Hut 6 was responsible for decrypting German Army and Air Force Enigma messages. Very few photographs of Bletchley Park were taken during WW2 but this is a rare photo of staff working in Hut 6 (in Block D) taken towards the end of the war in 1944.
2. VE Day was not a surprise
Even though Hut 6 was one of the first departments to learn of the final German surrender, the fact that it was coming had been anticipated for some time.
The slowdown in work was noted by Betty Randall nee Gilbert who worked as an intercept operator at Forest Moor Y Station near Harrogate, Yorkshire. She recalled in her Bletchley Park Oral History interview how the number of German signals they picked up slowly declined:
“By the summer of 1945, the group just faded away, they probably only transmitted for about 15 to 20 minutes in three hours but you still sat there. Messages were still coming loud and clear but not so often. You got the feeling that they were packing up. As it faded away you went on general search but probably their stations had closed down by then and you didn’t find anything.”
The UK Government made plans for Victory in Europe Day, when it came, to be marked with a national holiday. Allied leaders planned to mark VE Day on 9 May, but when news of the German surrender became known, a BBC Broadcast late on the 7 May announced VE Day would be marked on 8 May.
This year’s early May bank holiday will be moved back by four days for the whole of the UK to coincide with the 75th anniversary of VE Day.
May Day is traditionally held on a Monday but will be put back to Friday 8 May 2020. The holiday will form part of a weekend of national commemorative events, some mirroring the scenes witnessed across the UK in 1945.
3. VE Day Celebrations
Bletchley Park is just a short train ride to London, and many staff who were on leave headed to the capital to join in with the VE Day celebrations there.
This evening also sparked lifelong romances for some. One Veteran, Jean Evans nee Birtles, who joined Bletchley Park in 1943 and worked as a typist in Hut 3, recalled:
“…on VE Day, we weren’t on duty, so went down to London and met two Canadian chaps. Irene, this girl who was with me, she continued seeing him, married him and went to live in Canada.”
Some staff who couldn’t get to London headed to parties in local pubs. Daisy Lawrence, known as Lawrie’ joined Bletchley Park in 1943 and worked on Japanese naval signals. Below is a photo of Lawrie and her friends at a VE Day party at the Eight Bells pub in Bletchley.
4. Not everyone partied!
Not everyone had time off to join in with the celebrations.
Rachel Hockenhull nee Kimber joined Bletchley Park in 1944 as a Colossus Operator, working on the world’s first digital programmable computer. Speaking to the Bletchley Park Oral History Project in 2014, she recalled:
“I remember the end of the war very well. We were on watch, and somebody came in and said, ‘The war has ended, the war has ended!’ I can’t remember if it was in the morning or afternoon, but I remember at some point going to sleep on the hard stone of the cloakroom floor even though I was on duty. The war ended and I had to have a sleep, so the cloakroom floor had to do.”
5. VE Day didn’t mean the end of the war
8 May 1945 marked Victory in Europe Day, but the war in the Pacific continued.
Bletchley Park had been working on Japanese codes and ciphers since the 1920s. Reports sent by the Japanese ambassador in Berlin to his commanders in Japan had been an important source of intelligence in the run-up to D-Day.
After VE Day, some staff who had been working on German cyphers were transferred to the Japanese sections at Bletchley Park. As part of US-UK intelligence-sharing efforts, some staff from BP went to the Pentagon in Washington to work on Japanese codes there.
Others who had been working as intercept operators in the Y Service, a chain of wireless intercept stations across Britain and in a number of countries overseas, were given the chance to go to Colombo, Sri Lanka, to work on intercept stations there. For some, by the time they completed the journey to Colombo, the war in the Pacific was over.
Intercept Operator Joan Staveley nee Orwin who worked at Chicksands Y Station, in Bedfordshire recalled: