never told anyone about it. For two days I kept quiet about the information. When VE Day came two days later there was a big celebration. There was lots of alcohol and a big bonfire.
‘Once I arrived back in Britain, I told nobody what I had been doing. The Official Secrets Act forbade me to speak about my time in the war, so I couldn’t tell anybody for 50 years.’
Telex was an international system used for sending written messages via a linked network of teleprinting machines.
Mr Morgan, a widower, has no plans to give up his collector’s item. ‘I offered a copy of the telex to the Imperial War Museum in London,’ he said. ‘They wanted the original, but I’m not giving them it. I want it for my family to keep.’