Colette Cook tells of her work at Bletchley Park operating the Bombe machines whose function was to find the daily key settings of the Enigma machines used by the Germans during WWII to transmit encrypted messages.

Colette joined the WRNS (Wrens) as soon as she was able, and following a period of basic training, applied for a mysterious posting ‘P5’. It transpired that this was shorthand for HMS Pembroke V, a cover term for WRNS being posted to Eastcote (an outstation of Bletchley) to train as Bombe operators. In this engaging interview, Colette explains how, after signing the Official Secrets Act, she learned to load the bombe with the coloured wheels and then set about the difficult job of plugging up the back as directed by a ‘menu’.

She describes the work as monotonous, physically demanding, and very noisy, but her and her colleagues ‘just grinded away’. She tells of a sense of urgency, but stresses it was not panic, and a realisation that what they were doing was important.

Reflecting on her time at Bletchley, Colette says that whilst ‘it all seems like a dream now’, she has an overarching feeling of pride in the part she played to crack the German cypher.