"Vet recalls top-secret work"

"Vet recalls top-secret work"

by Bill Donovan

Thurs. May 21, 2009

Ipswich Chronicle

It was an afternoon unlike any other for Ipswich resident Marian McFaddin. Gazing up at the English sky from her bicycle she began to realize something was amiss. The sun fell out of view. Wave after wave of flying fortresses roared across the Channel towards France.

The Allied Invasion of Normandy had begun.

"One minute the sky was blue then it was filled with planes," said McFaddin.

McFaddin, though firmly on the ground far away from D-Day's bullets and flak, played a large role in making the invasion possible.

She was a code-breaker who helped bring down the German war machine during World War II.

The Nazis employed electromechanical devices known as Enigmas to confuse Allied forces with coded radio transmission. McFaddin enlisted in the Women's Royal Naval Service at the age of 19 in 1943-she was a British citizen  at the time. "Everyone joined up and was patriotic, but it was purely voluntary." Under the Official Secrets Act I could never reveal any details about operations until 1974. It was that secretive." She'd been exposed to the horrors of war at the age of 14, a self-described "Blitz Kid."

Her home in London was bunkered down during the German bombings in Britain. The large family put on jazz records to make it through those sleepless nights.

"I remember my sister Mary would put her hair in curlers," said McFaddin. "My mother would ask her 'What on Earth are you doing?' And she'd say 'Well, I'm putting them up in case someone handsome comes to rescue me.'"

Bombs ripped up rows of houses surrounding them. During the days McFaddin ventured out into the crumbling streets with her sisters Barbara, Betty, and Mary. One visit to the hair salon almost proved fatal. A German "Doodlebug," or pilotless bomb crashed down from the skies. "It sounded like a a motor bike and there was this flash of light." Joining WRNS was a natural next step for this young woman.

Training took place at Gayhurst Manor in the Borough of Milton Keynes. This included eight-hour watches and bombe work. The bombes, used for code breaking, were huge 6-foot tall bronze cabinets covered with rows of dials, drums, and plugs. McFaddin, along with many other women, operated these machines seven days a week.  "It was stressful but no one was catty, the big objective was to do this job," she stated. "Most of the time we were left in the dark as to what was happening. The brass figured the fewer who knew the fewer could turn it around." 

Workers constantly inspected wiring inside the circular drums for shorts. Timing was of the essence. The Germans would change their codes everyday. Bombes were modeled after Enigmas and the British had to find the new settings before day's end. McFaddin was given "menus" that indicated how the machines needed to be configured.

One of the few times WRNS did hear news of the war effort came with the sinking of the German battleship Tirpitz. Sir Winston Churchill publicly congratulated them, thanking the "Geese who laid the golden eggs and never cackled." 

Conditions at Gayhurst weren't the best. Work took place in a series of unheated wooden huts. McFaddin was "drummed in" and only knew the people in her building. There was no means of transportation. And the meal situation wasn't much better either. One night at dinner a mouse was found in the gravy bowl. Some of the women had difficulty adjusting to the hours and in turn developed stomach issues or passed out while on duty. Some received electric shocks from exposed wiring while looking after the bombes.

McFaddin needed a change of scenery. In 1945 McFaddin started dating an American named Lawrence who served in the U.S. Army for the Office of Strategic Services. He had been stationed in the United Kingdom and Berlin and met Marian while on leave. She wrote her address down on a box of cigarettes and the rest is history. "He had everything wrong when he to wrote to me, the street number," McFaddin said. "But somehow it made its way back to me."

Lawrence returned back to the States to finish his education and start his career. They corresponded over the course of five years. In 1950 they were married in London. "An unheated church with a 90 mile gale coming off of the English Channel," she said. "I was blown right out of that place."

The couple soon moved to the U.S. They started a family and lived all over the country, from San Francisco to Connecticut.