Mary J Stewart

Stanmore, 1944-45

In June 1944 my sister Margaret and I joined the Wrens at the ages of 18½ and 17½ respectively and after three weeks of training in Scotland found ourselves at the Stanmore oustation as part of the Enigma code-breaking scene. We worked in watches of eight hours and our batch of Wrens made their debut at midnight. The lengthy room we entereed, one of several leading off a central corridor, was illuminated by fluorescent lighting, something we’d never seen before; it seemed like stepping from night into day. Then our ears took in the sound of the bombes clicking away as rows of drums revolved and stopped, revolved and stopped. Our noses also had a new experience in a peculiarly disagreeable smell of hot oil emanating from the machines. (I wonder why those machines were called bombes?  I never thought to ask)

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At four o’clock one morning in December, which happened to be my eighteenth birthday, we the operators and our checkers were standing with our mugs round the tea trolley – referred to by us as “tea-boat” – when suddenly the world seemed to be coming to an end. The building rocked, doors and windows were blown out of their frames. We’d been narrowly missed by a pilotless bomb. I became aware that my hair was standing on end. It wasn’t just fright but the blast that had caused my hair to behave in this odd manner. Then I found that my hands were shaking, so needing something to hold onto I made for the broom cupboard and spent the next few minutes sweeping up broken glass. We discovered in the morning that the doodlebug had landed only 25 yards from where we’d been working.