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EA3. Glen Aiken Johnston
Royal Canadian Navy HMCS Avalon
My father, Glen Johnston served in HMCS Brandon and at HMCS Avalon where he maintained the German Enigma cypher machine. Dad was part of the Royal Canadian Navy's 8-man,Intrepid team which obtained a working, 4-rotor, German, Enigma, cypher machine without the Nazi's knowledge. This enabled the Allied forces to read coded German messages in the last year or so of the war. As the mission was top secret, Dad received no recognition for his role. A made-for-TV movie of this operation was produced by Warner Brothers, A Man Called Intrepid, starring David Niven, Michael York and Barbara Hershey. It wasn't until the end of the show on TV that I found out about Dad's part. When the so-called Enigma cypher machine was shown Dad blurted out, "That's not the right machine!" He then added that it was the old 3-rotor model. The one that they had captured was the new 4-rotor machine. He then proceeded to rattle off the model number and various specifications. I was dumbfounded. He said that he had been sworn to secrecy, but as they had made a movie about it, it wasn't much of a secret any more. I gained a whole lot of new respect for my father on that day.
