My mother, Pauline Gill, who has died aged 97, was one of the last surviving “Bletchley Girls” – young women who operated the machines that broke the German Enigma codes and helped shorten the second world war.
Operators such as Pauline would start up the machines, wait until the drums on them had stopped revolving, and note the position of a lever at the side of the machine and those of three master drums that had all stopped at letters. These letters would be written down and sent for checking.
