Bletchley Park
Du Boisson joined theCareer
To perform the data analysis well, "Du Boisson and other operators in Wrens needed to first get the data from a partially electronic machine named Heath Robinson. If it could perform its analysis successfully, the resulting data would be run through the Tunny machine." Most of the workers were between 20 and 22 years of age. They attended training sessions to get more familiar with the machines, how they operate and the maintenance procedures. The working shifts could last up to 70 hours per week because many machines kept running all the time and there were few people who knew how to operate them. It was necessary for those people to work three eight-hour shifts every day for several weeks. Moreover, due to this stressful workload, many errors in the operations started to appear. Due to limitations in the machines, when a mistake was found, in many cases, it was necessary to redo the work all over again.Living and working conditions
Workers had to perform a series of strict jobs within a tight schedule. Due to restrictions on outside policies, workers had to spend most of the time locked in rooms without proper ventilation and luminosity. Moreover, many employees even lived there, usually in attics that were not actually prepared. "The attic was cold and very damp," and they had to "put newspapers in the bed to keep warm." The poor conditions of the buildings and the machinery with lots of electrical cables also were not a good combination, since it was common to have fires. Also, the food was not good and the water that was sometimes contaminated. "We suffered from exhaust and malnutrition".Results
Employees at Bletchley Park did not know what they were doing and how their work was going to be used. They were expected to simply follow orders given by their superiors and were prohibited from asking questions or making comments about their work. Like other members of Wrens, Du Boisson knew little of Bletchley's successes on the codebreaking. They got some information about what they had been doing once a month. They were also responsible for collecting information for the war. "Every German officer had a card and each time his name appeared in the message, all the details were noted. Once, we were told, a senior German officer has sent a coded message asking for the luggage of his mistress to be forwarded. Our people were delighted to read it since his regiment had not been heard of for several months."Contribution
The engineer who designed and constructed the prototype Colossus, Thomas Flowers, said "Bletchley Park changed the course of history and the praise that the cryptanalysts have received is well merited, but nothing has ever been said about the many people who worked like slaves for over a year to create Colossus and get it into service by D-day". Indeed, without the hard work of Du Boisson and other Wren girls, Colossus would not have been able to function well. The fact that the first fully satisfactory Colossus was put into service before D-day was no coincidence. They worked flat out for four months and met the deadline. The decoding at Bletchley Park did ensure that the Germans could not get there at the time that the American troops were landing. Eisenhower stated that without the information Bletchley had applied, the war would have gone on for at least two years longer than it did.Death
Du Boisson suffered an infection and died in hospital on 2 February 2013.References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Du Boisson, Dorothy 1919 births 2013 deaths Members of the Order of the British Empire Women's Royal Naval Service ratings Bletchley Park people British cryptographers Bletchley Park women Women's Royal Naval Service personnel of World War II Civil servants in the Air Ministry Civil servants in the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)