Pam Harding, Y-Service Wren who transcribed German Morse and voice messages for Bletchley

Third Officer Pam Harding, one of the esteemed "Freddie's Fairies," a select group of Wrens, played a crucial role in World War II by intercepting and transcribing German wireless communications, which were then relayed to Bletchley Park. Born Peggy Alexander Mackan in Bristol on April 2, 1922, she was the daughter of a solicitor and received a strong education at Clifton High School followed by studies in German and French at Bristol University. Despite her parents' initial reservations about her joining the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS), feeling it was a misuse of her education, Pam was determined. In January 1943, she convinced them and underwent three weeks of basic training in London before being assigned to domestic duties in Southend-on-Sea.

Her path soon led her to the secret Royal Navy Training Establishment at Southmead in Wimbledon. There, she encountered Freddie Marshall and was initiated into the Y-Service, the codename for a global network of wireless intercept stations. The naval branch of this service was largely operated by an elite cadre of approximately 400 Wrens who proudly identified as "Freddie's Fairies." At Southmead, Pam honed her skills in intercepting and transcribing German tactical voice communications on VHF radio. Her dedication led to a promotion to Petty Officer Wren, and her first posting was to Withernsea on the Yorkshire coast. At St Leonard’s, a commandeered seafront pub, a small team of Wrens, supervised by a charge hand named Mr Mason, worked from a tiny attic room overlooking the North Sea, deciphering German shore station messages often encoded in three-letter "Q-codes." The Wrens themselves figured out these codes, and at the end of each watch, all intercepted messages were transmitted via teleprinter to Station X. Her initials in the logs, "PAM," became her enduring nickname. Pam never knew the location of Station X until years later, when she discovered it was the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park.

In her free time, Pam learned Morse code from Mr Mason and subsequently returned to Southmead to qualify as a Chief Wren (Special Duties), capable of receiving Morse at an impressive 25 words per minute, a feat she described as "the hardest work I've ever done," a skill she retained even in old age. Her next assignment was to Abbot’s Cliff on the Kent coast, the largest naval Y-station in Britain. There, Wrens would take turns in a remote direction-finding tower at night, their only link to the outside world being a telephone. Pam's role involved taking bearings of enemy transmissions and reporting them. Although trained in using Sten guns, the women did not carry arms during their solitary watches. Occasionally, if another Y-station had relevant bearings, a telephone conversation would precede the sound of gunfire at sea.

Pam's service certificate

For leisure, Pam would climb down the cliffs to swim, although the sight of a convoy often filled her with dread, as it usually preceded German shelling from long-range guns, with some shells even landing on the beach. She also witnessed doodlebugs flying towards London and once saw one shot down by an RAF fighter. On D-Day in 1944, the watch room at Abbot’s Cliff was filled with senior naval officers. Pam remembered looking across the English Channel towards the Continent, where her fiancé, Geoffrey Harding, was a prisoner of war after being captured in North Africa. "We are coming to get you," she thought, a reunion that would occur in May 1945. A few days later, she observed what appeared to be enormous, upside-down billiards tables being towed along the coast, later learning they were mulberries, components of the artificial harbours used in the Normandy landings.

When Abbot’s Cliff closed, Pam was offered positions in the Far East or an immediate commission as a cipher officer. However, she chose to advance in her specialization and was assigned to work for US intelligence at Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) in Bushy Park, near Hampton Court. There, she contributed to creating lists of locations the Allies should avoid bombing due to their potential post-war value. She moved with SHAEF to Versailles and then to Frankfurt am Main in the American sector of Germany, where she translated captured documents. In July 1945, she was promoted to Third Officer WRNS while seconded as an interpreter to the British military government in Hanover.

Demobilized in September 1946, Pam married Geoffrey Harding, a chartered accountant, in December of the same year. They settled in Bristol, but Pam found that her unique wartime skills – fluent German and French, Morse code proficiency, and radio operation – were not in high demand. Like many of her generation, Pam Harding remained silent about her wartime experiences for many years. She was dismayed when the secrets of Bletchley Park were revealed in the 1970s, and it wasn't until the 1990s that she and other "Freddie's Fairies" began to reconnect at reunions. Later in life, she became a member of Blind Veterans UK and resided in Torquay, not far from the former wartime naval Y-station overlooking Torbay.

She passed away on April 3, 2025, the day after her 103rd birthday.