Pamela Mary Pigeon (15 September 1918 – 6 June 2009), a New Zealand-British cryptographer, was the first female commander in Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).[1][2]
Biography
editPigeon's father, Hugh Walter Pigeon, was an English-born surgeon who migrated between England, Wellington, New Zealand, and the Chatham Islands for many years before settling in Wellington. Her mother, Fanny Hensel Parker, was the daughter of the organist at Wellington's Anglican cathedral. Her older sister, Elizabeth, was born in 1906.[2] Pamela grew up in Wellington, where she was educated at Chilton House,[2] a private girls' day school,[3] and Queen Margaret College. At the latter, she won awards for language and speech writing.[1]
It's not known when she emigrated to Britain, although she was an undergraduate in Eton in 1939.[4] However, during World War II she worked as part of a secret intelligence unit located in Marston Montgomery, a remote base in Derbyshire set up in 1941 as an outpost of RAF Cheadle. In c. 1943, she became the leader of a team of linguists who listened in on shortwave German naval and air force radio broadcasts to decode information on troop movements.[1] The team also worked "fingerprinting individual German radios," identifying them through the fact that "each crystal at the heart of a radio oscillated slightly differently."[5] Their work helped to sink the Bismarck, a crucial German battleship.[1] GCHQ historian Tony Comer identifies this as a key moment in the war.[6]
Pigeon married Clifford Lionel Wale in 1948,[7] the couple had three children and both worked as teachers. Clifford died in 1979.[8]
Pigeon died on 6 June 2009, aged 91.[9]
References
edit- ^ a b c d Brunskill, Daniel; Bayer, Kurt (3 November 2019). "Pamela Pigeon: The Kiwi who became the UK's first female spy commander". NZ Herald. Retrieved 3 November 2019.
- ^ a b c White, Tina (9 November 2019). "The secret life of a Kiwi wartime code-cracker". Stuff. Retrieved 17 August 2021.
- ^ "Chilton St James School : School records". National Library of New Zealand. Retrieved 18 August 2021.
- ^ "1939 England and Wales Register". Ancestry. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
- ^ Sabbath, Dan (1 November 2019). "GCHQ marks 100 years by unveiling details of wartime spy work". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 November 2019.
- ^ "At last, GCHQ reveals the secret wartime history of homes, farms and sheds".
- ^ "Marriage registration". FreeBMD. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
- ^ "Death registration for Clifford Wale". FreeBMD. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
- ^ "England and Wales, Death Index, 1989-2021". Ancestry. Retrieved 10 December 2022.