Michael Smith on his new book about the women of Bletchley Park

When I interviewed Jane Fawcett for a book on the women who worked at Britain’s Second World War codebreaking centre at Bletchley Park, I was a bit worried that it might not go well.

Jane, who lives just across the Thames from Christ Church Meadows, was to be one of the main characters in a new book my publishers wanted me to write called The Debs of Bletchley Park.

As the author of several books on the codebreakers, and chair of the Bletchley Park Trust’s Historical Advisory Group, I knew that quite a few debutantes, the Debs of the title, worked there.

During that era, young women from ‘high class’ families spent the year after they left school ‘coming out’ into society, a prelude to marriage.

The Debs were introduced to the Queen and spent the summer at society balls and events such as Ascot, Wimbledon and Henley meeting ‘the right sort of young man’.

Those young men weren’t the only ones eyeing up the Debs. British intelligence chiefs recruited them to assist the codebreakers because they thought they could be trusted to keep secrets.

But once the German Enigma ciphers were broken and the Bletchley workforce began to grow, this anachronistic approach to recruitment came to a swift end. There simply weren’t enough Debs to do the job and ultimately they were only a small proportion of the women who worked there.

The women at Bletchley outnumbered the men two to one. They played many vital roles, some as small but important cogs in a much larger machine, some as top codebreakers in their own right.

I told my publishers I would love to write a book about the women at Bletchley but it had to be about all the women who worked there.

I set about finding a new title, but it was soon abundantly clear that I was wasting my time.

It could be about all the women but it would still be called The Debs of Bletchley Park.

I braced myself to explain carefully to every woman I interviewed that it didn’t matter that they weren’t a Deb, that the book would be about all the women who worked at Bletchley.

So when I met Jane, I had all of my embarrassed excuses ready. She listened – with hindsight extremely patiently – nodded sagely and said: “Yes, well when I came out as a Deb…”

Maybe my publishers had a point after all.

Jane hated her year as a Deb, but ultimately those social connections led to her being recruited to work at Bletchley, where she played a part in one of the codebreakers’ early successes.

It was May 1941. The Royal Navy was trying to track down the German battleship the Bismarck which had just sunk HMS Hood.

Harry Hinsley, the main naval intelligence analyst in the Bletchley Park, told the Admiralty that the Bismarck’s messages showed she was heading for France. But Hinsley was straight out of university. How could he know anything about naval matters? The Admiralty ignored him.

With the whole of Bletchley looking for evidence that would help track the Bismarck, Jane decoded a message showing it was heading for the French port of Brest. Hinsley was right.

The Bismarck was tracked down and sunk, and for the first time the young men and women working at Bletchley realised the impact they could have on the war.

The Debs of Bletchley Park by Michael Smith is published in paperback by Aurum, priced £9.99