Betty Hollingberry honoured for vital wartime secret Enigma work

Oct 23 2009 by Barry Gibson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

SHE harboured her secret for years.

Not even Betty Hollingberry’s husband knew of the vital part she played in Britain’s wartime efforts.

But now the 86-year-old, who took part in the Enigma code-breaking efforts, which shortened the Second World War by two years, has been honoured.

For decades after the conflict ended Betty, of Marsden, told no-one about her top secret work – not even her husband and her children.

But now she has received a medal from the Prime Minister in recognition of her work breaking codes used by the German military commanders.

Betty said: “I’m pleased to have been recognised for the work I did. I’m a great patriot and I’m proud that I helped the war effort.

“Until recently the code-breaking wasn’t talked about a great deal, but there seems to be a lot of interest now. I wouldn’t like it to be forgotten.”

In 1942 Betty left her job in a bank to volunteer with the Wrens. After weeks of training the 18-year-old and five other new recruits were told they had qualified for “special duties” and were sent to Eastcote on the outskirts of London.

They were part of the now famous code-breaking efforts centred in Bletchley Park, near Milton Keynes. An army of engineers, mathematicians and interpreters were trying to crack the codes of the German Enigma machine used by the Nazi military command.

Betty said: “We were told a little about the job, but we were only a cog in the machine – no-one knew exactly how it was done.”

Betty and her comrades operated a Bombe machine – a huge device for cracking German codes, which were re-set each day.

She said: “We would start the machines and the noise and smell were dreadful. If the Bombe stopped you would think ‘ah good, perhaps we’ve cracked the code for today’.

“There were 50 Bombes at Eastcote, 10 in each bay. Each bay was named after a country, like France, and each Bombe was given the name of a city such as Paris or Lyon. When a machine broke the code we would send the message to Bletchley saying: ‘This is France, speaking from Paris’.

“The message would be interpreted into English and sent on to the Ministry of Defence and then to our commanders in the field.”