大象传媒

I was living in Folkestone Kent when the last war started. My father had a grocers shop, but after Dunkirk many shops closed as people in the town who were not essential were encouraged to leave and my father was a casualty of the time. In September 1940 I joined the WRNS and first of all was stationed at Headquarters, London which then was at Drummonds Bank, near Trafalgar Square.
In May 1941 I was posted to Washington D.C. It was a secret posting as of course America was not in the war. About 50 Wrens went, via Canada, to Washington, where we set up a communications centre for between us and the Admiralty in London. When Mr. Churchill and Mr. Rossevelt met to draw up the Atlantic Charter, deciding to agree to the terms of the lease to U.S.A of Atlantic bases in Return to supplying Destroyers to augment our fleets which were becoming stretched guarding our Atlantic convoys.
We manned a 24-hour Cypher office collecting data regarding sip movements general intelligence etc.
Driving this time we wore civilian clothes and were not allowed to divulge the fact that we were service personnel. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour out situation changed and workload increased particularly when there were further meetings between Churchill and Roosevelt. We donned our uniforms, and the Washington set-up changed as we became the joint staff Mission, linking up with London.
We followed ship movements including those of the Japanese Navy and U-boats.
As the war progressed, we eventually were linked up with the codebreakers at Bletchley Park, though we never knew where it was nor how immensely important their work was. We just knew it was very secret and any signals received with the prefix 鈥擡nigma were deciphered by WRNS cypher officers whose names had been sent to London and we were never allowed to divulge the contents.
Indeed it was not until recent years that I realised the history of Station X and Bletchley Park and I feel very proud of our Service for the work done to, I am sure, shorten the war.
Pat Tiddy (Ex Second Officer WRNS 1940-45

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