Ron Brown

My connection with BP was as a wireless operator, and so of course I was not involved with the actual code breaking. When the wartime activities of BP were finally brought out into the open some years ago, I was disappointed that no mention of the communications aspect was ever referred to. Indeed, when I did visit BP, I was again rather disillusioned that nothing was included in any of the exhibits in this regard.

For my part, I was originally enlisted in the RAF, trained as a wireless operator, and very quickly put on a troopship bound for the Middle East. At Suez I was ‘snatched’ by Special Communications Unit No.1 as I was apparently regarded as a top-rate operator. The base unit was a nondescript building at the back of the large Allied base at Heliopolis. From there we were sent wherever the various Generals and other Commanders went. Thus we were alongside General Montgomery during his Western Desert battles. I also did a year up at Beirut alongside the submarine Commander there. Then across to Italy and all the way up through Bari, Caserta and Rome. Then, early in 1946, back to Bletchley for a while until I was discharged. I was invited to continue as a civilian at foreign Embassies but declined.

I am now approaching 88 and often wonder if any of my old friends and colleagues from those days are still around. Incidentally, my dear wife who I sadly lost 13 years ago was in the WRNS billeted at Woburn Abbey and, amazingly, neither of us really knew what the other was up to during the war years. I do know that she was ‘bussed’ in to BP so I assume that she was working on the card index system that they had. She would have been thrilled to have received the certificate and badge. So far as I know we were the only husband and wife team (although we were not married at the time) to have been involved with the BP organisation. Her name at the time was Alice Leighton