One of the many Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS) personnel who worked for Bletchley Park at an off-site outstation, Ruth Bourne, who has died aged 99, joined the Wrens as an 18-year-old sixthformer on the outbreak of the Second World War. From a recruiting office in Birmingham, she was posted to the Tulliechewan Estate Royal Navy Camp near Loch Lomond, Scotland, for square bashing, floor scrubbing and formal training, as 78519 WRN R. Henry. Very little of the estate and buildings survive today.
Here she was categorised for special duties and told it would be secret work with no chance of promotion, long working hours, and once “in” she could not come “out”. Ruth agreed to this and was obliged to sign the Official Secrets Act, at which point she was told the work involved specifically the breaking of German codes. She was very briefly sent to Bletchley Park (BP), but permanently worked at a “Bombe” outstation of Bletchley Park at Lime Grove, Eastcote, in west London, code named HMS Pembroke V for the Wrens serving there, and later Stanmore. After the war Eastcote remained part of the MoD but was finally sold off and is now a housing estate called Pembroke Park in honour of its wartime use.
These outstations were also sites for Britain’s code-breakers during the war, in this case only staffed by Wrens, and Ruth lived on-site in custom-built barracks. Her role, with others, was to operate the Bombe machines. These electromechanical code-breaking machines were initially designed by Alan Turing to decipher the equivalent of 36 Enigma machines – sometimes in as little as 15 minutes – which the Germans used to send secret messages. These decrypts were then sent to Hut 6 at Bletchley for interpretation and onward despatch to leaders at the battlefronts.
The Wrens were not, themselves, code-breakers. They were technicians who did not know what was in the German messages that were decrypted and then sent to translators. Officials decided how the information should be used.
Ruth was a Bombe machine operator and checker responsible, with many others, for fixing the circuits and changing the drums on the Bombes, which mimicked the Enigma rotors. It was pressurised, demanding labour that required complete accuracy. Hundreds of Bombe operators worked eight-hour shifts, 24 hours a day. (Some Bombe machines were located in nearby outstations where Ruth was posted, as well as at Bletchley Park.)
As with most Jewish veterans, Ruth overheard quite a bit of antisemitism. Once, after returning from a social event at the Balfour Club and asked about the visit, two Wrens opined that “you would not have liked it; it was full of Jews.”
Overall there were about 8,000 people involved in code- breaking with 4,000 support staff. At the end of the war, Winston Churchill ordered that the Bombe machines be dismantled and Ruth found herself destroying the machines she had spent so long working with. It has been universally acknowledged that the intelligence produced at Bletchley Park shortened the war by two to four years. After decades of secrecy, the contribution of all those working there has now been publicised in my book, Jews at Bletchley Park.
Ruth Henry was born in Salford, Manchester to Dr Isaac Henry, formerly Isaacson, of Dublin and Sarah née Pollecoff, from North Wales. They were a Jewish family and Ruth remained true to her Jewish roots all her life. After some time in Birmingham the family evacuated to North Wales in 1939, where Ruth went to school till 1944 at Caernarvon County High. She studied French, German and Spanish at school and won a place to read languages at London University, but instead, joined the WRNS.
In December, 1946, Ruth was demobbed and married Stephen Bentall, formerly Blumental, a Czech who had served in the RAF during the war and was mentioned in despatches twice. The couple had two sons, John and David. Stephen predeceased her after 40 years of marriage. She changed her name to Bourne.
In civilian life, Ruth opened a launderette in north London, wryly commenting: “There I was sitting in front of 12 machines with the drums going round – it literally was a home from home”. In the 1960s she trained at London University as a special needs teacher, and as a bereavement and family counsellor in the Jewish community.
But Ruth never lost her connection with Bletchley Park and was a volunteer tour guide there for 24 years. She demonstrated a rebuilt Bombe machine to ever increasing visitors to the museum and met the late Queen in 2011 who came to unveil a long-overdue memorial. In 2009, the Government finally recognised the contribution made by Ruth and other BP veterans by presenting them with a commemorative badge engraved with the words: “We also Served”.
She was also awarded the Legion d’Honneur from France, and was interviewed on the BBC in 2019 at the Albert Hall British Legion commemorations. She was an Ajex member (Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women) and was in a previous parade advertisement campaign. She also appears in the book, Jews in Uniform by Michael Greisman, on the British Jewish contribution to the Second World War.
She once said: “A lot of people say if it wasn’t for Bletchley, we’d be speaking German. That’s possibly true. I’m proud to have been chosen to participate. It was quite a privilege, really.”
She gave talks on her wartime work at the Jewish Museum, on Saga cruises and for various charities. She donated her Wren cap several years ago to the Jewish Military Museum.
Her grandchild, Bee Bentall, said: “My grandmother was such a bright spark; intelligent, creative and witty. She was always delighted to give her time to educating others about her code-breaking contributions at RAF Eastcote. She lives on in books, in her pottery and in art and in our memories.”
Dan Fox of Ajex said of her: “Sometimes wars are won on battlefields, and sometimes far away from the frontlines.
“Women like Ruth Bourne applied their intelligence and persistence in anonymous huts, to decipher the Nazi enemy, saving countless lives and supporting operations that turned the tide of WWII towards allied victory. We owe them everything. They were also heroes.”
Ruth Bourne: born May 23 1926. Died December 17, 2025
To get more news, click here to sign up for our free daily newsletter.