VE Day at Hut 6, Bletchley Park

Pamela Downing served in Hut 6 at Bletchley Park as a civilian from 13 Oct 1941 to 29 Aug 1945. Hut 6 was at the heart of German Army and Air Force Intelligence Code Breaking. She was engaged with a team working round the clock in an intense environment repeatedly processing and entering coded messages directly into Enigma/Typex machines.

We have three photographs of her and her colleagues from Hut 6 (and a few from Hut 3) celebrating VE Day. These are rare examples of the very few taken at Bletchley throughout the period.

Photo 1. VE Day Celebration, Hut 6, Bletchley Park, 1945. Pamela Downing is fifth from the left

Photo 1. VE Day Celebration, Hut 6, Bletchley Park, 1945. Pamela Downing is fifth from the left

Photo 1. Names on the back are in Pamela's handwriting

Photo 1. Names on the back are in Pamela’s handwriting

Photo 1 (above) and 2 (below) are two almost identical shots of the same group of people. Here is a list of names written by Pamela on the back of each of them:

Standing (LR):
– , Elizabeth Granger, – , Jane Morris, “me” (Pamela Downing), Bob Roseveare, – , Mr Fletcher (Harold Fletcher gave Induction Talk to Pam on her first day 13 Oct 1941), George Davies, Asa Briggs, Carol Bruce, Pam Bevington, Jessie Proctor, Sheila Dunlop, Joan Proctor, John Manisty, Honor Pass, Daisy Genge, Audrey Cocking, Gwen Thomas, Margaret Queening, Hope Wallace, –

Seated (LR):
Ione Jay, Mary Smith, Maureen Gentry-Kewley, “Little Elf (Webster)“, Peggy Rollings-Smith, Paul Coles, John Monroe, Mary Groves, Edward Rushwell

Photo 2. VE Day Celebration, Hut 6, Bletchley Park, 1945. Pamela Downing is fifth from the left

Photo 2. VE Day Celebration, Hut 6, Bletchley Park, 1945. Pamela Downing is fifth from the left

Photo 2 (reverse side). Names are in Pamela's handwriting

Photo 2. Names on the back are in Pamela’s handwriting

Photo 3. VE Day Celebration, Hut 6, Bletchley Park, 1945

Photo 3. VE Day Celebration, Hut 6, Bletchley Park, 1945

Photo 3. Names on the back are in Pamela's handwriting

Photo 3 (reverse side). Names are in Pamela’s handwriting

Photo 3 (above) is of a different group (with exception of Mary Smith) but taken on the same occasion.

Standing (LR):
Michael Banister, “Lou” (Louis Smadbeck), Rachel Banister, “Hank” (John Harold Hancock), – , Arthur Read, John Fletcher, Helen McCreath, Arthur Levenson, – , Gwyn Evans, Arthur Lewis, ‘”Jim” (?), Douglas Nicoll, Penny Storey, Daphne Hinton, Pat & John Hyman, “Mac” (Malcolm Alfred Chamberlain), Dennis Babbage, Katheleen & Reg Parker, John Evans, Bill Bijur, John Hamilton, Lucienne Hermelin, Howard Smith

Seated (LR):
Eileen Hollington, “Jim” (?), “Charles” (?), Richard Pendered, George Hurley, Stella & Nigel Forward, Mary Smith

A few names, mainly of “uniformed” staff, are missing among those noted by Pamela.

Photo 2 with names, subsequently appeared in ‘The Enigma Symposium’ by Hugh Skillen (1994), together with another version of Photo 3. A fuller list of names is also reproduced in Station X: The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park  by Michael Smith (1998).

Also there are a large number of people from Hut 6 missing on these photographs, as they were presumably on a different shift. Many of them attended the first Hut 6 reunion on 9 May 1981.

The correspondence around reunions in the 1980’s and 1990’s, including some liaison with Hugh Skillen, have survived in our archive.

Sources and Notes

  • Hugh Skillen: The Enigma Symposium 1994. ISBN 0951519050
  • The World War 1 career of Pamela Downing’s mother, Molly Evans is recorded extensively on this site. Because of Official secrecy Molly who died in 1974 never knew any details of her daughter’s World War 2 career.