Pamela Pigeon

Last updated • 1 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

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

Pigeon'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 around 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]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ECHELON</span> Signals intelligence collection and analysis network

ECHELON, originally a secret government code name, is a surveillance program operated by the five signatory states to the UKUSA Security Agreement: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, also known as the Five Eyes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GCHQ</span> British signals intelligence agency

Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Primarily based at "The Doughnut" in the suburbs of Cheltenham, GCHQ is the responsibility of the country's Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, but it is not a part of the Foreign Office and its Director ranks as a Permanent Secretary.

Wanda Ventham is an English actress with many roles on British television since beginning her career in the 1950s. She played Colonel Virginia Lake in the 1970s science-fiction television series UFO and had a recurring role as Cassandra Trotter's mother Pamela Parry in the sitcom Only Fools and Horses between 1989 and 1992. Her many other television appearances include The Sweeney, The Avengers, The Saint, Doctor Who, The Gentle Touch, Heartbeat and Holby City, and she appeared in two Carry On films.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hillside Engineering</span>

Hillside Engineering Group is a trading division of the rail operator KiwiRail in Dunedin, New Zealand. Most of its work is related to KiwiRail, but it also does work for the marine industry in Dunedin. On 19 April 2012 KiwiRail announced it was putting Hillside on the market for sale. In November 2012 KiwiRail announced it had sold part of the business to Australian firm Bradken, and the rest would be closed. The workshops continued to be used for some maintenance work by Kiwirail with a skeleton staff. In October 2019, the New Zealand Government announced that it would be investing NZ$20 million into revitalising Hillside Engineering as a major mechanical hub and engineering facility to service Kiwi Rail's locomotives and rollingstock.

John Henry Owen Brown DCM was a Quartermaster Sergeant in the Royal Artillery in the British Army, who served in France at the beginning of the Second World War. He was one of Britain's most successful espionage agents as a prisoner of war following his capture by German forces, and, following the war's conclusion, acted as a prosecution witness in trials for treason.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Five Eyes</span> Intelligence alliance (AU/CA/NZ/UK/US)

The Five Eyes (FVEY) is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These countries are parties to the multilateral UKUSA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence. Informally, Five Eyes can also refer to the group of intelligence agencies by these countries.

KiwiRail Holdings Limited is a New Zealand state-owned enterprise responsible for rail operations in New Zealand, and operates inter-island ferries. Trading as KiwiRail and headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand, KiwiRail is the largest rail transport operator in New Zealand. KiwiRail has business units of KiwiRail Freight, Great Journeys New Zealand and Interislander. KiwiRail released a 10-Year Turn-around Plan in 2010 and has received significant government investment in support of this in an effort to make KiwiRail a viable long-term transport operator.

The National Pigeon Service (NPS) was a volunteer civilian organization formed in Britain in 1938 as result of representations made to the Committee of Imperial Defence and the British Government by Major W. H. Osman. During 1939-45 over 200,000 young pigeons were given to the services by the British pigeon breeders of the NPS. The birds were used by the Royal Air Force and the Army and Intelligence Services, Special Section of the Army Pigeon Service. During three and a half years of World War II, 16,554 war pigeons were parachuted onto the continent. One of these was Commando, a red chequer cock bird that became a recipient of the Dickin Medal. Many other NPS pigeons also received the Dickin Medal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karyn Hay</span> New Zealand broadcaster

Karyn Hay is a New Zealand author and broadcaster. She came to fame as the presenter of 1980s music TV show Radio with Pictures before going on to an extensive career in television and radio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ursula Kuczynski</span> German spy and author (1907-2000)

Ursula Kuczynski, also known as Ruth Werner, Ursula Beurton and Ursula Hamburger, was a German Communist activist who spied for the Soviet Union during the 1930s and 1940s, most famously as the handler of nuclear scientist Klaus Fuchs. She moved to East Germany in 1950 when Fuchs was unmasked, and published a series of books related to her espionage activities, including her bestselling autobiography, Sonjas Rapport.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MI6</span> British foreign intelligence agency

The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6, is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligence in support of the UK's national security. SIS is one of the British intelligence agencies and the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service ("C") is directly accountable to the Foreign Secretary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joan Clarke</span> English cryptanalyst

Joan Elisabeth Lowther Murray, MBE was an English cryptanalyst and numismatist best known for her work as a code-breaker at Bletchley Park during the Second World War. Although she did not personally seek the spotlight, her role in the Enigma project that decrypted Nazi Germany's secret communications earned her awards and citations, such as appointment as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), in 1946.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Global surveillance disclosures (2013–present)</span> Disclosures of NSA and related global espionage

Ongoing news reports in the international media have revealed operational details about the Anglophone cryptographic agencies' global surveillance of both foreign and domestic nationals. The reports mostly emanate from a cache of top secret documents leaked by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, which he obtained whilst working for Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the largest contractors for defense and intelligence in the United States. In addition to a trove of U.S. federal documents, Snowden's cache reportedly contains thousands of Australian, British, Canadian and New Zealand intelligence files that he had accessed via the exclusive "Five Eyes" network. In June 2013, the first of Snowden's documents were published simultaneously by The Washington Post and The Guardian, attracting considerable public attention. The disclosure continued throughout 2013, and a small portion of the estimated full cache of documents was later published by other media outlets worldwide, most notably The New York Times, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Der Spiegel (Germany), O Globo (Brazil), Le Monde (France), L'espresso (Italy), NRC Handelsblad, Dagbladet (Norway), El País (Spain), and Sveriges Television (Sweden).

The Government of the United Kingdom maintains intelligence agencies within three government departments, the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence. These agencies are responsible for collecting and analysing foreign and domestic intelligence, providing military intelligence, and performing espionage and counter-espionage. Their intelligence assessments contribute to the conduct of the foreign relations of the United Kingdom, maintaining the national security of the United Kingdom, military planning and law enforcement in the United Kingdom. The four main agencies are the Secret Intelligence Service, the Security Service (MI5), the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and Defence Intelligence (DI).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Janet Holmes (linguist)</span> New Zealand sociolinguist

Janet Holmes is a New Zealand sociolinguist. Her research interests include language and gender, language in the workplace, and New Zealand English.

Sir Jeremy Ian Fleming is the Director of the Government Communications Headquarters, the UK's intelligence, cyber and security agency. He was appointed in 2017 and is the 16th person to hold the role.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palmer Street</span> Street in London, United Kingdom

Palmer Street is a street in the City of Westminster in London that runs between Petty France in the north and Victoria Street in the south. It is crossed by Caxton Street and Butler Place. The lower half of Palmer Street, below Caxton Street, is pedestrianised.

Pamela Betty McGeorge BEM was a Women's Royal Naval Service motorcycle dispatch rider during World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eileen Rose (artist)</span> New Zealand artist, designer and teacher (1909-2003)

Eileen Knox O'Malley was a New Zealand art teacher and artist. Some of her design work is held in the Auckland War Memorial Museum.

Adrienne Marie Chilton was a New Zealand broadcaster, historian, musicologist and writer. Her works focused on biographies, cricket, music, popular culture and social commentary. She was a professor of general musicalship and musical history at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for 18 years. Simpson regularly broadcast for the BBC and Radio New Zealand and was a research fellow at both the National Library of New Zealand and her first alma mater, the Victoria University of Wellington.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 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.
  2. 1 2 3 White, Tina (9 November 2019). "The secret life of a Kiwi wartime code-cracker". Stuff. Retrieved 17 August 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. ↑ "Chilton St James School : School records". National Library of New Zealand. Retrieved 18 August 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. ↑ "1939 England and Wales Register". Ancestry. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
  5. ↑ Sabbath, Dan (1 November 2019). "GCHQ marks 100 years by unveiling details of wartime spy work". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 November 2019.
  6. ↑ "At last, GCHQ reveals the secret wartime history of homes, farms and sheds".
  7. ↑ "Marriage registration". FreeBMD. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
  8. ↑ "Death registration for Clifford Wale". FreeBMD. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
  9. ↑ "England and Wales, Death Index, 1989-2021". Ancestry. Retrieved 10 December 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.