CODEBREAKERS REUNITED
8 decades on, Bletchley Park heroes who cracked Enigma
THEIR work may have been top secret – but yesterday more than 80 Bletchley Park code-breakers gathered to tell the public about the pivotal role they played in the Second World War.
Marking the 80th anniversary of the start of the conflict, former staff gathered outside the historic site in Buckinghamshire where the German Enigma machine code was cracked.
Some 10,000 employees – threequarters of them women – worked at the stately mansion at the height of the war. It was chosen as the main intelligence site as cities were more likely to be bombed. Some of the world’s most gifted minds were employed there – including computer scientist Alan Turing – and their work was highlighted in the film The Imitation Game starring Keira Knightley.
Betty Webb, who attended the reunion, was involved in registering the signals – made up of figures and letters – that arrived.
The 96-year-old, who joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service in 1941, said: ‘People often ask me why I joined up and the answer to that is that the whole country was involved and I felt the need to do something to help the war effort.’ Yesterday marked the day in 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Miss Webb said she never had any idea she would play such a crucial role in the conflict.
Arthur Maddocks, 97, worked as a wheel setter from 1944 to 1945. He said messages were coming through signed off by senior German figures, including Adolf Hitler. ‘So you knew it was of the highest importance,’ he said. The work the pair and others did helped shorten the war by two years.
The Bletchley veterans were accompanied at the reunion by their families and were treated to a flypast by a Lancaster bomber.