WWII History

[ombugge]

It is not Maritime, but I found this quite interesting.

Being a Bletchley Park codebreaker was the best time of my life say 101-year old Betty Webb:

Betty Webb was employed as a codebreaker at the country manor outside Milton Keynes in 1944 Credit: Andrew Crowley.

‘Listening to the horrors of the Blitz down the wireless, I was desperate to play my part in the war effort’: Betty Webb in 1944 Credit: Jay Williams/Bletchley Park

Of course I had no idea what Bletchley was, but I arrived like hundreds of other women, with just a suitcase.
Previously it had been an English stately home and I was taken to the main building, which I called the mansion, and given the Official Secrets Act to read by an Army captain with a handgun on his desk.
It was a formidable document which said I could not discuss my work with anyone outside my department for 30 years and any indiscretions were punishable. Needless to say, this was a jolt and I wondered what I’d be doing.

So when the Germans conceded in May 1945 I was sent to the Pentagon in Virginia to help their effort against the Japanese.
I felt so honoured to be chosen – especially as I was the only member of the ATS to be posted there, and as a humble staff sergeant at that. With its oppressive hundred degree heat, high humidity and cockroaches in my room, Washington was quite a shock after Bletchley.

The main effort though was ending the war, and I still remember hearing the news about the atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Everyone went crazy and steaks seemed to appear in restaurants as if by magic. It was only later that the horror of the radiation and deaths sunk in. Then the war ended, and I was sent back to Bletchley to be decommissioned. I remember feeling a little lost, but I was also relieved to go back to Shropshire.

Webb’s MBE which she received in 2015 for her time at Bletchley Park Credit: Andrew Crowley.

Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/christmas/2024/11/18/my-secret-life-as-a-bletchley-park-codebreaker/?