Week III
Not only was Emily Anderson regarded as the best codebreaker working at the Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS ) at Bletchley Park, she had an instinct for recruitment. She brought several brilliant codebreakers on board. One discovery was the remarkable Patricia Bartley who at 24 years of age, made the surprising breakthrough into the German diplomatic code, known as ‘Floradora’, a sister code to the better-known German military code, Enigma.
Dubbed Floradora, after a popular musical comedy, it was a code that was enciphered twice, leaving German diplomats with the mistaken belief that it was unbreakable.
Before machinery began to be used to help in breaking codes, the complexity of German codes was such that the Germans were supremely confident that it was unbreakable. By Spring 1942 this fake confidence bred carelessness, examples of which Bartley was quick to spot, enabling her to make progress. She was soon given more staff and made head of the section.
Initially a wireless operator, using short wave receivers, would find the correct German or Italian frequency. Messages were tapped out in Morse Code and the listener would quickly write down the letters or numbers at the same time translating them into ordinary alphabet or numerals. It required intense concentration, speed, and absolute accuracy. The next step was to pass on the messages to the cryptanalyst who would try to make sense of the letters and combinations.
Bartley’s team included the former Russian Tsar’s personal cryptanalyst, Ernst Fetterlein (who had previously worked with Anderson ), and intense scrutiny of messages were undertaken. The breakthrough came when Bartley spotted that a message was signalled twice, over a matter that sailors were not getting enough food. ‘What we got was merely menus for the seamen. It didn’t give us any vital, exciting information…’ But enough to work on.
Astonishing achievement
The dramatic breakthrough came from traffic intercepted between Berlin and the German embassy in Dublin. After months of intense work, due largely to the crucial repetition Bartley had identified, by May they ‘were reading a small number of messages between the embassy in Dublin and Berlin’. By August they were able to read every one.
Much as Anderson’s ravaging of the Italian codes, enabling allied commanders to know the enemy’s plans often before they were communicated to officers in the field, Bartley, when asked by the author what the practical implication of breaking ‘Floradora’ was, she replied: “We were reading messages meant for Hitler before he read them.”
It was an astonishing achievement. Although Bartley never received an award as Anderson and Dorothy Brooks did after breaking the Italian military codes in late 1940, (Galway Diary May 18 2023 ), the Secretery of State and future prime minister, Anthony Eden, conveyed his ‘warmest congratulations and thanks to all concerned’.*
Male jealousy
Bletchley Park described as ‘an intelligence factory that operated 24 hours a day 365 days of the year’, producing remarkable results, but it could also be a hot house for male jealousy at the achievements of their female colleagues. With the exception of Anderson, women were paid less than the men. The gap was quite substantial. On their appointment to GCCS in 1920, women were paid £120 pa, in contrast to the male salary of £420. Perhaps it was her visits with her mother as a child to the suffragist meetings in Galway that prompted Anderson to demand a higher salary. She had already proved her worth, and her tenacity was supported by Commander Denniston, deputy head of GCCS, who warned his superiors that unless she received an increase, she might leave the service. She received an extra £40, and her codebreaking colleagues also received an increase, and were granted less working hours, with one hour for lunch.
Claiming credit
But tension with male colleagues was often strident. After her brilliant breakthrough with the ‘Floradora’ code, Bartley discovered that her subordinate, William Filby, was claiming credit for her success. She was furious, and headed straight into Denniston’s office demanding that Filby be put in his place. Dennison fully supported her but inevitably, the strain of the work, and this brazen attempt to steal her success, caused Bartley’s health to break down. Filby, subsequently became head of German Diplomatic Section in Bartley’s place.
In contrast it appears that Anderson never suffered from such flagrant jealousy or misogyny. She had more than 20 years working in a man’s world. She simply wouldn’t have stood for it.
Emily’s ‘family’
It was Bartley who immediately saw that Anderson (49 ) and Dorothy Brooks (25 ) were lovers. In August 1939, she was home at her parents’ house, located eight miles from Bletchley Park, when she saw Anderson and Brooks drive up to the front door. Her parents had agreed to provide a billet for some female staff at Bletchley, which surprised Bartley as the spare room upstairs had only a very narrow bed.
Bartley recalled that throughout their time with the Bartleys the two women were ‘very open in their affection for each other’. Her parents were ‘blissfully unaware of the nature of the women’s relationship’. **
In the summer of 1940 when Anderson led a crack cryptographic team to penetrate the Italian naval and army codes, being sent to Cairo she insisted that Dorothy Brooks, a competent codebreaker in her own right, would be part of her team.
The request was granted, and referred to as ‘Emily’s family’ among her colleagues. The fact that acceptance, and such an amiable term as ‘family’, was used shows the respect that Emily Anderson enjoyed. Her time in Cairo was exceptionally productive. Breaking the Italian codes led to dramatic victories for the British forces in Lybia and Ethiopia, and for the British navy at the Battle of Matapan.
The women were allowed to enjoy the same freedoms they had had at Bletchley, and as far as society allowed, they appear to have been happy, and highly productive, in each other’s company.
Next week: Why did the Mozart family write to each other in Code?
NOTES: * The author Jackie Uí Chionna was fortunate in meeting Patricia Bartley when she was 101 years old, with a memory as clear as ever, and happy to share her memories of Bletchley Park. Although she never received an award, her work was recognised in the book ‘Behind the Enigma: The Authorised History of GCHQ’ By John Ferris, published the following year after Jackie’s visit. She died five months later.
** Patricia Bartley, fluent in French and German, was home from Oxford suffering from an illness, when she first saw Emily and Dorothy drive up to her house. Emily later recruited her for Bletchley where she proved to be an exceptionally good codebreaker.
Alan Turing was one of several geniuses at Bletchley Park. The main focus of Turing’s work was in cracking the ‘Enigma’ code. The Enigma was a type of enciphering machine used by the German armed forces to send messages securely. The Germans increased its security at the outbreak of war by changing the cipher system daily. This made the task of understanding the code even more difficult.
Turing played a key role unraveling the Enigma by inventing – along with fellow code-breaker Gordon Welchman – a machine known as the Bombe. This device helped to significantly reduce the work of the code-breakers.
Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts . He accepted hormone treatment, a procedure commonly referred to as chemical castration , as an alternative to prison. Turing died on 7 June 1954, 16 days before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined his death as a suicide . Following a public campaign in 2009, the British prime minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for "the appalling way he was treated". Queen Elizabeth II granted a posthumous pardon in 2013.
Bletchley Park the centre of British intelligence during World War II.
