This cache is part of an occasional series about Women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).
Many years ago I saw the play Breaking the Code which is about Alan Turing, the English mathematician and computer scientist who, among other things, created the “Turing test” and played a critical role in cracking intercepted coded messages during the second world war. Turing worked at Bletchley Park, an English country house and estate in Bletchley that was the center of Allied code-breaking during WWII, work that shortened the war by two to four years and saved millions of lives.
More recently, I’ve wondered whether the Bletchley Park cryptography team included women. This seemed like the perfect topic for the 28th cache in this series, and appropriate for a Veteran’s Day hide. Indeed, women were about 75% of the Bletchley Park workforce. Here is a bit of information about a few of the women who worked as codebreakers at Bletchley Park (there were many other roles performed at Bletchley Park that are not highlighted here).
Mavis Batey, born in 1921, was studying German at University College, London, when the war started. She suspended her studies and applied to be a nurse, but her linguistic skills were in high demand and she was initially assigned to work in London and was recruited as a codebreaker at Bletchley Park in 1940. She was instrumental in deciphering a message in March 1941 that said, “today’s the day minus three”; extensive work over the next 72 or so hours revealed that the Italians intended to assault a Royal Navy convoy, instead the Allied force destroyed much of the Italian naval force in what became known as the Battle of Cape Matapan. In December 1941 she deciphered a message between Belgrade and Berlin that helped decipher a machine previously thought to be unbreakable.
Jane Fawcett joined the Bletchley Park team in 1940, at age 18. She was known as one of the “Debs of Bletchley Park” because of her upper class background. In May 1941, she decoded a message referring to the German battleship Bismarck that detailed its current position and destination in France. Two days later, the Royal Navy attacked the Bismarck and it sunk. This is considered to be the first significant victory for the Bletchley Park codebreakers.
Joan Clarke studied mathematics at Newnham College, Cambridge. Her geometry professor recognized her mathematical abilities and recruited her for Government Code & Cipher school in June 1940. She was the only female practitioner of Banburismus (there were eight males), a cryptoanalytic process that reduced the need for bombes, the electromagnetic devices used during the war. She was one of two women to hold leadership roles, as deputy head of a team (where she was paid less than the men and unable to be promoted further due to sexism). She was appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1946.
Margaret Rock, age 36 when she arrived in 1940, was older than many of the other women of Bletchley Park. She was a graduate mathematician and statistician. She specialized in German and Russian codbreaking, and her biggest wartime accomplishment was decoding a message that gave British forces an advantage in planning the D-Day attacks.
Betty Webb joined Bletchley Park as an 18-year old member of the British Auxilliary Territorial Service. She brough linguistic skills, having grown up with a German au pair and studied as an exchange student in Germany. She worked first with German messages and later Japanese messages. She was awarded an MBE in 2015 and was recognized in 2021 by the government of France with the award of the Légion d’Honneur.
Ruth Briggs graduated in Modern Languages from Newnham College, Cambridge. As an expert in German, she worked at Bletchley Park from 1942-1945 translating decrypted messages.
Now for the puzzle:
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