Barry woman honoured for code-cracking role in World War II (From Barry And District News)

Barry woman honoured for code-cracking role in World War II

11:20am Thursday 5th November 2009

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A PENSIONER who intercepted and translated Nazi codes during the Second World War has had a medal of thanks sent to her Barry Island home by the Prime Minister.

Marjorie Dickenson, nee Dancey, began work intercepting Nazi codes in 1941 when she was a 20-year-old Special Wireless Operators.

She passed her findings to officers at Bletchley Park, the code-cracking centre of British intelligence operations which came to wider attention after it was made the subject of the 2005 film Enigma.

It is estimated that the work of the Special Wireless Operators reduced the lengths of the Second World War by two years, and 88-year-old Mrs Dickenson was twice commended for the importance of the messages she intercepted. Speaking from the living room of her Barry Island care home, where she is planning on displaying the framed certificate of thanks and the medal sent to her by Gordon Brown, Mrs Dickenson is very modest.

She said: "We had no idea how well we had done until years after.

"It’s only this week that I have received this from Gordon Brown, but I am very proud of it. It is nice to be thanked."

Mrs Dickenson, then Marjorie Dancey, said the hardest thing about being conscripted for the war effort was being moved from her home in Barry’s Clive Road to Beau Manor – a satellite station in Leicestershire.

"There was a lot of cameraderie and a lot of fun, but I missed the sea so much!" she said.

At the end of the war she volunteered to go to Bangalore to intercept Japanese codes, and had even began learning Japanese ready for departure on the Saturday - but America dropped the bomb on Hiroshima the week before, and she remained in Britain.

She was later de-mobbed and returned to Barry, where she married RAF Sergeant Fred Dickenson and had three sons.

Her youngest son Peter, said: "I am so proud, it is a great story.

"She got a free cinema ticket to see Enigma when it was released!

"She is delighted with the medal and certificate, and whilst she couldn’t make the presentation ceremony due to ill health, she is very happy to receive them."

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