THE enigma of working at Station X is recalled by codebreaker Betty Wilkes.

Betty spent the first part of the war helping the Red Cross pick up the injured in the London Blitz.

But the petty officer in the Wrens was then attached to Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire - or Station X as it was known.

There she was one of "Churchill's Chickens" helping to crack the formidable German Enigma codes at one of Britain's best-kept secrets.

"Our parents did not know where we were, they had to write to a box number," said 79-year-old Betty of Bewdley.

"There was the most enormous collection of different people there to break the German code.

"We all pulled together and did not say a word about what we were doing."

Betty looks back with great pride on the effect that breaking the codes caused.

She said: "It meant our soldiers and sailors were being saved from the submarines. We took possession of the sea again."

Towards the end of the war she returned to London to help new recruits in the Wrens settle into military ways.

But she was called back to Bletchley Park to take part in the vital task of deciphering the Japanese codes.

She said: "At the end of that I was at a party at Woburn Abbey. I was having a wonderful time when someone said we must listen to the radio.

"We discovered the war was over so we all piled into transports and got to London where we celebrated the end of the war."