Aberdeen Alum and Bletchley Park Veteran Receives France's Highest Honour

摘要

Helene,a graduate from Aberdeen University,was recognised for her work at Bletchley Park,where she registered German Enigma-enciphered messages,and later ran a school to train US personnel on the procedures and secrets of Codebreaking at Bletchley Park.In a short but moving ceremony on Friday 19 July,2019,former Bletchley Park Codebreaker Helene Aldwinckle was presented with the insignia of Knight of the Legion d'honneur,France's highest civilian and military honour,by Colonel Armel Dirou,Military Attache at the French Embassy.In 1942,the then Helene Taylor was recruited at the age of 21 from Aberdeen University,Leaving Scotland for only the third time in her life she travelled to a place she did not know,to live with complete strangers,to do work she could not be told about until she got there.Helene had been chosen by a senior Codebreaker,Stuart Milner-Barry,to work in Bletchley Park's Hut 6,the department tasked with deciphering Enigma messages sent by the German Army and Air Force.After a year of working to register German Enigma-enciphered messages,she was asked to run a school to train US personnel on the procedures and secrets of codebreaking at Bletchley Park,In doing so,she played a small but important part in cementing the British-American intelligence sharing agreement which endures to this day,In 1944 until the end of the war,she worked in a section of Hut 6 called the Quiet Room,where she identified the various Enigma radio networks,and analysed radio signals’preambles and sign-offs,Hut 6 played a crucial role in the lead-up to the Normandy invasion.