2nd Officer. Judith Grace Fiddian
Women's Royal Naval Service Naval Section Bletchley Park
from:Ashton-under-Lyne
We know that Judy Fiddian, had obtained a degree in Modern Languages (though we don't know where) and assuming she went to university at the age of 18 she would have gone in 1938 as she was born in December 1919. So we might suppose that she would not have got her degree until 1941, but this is quite reasonable as I don't believe she joined the WRNS until that year as a Petty Officer. She left university fluent in at least French and German but I'm not sure if this was at first recognised as of any great value. This might suggest she had not gone to Cambridge as this was a major recruitment source for Bletchley Park. So, I think it more likely that she joined as a senior non-commissioned officer in 1941 and it was only the following year that her superiors began to see a role for her in intelligence.
It is not known where Judy first served but in September 1942 she was based at HMS Beaver, a shore base at Immingham in Lincolnshire on the south of the Humber estuary from which Coastal Forces operated Motor Launches for harbour defence and submarine chasing. At some point after this I believe she was seconded either to work at Bletchley Park (known as Station X) or one of the Y Stations. The latter were British signal intelligence sites based around Britain and overseas, first used in WW1 that could either intercept signals or identify their source. Since Judy had been promoted to 3rd Officer from 27 September 1942, a commissioned officer of the rank of sub-lieutenant, she would be in charge of a group of Wrens so I think she would have been trained at Bletchley Park initially. But by early 1943 I believe she was working at one of the Y-listening Stations at Withernsea, north of the Humber on the East Yorkshire coast.
Based on the account given in The Bletchley Girls published in 2015 Judy was an officer in charge of about 12 girls posted there as special duties linguists who listened in to German naval communications. According to Pat, one of the Wrens and a Petty Officer, the girls would twiddle the knob of their radio receiver until they picked up a signal from a German ship. When this happened, the officer in charge (Judy) would have to be fetched if she wasn't in the watch room in case it was significant. The listener would take down the enemy message and a copy would be sent to Station X by teleprinter and they would be phoned to say it was on the way.
Judy was quite stern at times, carrying the weight of responsibility for her girls, but she also had a fun side. On 6 November 1943 Judy was promoted to 2nd Officer, equivalent to a Lieutenant and may have spent time back at Bletchley Park.
She was, of course, in the Naval Section and they operated out of Block A, known as Naval Intelligence. It was this section that produced the intelligence reports from German Navy Enigma Signals which were decrypted by Hut 8, but they also decrypted and produced reports from non-Enigma naval ciphers. Judy is listed in the Roll of Honour of all those who worked in signal intelligence during WW2 at Bletchley Park (known as BP to the staff) and at other locations. A Certificate of Service for her is presented below. Later in the war, during 1944 and 1945 she was based at another Y-listening Station known as HMS Lanka. This was another shore base, but in Colombo on what was then Ceylon and this may have been her final posting during the war.
My siblings have collectively provided some additional information. Although none of us were aware of her involvement with Bletchley Park specifically, it was known that she had worked in intelligence. Also because of her language skills she spent time just after the war in Paris and then Berlin but whether this was acting merely as a translator or continuing in intelligence we do not know. My cousin told me that she spoke French like a native so she was obviously very fluent. We are all very proud of Auntie Judy and the part she played during WW2 and so have arranged for her to be commemorated on The Codebreakers Wall at Bletchley Park.
