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The Duchess of Cambridge's grandmother and great-aunt worked at Bletchley Park during World War II.
It's said without the codebreaking work done at Bletchley
Park during World War II, the Allies might not have won the conflict. Experts
believe the operations at the 19th century Buckinghamshire mansion also shortened the war by two or three years. Duchess Kate visited the park earlier this
week, and showed off her personal connection to the estate with a detail on her
dress some might have missed.
Kate’s grandmother
Valerie Glassborow and her great-aunt
Mary – twins – worked at Bletchley Park during the War. The two served as
duty officers, according to the
Telegraph, and worked in Hut 16 (Hut 6 until February 1943), which was
centred on processing and decrypting Enigma messages sent by the German army
and air force.
Kate shared a laugh with former Bletchley codebreakers Elizabeth Diacon (L), Georgina Rose (2nd L), Audrey Mather (2nd R) and Rena Stewart (R) during her visit. Photo: © Heathcliff O’Malley/AFP/Getty Images
The Duchess of Cambridge met with former codebreakers
Elizabeth
Diacon
, Georgina Rose, Audrey Mather, Rena Stewart during her visit – and did
you notice they were all wearing the exact same pins? Kate’s brooch was owned
by her grandmother, and all five of the badges look like rotors from Enigma
machines.
Here are some rotors from an Enigma machine a closer look at Kate’s brooch. Photos: © Wikipedia / Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images
Nazi Germany used Enigma machines to transmit encrypted
messages in World War II. While Polish mathematicians including Marian Rejewski
had already deciphered the Enigma in 1932 and had shared this information with the
British government, the Germans changed their Enigma cipher system on a daily
basis, making the codes harder to understand and break.
The Queen and Prince Philip were shown an Enigma machine on a visit to Bletchley Park in 2011. Her Majesty was very keen to press its buttons. Photo: © Arthur Edwards/Getty Images
At Bletchley Park, a
team that included mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing created a
machine called The Bombe, which helped reduce the amount of work by
codebreakers in cracking Enigma messages. This work and other codebreaking is
credited with significantly reducing the time of the war.
Prince Charles was shown a rebuilt Bombe machine during a visit to Bletchley in 2008. Photo: © Tim Graham Picture Library/Getty Images
Kate also met a group of children who are learning coding using
Enigma machines while visiting Bletchley, and spoke about her connection with
them.
“It’s quite interesting how you’re all learning about coding
in school, and now you can look back at how it first started,” she said,
according to the Telegraph. “My granny and her sister worked here. It’s very
cool. When she was alive, sadly she could never talk about it. She was so sworn
to secrecy that she never felt able to tell us.”
There are two bricks honouring Kate’s relatives at Bletchley Park. Photo: © Heathcliff O’Malley/AFP/Getty Images
Speaking to the four codebreakers, Kate told them that it
was “lovely” that their work is “being celebrated.” She told them the children she
had met with understood codebreaking is extremely complicated. “They have got a real
appreciation of what you were doing,” the
Telegraph reports her saying. She
also told the four women it was “a real honour” to have met them.
MORE: Duchess Kate looks pretty in recycled polka dot dress for Bletchley Park
Kate’s grandmother and great-aunt and the four codebreakers
mentioned above were by far not the only women to work at Bletchley. Jane Hughes
Fawcett, who decoded a message that led to the sinking of the German battleship
Bismarck, also worked in Hut 16. About
8,000 women worked at Bletchley during
the war, making up about 75 per cent of those who were there.