Secret Duties of a Signals Interceptor: Working with Bletchley Park, the SDS and the OSS

by Jenny Nater

This WWII memoir recounts a woman’s experience translating top-secret German communications for British intelligence.Like many British women on the homefront of World War II, Jenny Nater discovered an unexpected way to put her talents to use. She served as a bilingual wireless operator in the top-secret Special Duties service at Dover, intercepting traffic from German surface craft in the English Channel and reporting it back to Bletchley Park. In this memoir, Nater discusses this important work, as well as the life-changing relationships she made in that time—most notably with a Coastal Force Command Lieutenant who would be tragically lost. She also describes working in Germany for America’s Office of Strategic Services (OSS). It was during this time that she met her husband, a Mosquito pilot and member of the Caterpillar Club whose spy missions over occupied Europe are also described here in full.This memoir add an important layer to our understanding of allied intelligence practices during this conflict. They also tell the story of one woman’s very private war, and the opportunities, sacrifices, and victories it encompassed.

343 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 30, 2016

Reviews

[Nightwitch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starts off slowly with Nater's family history and early childhood memories, and overall is hampered by scrupulous attention to accuracy - by which I mean that Nater, who was writing this in her nineties, is very reliant on letters and written records to tell her story, without much information about what else was going on at a particular time. When she meets Eric Cornish, her first great love, the book's contents are mostly Rick's letters to Jenny - what Jenny herself was doing or what her life was like is left unmentioned. After Cornish's ship is sunk and he disappears, the book is the letters Jenny wrote to him on an often-daily basis for the next two years, convinced that he would show up in a POW camp. Jenny's letters are wonderful - a record of her daily life as well as her emotional turmoil as she struggled with the idea of moving forward. There's very little information generally about the actual work Jenny was doing.

Once she finally came to accept that Cornish had died, the book returns to a surprisingly just-the-facts-ma'am recitation of what Jenny was doing. She meets an American soldier named Jean Nater; they develop a romance; she gets a horse; she's torn about moving forward. At the same time, it's a good while before we learn that Nater is still married (!) and, e.g., when introducing Nater to her mother shortly before the wedding they inform her that Jenny is pregnant - I was probably more shocked than Jenny's mother to hear that! And after all this Jean still had to head off to Reno to get his divorce - something which must have been stressful (right?) but the emotional impact isn't really discussed, although Jenny shares the letters she wrote to him at the time - when clearly she was under a massive amount of stress. But was she stressed about what she thought she was stressed about, or was she displacing other anxieties? That's not something the narrative explores or mentions.

[Fran Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jenny Nater served as a bilingual wireless operator, intercepting German messages from German boats and sending the information to Bletchley Park in England during WWII. She fell in love and became engaged to a Coastal Force Command Lt. who was lost at sea off the coast of Dover, England. She wrote many letters to him after he was lost, hoping that he had survived and was in a prisoner of war camp and she could share them with him after the war. Sadly, he remained missing in action. These letters are touching and help one feel the tremendous sadness so many families had to endure. She also worked for the American intelligence agency, the OSS. During this time she met her future husband, an OSS Officer. It is both a personal story of love and loss and love again, as well as the story of allied intelligence practices during WWII.