My War at Bletchley Park

My War at Bletchley Park

One day in May 1941 I was standing on Euston Station with a one way ticket to Bletchley in my hand. I had hoped that my interview at the Foreign Office would lead to a position somewhere exotic, but instead was told to get a certain train on a certain day, and get off at the eighth stop (there were no place names on the platforms in Wartime). There I and several others were met and taken in a station-wagon up the road to Bletchley Park. The great main gates were shut and guarded; we went in a side entrance to the big house. There we signed the Official Secrets Act and were given Passes, and waited to be taken to our billets. My first billet was in a farmhouse at Milton Keynes, which was a tiny village with just a Church, a Farm and a duck pond. Various types of Transport toured the countryside several times a day fetching and carrying the workers. I was in the German Naval Section, Hut 8 I think.

U-Boat messages in five-letter code were picked up around the country and passed to Bletchley Park where the Brains — a wonderful group of young men and women — worked frantically day and night in an effort to crack the codes. When they achieved success a cheer went up, and work started on the pile of waiting messages. They were decoded, then sent to the linguists in Hut 8 who translated and classified them. I was one of a dozen or so girls in a large room full of teleprinters and typewriters, and we worked at top speed transmitting the messages to Admiralty — who then alerted Allied Merchant Shipping to the whereabouts of packs of hunting U-Boats, and set the Naval Shipping on their trail. We followed these chases with great excitement. Some of the messages were homely, announcing the birth of a child to a crew member, or the award of an Iron Cross. Most were informing the Commander of the position of Allied Shipping.

We worked in three watches : 8am to 4pm; 4pm to midnight, and midnight to 8am, with one day off a week. It was a cheerful place, and we soon made friends. On our days off we careered about the countryside on our bicycles, or went by train to Bedford or to London. Eventually I managed to move to a billet in Bletchley and was no longer dependent on Transport. Many of the billets were in Railway cottages, with no bathroom, but there was a splendid tiled bathroom in the House, and we could book in for the luxury of a hot bath.

By the latter part of the War there were about 12,000 working at Bletchley Park. We did not know who many of them were or what they did till the veil was lifted many years later, and fascinating stories emerged. Keeping quiet about our work came naturally — we knew lives depended on it. The local people showed a remarkable lack of curiosity, some believing it was some kind of Asylum!

After a time, there was a shortage of civilians as they were all called up, and when we needed extra workers in our Room, some of the WRNS came to join us. They were quartered at Woburn Abbey, and sometimes we went to visit them in their grand surroundings. There were several American Air Bases in the area, and we were invited to parties — to which we went attracted by the food, make-up and silk stockings, and the GIs — in that order.

Many of the people working at Bletchley Park were, or later became, eminent and well-known. There was a lot of talent; Plays and Concerts were written and performed. There were weekly Hops, and sometimes more formal Dances. We had tennis courts, and plenty of room for cricket and rounders.

I spent four years at Bletchley — at an age when I and thousands of others would, in normal times, have been training and starting on a career — but I look back on it as a unique experience.

Fortunately, after quite a battle with some who wanted to sell the land for development, the Park has taken on a new lease of life, with Exhibitions of all kinds — nostalgic for those who worked there, educational for later generations. Friends who were in other Services have been intrigued to discover at last what and where the mysterious “Station X” really was (it was X because it was the tenth Station). When I was there I never heard of or saw the famous Enigma Machine!

Dorothy Edwards
(Wartime Teleprincess)

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