Vol 4. Issue No 4

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Parlez Vous Francais?

by Dorothy Gait

In May 1940 I returned to England from the Netherlands, having been teaching at the English school in the Hague when the Germans invaded.

My parents lived in the small village of Wing in Buckinghamshire, not far from Bletchley. Soon after my arrival home I received a surprise visit from two official-looking men who flourished cards at me, and then proceeded to ask me some searching questions about the fact that I was one of only five English people who escaped from the Hague on the day of the invasion. I was able to satisfy their queries, but that is another story.

It became clear that they were Intelligence Officers when, before they left, they asked me if I spoke Dutch or any other languages. I explained that I could speak Dutch and German and that my French was fluent. They next enquired if I would be interested in working as a clerk at a branch of the War Office in Bletchley. Not having any other job in view, I said I would.

Within days I received a letter asking me to attend for interview at Bletchley Park. I had no idea what to expect. I was interviewed by the Head of Bletchley, Commander Dennison, who was a man of charismatic presence. Brilliant blue eyes summed me up appraisingly, small cog in the wheel as I was.

A few pertinent questions about my background and then I was told the basic facts about the work at Bletchley. Enigma was never mentioned. During the interview I explained to the Commander that I had hoped to join the WRNS, but recruitment was closed. He made no comment. I duly signed the Official Secrets Act and started work a short while later. Bletchley Park in June 1940 was a fairly small enterprise. Much has been written about it recently, but in those days it seemed just like any other minor Government department evacuated from London. As far as I remember there were service men around, but no service women. My job was in the French department, where I would assist the cryptographers to decipher the many signals exchanged by diplomatic bag. Most were sent in by spies – others were intercepts.

The French department was important because France was now in enemy hands. I worked in the main house, in what had been a bedroom overlooking the garden.

Our head of department was a volatile Frenchman known only as “Monsieur Felix”. Like others who had elected to carry on the fight, he used a nom-de-plume to avoid repercussions on his family left at home. My job as a clerk was to help decode the diplomatic signals. Once the basic words of the code were mastered they were entered into our ‘dictionaries’ – ledgers – where we inscribed new words as we worked them out. Anyone good at crossword puzzles could come up with the answers fairly easily, as the subject matter of the routine signals, addresses, senders and diplomatic exchanges varied little each day.

Some of the brilliant cryptographers at the Park were eccentric indeed. We met up in the canteen at lunchtime every day. One notorious for carrying an open umbrella regardless of the weather was Mr Greiffenhagen. He could look at a signal – just a series of numbers on a one-time pad – and give the date, source of message, and recipient in minutes. Monsieur Felix also could come up with answers almost as quickly.

Other cryptographers were Oxbridge Dons, famous writers, crossword puzzle setters etc, all brought together to extract the secrets of the enemy. With fear of invasion ever present we had to duplicate our dictionaries so that vital personnel in each department could escape with them to Canada. When the sirens wailed we had to gather up as many heavy ledgers as we could carry and dash to the ‘shelter’, a slit-trench half way across an adjacent field. I assumed that if there was a cellar it was kept for more important people.

Summer passed, and with the autumn threats of invasion seemed less imminent. One day I was summoned before Commander Dennison again. Why? Was my work not up to standard? The Commander waved me towards a seat and barked “You told me when I recruited you that you wanted to join the WRNS. Does that still apply?”

Astonished that he should have remembered, I assured him that I did. He then explained that a limited intake of WRNS was being recruited as coders for the new secret HQ in Liverpool where the Battle of the Atlantic would be co-ordinated. Did I wish him to put my name forward? I did indeed, and within weeks had been accepted – luckily for me because my job was about to be declared a reserved occupation for the duration of the war.

I never forgot Commander Dennison. That, whilst running the gigantic Enigma programme, he could find time to help an obscure clerk, was to me a measure of his stature.

Leo Marks in Silk and Cyanide, a book about wartime intelligence, devotes a chapter to Commander Dennison, brilliantly summing up his dynamic personality.

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