Legendary British Codebreaker Passes Away, Helped End World War II Two Years Early

Focus on British immigration and listen toBritish stories: According to a report from the Daily Mail on March 27, during World War II, to decipher the top codes of Nazi Germany—the "Fish Code," the British government established a listening station and a four-person decoding team at the Bletchley Park intelligence center. Due to the outstanding contributions of this decoding team, the UK was able to effectively monitor the movements of the Nazi military and even intercepted communications between Hitler and his senior commanders, thereby completely turning the tide of the war. As a result, World War II was shortened by at least two years, saving countless lives from devastation. On March 25, the last member of that decoding team, Captain Raymond Roberts, passed away at the age of 93.

 

 

In 1941, at the age of 21, Raymond Roberts, a student at University College London, joined the British intelligence decoding center at Bletchley Park as a German language expert upon the recommendation of his tutor due to his proficiency in German and French.

At that time, an intelligence expert named Alastair Turing led a decoding team of four called the "Turing Group," of which Roberts was one of the four founding members, code-named “Jerry.” Later, the number of team members expanded to nine, with related personnel totaling 118, and the entire team operated in three shifts. Through many years of tireless efforts, Roberts became a milestone figure in the world of World War II codebreaking. On one occasion, Roberts even fortuitously intercepted a communication between Nazi German Führer Hitler and several of his senior commanders. Roberts recalled: “This was a milestone moment in my career.”

After World War II, Captain Roberts joined the British War Crimes Investigation Unit, after which he transitioned into the field of marketing research, establishing his own marketing research company, which he ran for 50 years. Roberts was fluent in German, French, and Spanish, and fully applied his linguistic talents in his work.

In 2013, to honor Captain Raymond Roberts for his extraordinary and significant decoding work during World War II, Queen Elizabeth personally presented him with the MBE medal at Buckingham Palace. Additionally, the British government specially issued a set of commemorative stamps in the name of Roberts. Roberts proudly told the BBC: “This is gold dust in the intelligence world, absolutely top-tier work. (We deciphered) enemy movements, not just a few divisions or regiments, but the entire army.”