Bletchley Park's World War Two codebreakers in their own words

The work of the Bletchley Park codebreakers is credited with shortening the Second World War by two years. But for three decades, those who worked on decrypting Nazi communications could tell no one what they had done.

Such was the secrecy in which the codebreakers operated many did not even realise the true importance of their work until Bletchley's wartime activities were made public in 1974.

In October this year the surviving veterans from the 12,000 people who took part in Bletchley's codebreaking effort were finally recognised for their role in the Allied victory with a medal award ceremony at Bletchley Park.

The codebreaking veterans gather outside the Bletchley Park manor house to show off their medals
(Photo: Nick Heath/silicon.com)

At the event, silicon.com spoke to men and women who worked on the Colossus codebreaking machine and helped crack the Nazi military's codes.

Today the youngest veterans from Bletchley Park are in their 80s but they can still recall the smallest details of their jobs, right down to the intense heat given off by the Colossus.

Receiving their medals in the hall where 60 years earlier they had played table tennis during their break times, the veterans' expressions were a mix of smiles and solemn pride.

Despite the importance of their task, the veterans are not po-faced about their time at Bletchley, and their faces crease into grins as they recall the camaraderie of what many remember as being "an adventure".

Naval recruit Doreen Osborne, like many of her fellow Royal Navy Wrens helping with the codebreaking, was just 17 when she was posted to Bletchley at the beginning of the war in 1939.

Up to two-thirds of the staff at Bletchley Park were young women and Osborne was one of up to 400 other Wrens at Woburn Abbey, home to the Duke of Bedford, but her accommodation was less grand than might be expected.

Continued on page two