Face of the Day

One of the many Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS) personnel who worked for Bletchley Park at an off-site outstation, Ruth Bourne, who has died aged 99, joined the WRENS as an 18 year old sixth former, on the outbreak of the Second World War. From a recruiting office in Birmingham, she was posted to the Tulliechewan Estate Royal Navy Camp near Loch Lomond, Scotland, for square bashing, floor scrubbing and formal training, as 78519 WREN R Henry. Very little of the estate and buildings survive today.

Here she was categorised for special duties and told it would be secret work with no chance of promotion, long working hours, and once ‘in’ she could not come ‘out’. Ruth agreed to this and was obliged to sign the Official Secrets Act at which point she was told the work involved specifically the breaking of German codes. She was very briefly sent to Bletchley Park (BP), but permanently worked at a ‘Bombe’ outstation of Bletchley Park at Lime Grove, Eastcote, in west London, code named HMS Pembroke V for the WRENS serving there, and later Stanmore.

The Jewish Chronicle