Alison Gibson

In 1942, age 17 ½ years I volunteered for the WRENs and was called up in August just after my 18th birthday. After two weeks initial training in Mill Hill I found myself on a train to an unknown destination with several other WRENs, this was my introduction to Bletchley Station, from here we where taken to Gayhurst Manor.

Next morning we were taken in a bus and arrived at Bletchley Park, which on first acquaintance hardly looked very exciting, taken to a hut, I think 11. We went into a very small room and were told about the job we would be doing, that it was very secret and we must sign the official secrets act. As my life so far had been more or less family life and boarding school, I don’t think I fully understood what I was about to undertake. Then we were taken into this noisy room full of large machines which we were to learn to operate. Each machine had a name; I remember Volta, Faraday and Amère. After this initial impact I suppose we must have learnt quickly and settled into a routine of watch keeping and learning to stay up all night. The first time we went down to the canteen for lunch I remember looking round in amazement at all these various types of people, Army , Navy, Air force and civilian, wondering where they all came from and what they were doing, I cant remember about the food.

Up until this time I was used to being told what to do by my parents and at school, so took all that part quite naturally, until gradually beginning to realise the enormity of the job. Since all the books have come out telling the story of Bletchley Park and the different people, I have abetter understanding of it all now than I had at the time and feel quite proud I did the job.
Now at 85 it does seem rather vague, but in January 1944 I went out to Colombo, where I stayed for two years working on Japanese de-coding, I came home in December 1945, the war was over and our work dried up completely after the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. I remember we were shown the first aerial photographs and seeing the utter devastation, until then not really understanding what atomic meant.