- Contributed by听
- National Trust WW2 Rural Learning Events
- People in story:听
- Pamela Mortimer
- Location of story:听
- England
- Article ID:听
- A4138463
- Contributed on:听
- 01 June 2005
Pamela Mortimer
Signed the secrecy act.
Aged 16 in 1937
Pamela went to finishing school in 1937 under Hitler and came back in England in 1939
Germans had been good to her so she didn鈥檛 want to use their language against them however War is war and she Applied to MI5.
MI5 were having a shortage of operatives as only 5% of Britain鈥檚 spoke German
She was sent to Liverpool where she dealt with correspondents from North and South
America, who had been captured in the Atlantic Ocean
She then became personal assistant to the Air intelligence officer, where the offices were still in Liverpool. Everything which could help the RAF was used, as
information such as bomb target and terrain information was needed. To obtain this
the department she worked for used operatives to retrieve the mail from the captain鈥檚 cabin of sunken German merchant ships.
In 1941 the idea was conceived that the Blast furnace鈥檚 of the Ruhr valley could be flooded by a nearby dam. The origins of this idea came from officers who had been working in the textile factories of the Ruhr and a blast furnace expert. The department loved the idea, as did head office, however no one knew how much water was needed, the capacity of the dam or the thickness of the walls. Roughly three to for months later a magazine was retrieved from a captain鈥檚 office from a German merchant ship which had been on its way to neutral Sweden. This magazine contained all the information that was needed for the operation. In May 1943 the operation was launched but from intelligence gathered from the locals it did not cause as much damage as was intended by the British but it was enough to dispirit the Germans into a doubt in their chances of winning the war.
By October that year all of the RAF officers that had taken part in the operation had died.
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