Top honour for Bletchley Park heroine at 98
Scottish codebreaker’s accolade
SHE worked as a codebreaker at the heart of Bletchley Park, helping to decipher secret Nazi messages ahead of the D-Day landings in Normandy.
Now, at the age of 98, Scots pensioner Helene Aldwinckle has been awarded France’s highest honour for her wartime role in helping to liberate the country.
Mrs Aldwinckle was presented with the insignia of Knight of the Légion d’honneur during a ceremony at the French Embassy in London this month.
At the age of 21, she was recruited from Aberdeen University by senior codebreaker Stuart MilnerBarry to work at the secret base in Buckinghamshire.
When she travelled south to take up her post at Bletchley Park in 1944, it was only the third time Mrs Aldwinckle had left Scotland.
She joined experts in Hut Six, the department tasked with deciphering Nazi radio messages encrypted by the infamous Enigma code machines.
Her success in the role led to her being asked after a year there to run a school for aspiring US codebreakers – helping to cement the British-American intelligencesharing agreement that endures to this day.
After the war, Mrs Aldwinckle stayed on at Bletchley Park for a time to help write the official account of the work of Hut Six. This history was only made publicly available at the National Archives in 2006.
Presenting her with her accolade, Nicolas Wuest-Famose, first secretary at the French Embassy, said: ‘The Légion d’honneur expresses righteousness, honour, heroism and excellence.’
Jonathan Byrne, Bletchley Park’s oral history officer, said: ‘It was a real privilege to see Helene receive the Légion d’honneur. I had the pleasure of interviewing her a few years ago and her story has been of great value in understanding not just the work of Bletchley Park but also the beginnings of the enduring intelligence relationship between the UK and the USA.’
At her final Prime Minister’s Questions this week, Theresa May paid tribute to Mrs Aldwinckle, saying: ‘Can I thank Helene for her work at Bletchley Park, and all those at Bletchley Park, unsung for some considerable time.’