THE contribution of a young radio enthusiast to vital codebreaking intelligence work during the Second World War has been recognised decades after he was “demobbed”.
Duncan Walker, who was born in Wales and moved to Jersey after the War, recently celebrated his 100th birthday.
He was one of the group of codebreakers whose worked remained shrouded in secrecy for many years.
Having finally been released from the constraints of the Official Secrets Act, Mr Walker received a commemorative medal from UK Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010 and is shortly to have a brick installed in his name in the codebreakers wall at Bletchley Park, the headquarters for the Allied intelligence service between 1939 and 1946.
Mr Walker’s son Mike said that although his father had opted not to make the journey to Buckinghamshire in person, there was great pride among the family after relatives had belatedly learned the truth about what happened in the war.
“There was no parade after the War ended,” Mike said. “Dad was given a civilian suit, a Class A discharge and a stern order to ‘clear off and keep your mouth shut’, as Churchill had declared the entire operation was to be kept secret.”
Britain’s wartime Prime Minister has described the codebreakers and Bletchley Park and its sub radio stations, which included Arkley View in North London where Duncan was based, as “the geese that laid the golden eggs but never cackled”, reflecting the fact that the Nazis remained almost entirely unaware their codes had been broken.
Duncan Walker and his family were evacuated from their home in Cardiff during the early stages of the Second World War to a small coastal village in south-west Wales when he was 13. But by the age of 16 he had returned to Cardiff to enrol in the Marconi Wireless College.
Although he had originally hoped to join the Merchant Navy, the teenager’s plans changed abruptly when he impressed a visiting Army officer during a high-speed Morse Code test and was “invited” to travel to Arkley View for a one-day visit.
The promised return ticket to Wales never materialised and instead Duncan was enlisted into the Radio Security Service as an intercept operator.
Living in a loft room at Arkley View and working in an adjacent Nissen hut, the 17-year-old recruit transcribed real-time transmissions from British agents, French resistance fighters and German spies, with the fruits of his efforts whisked to the codebreakers at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, around 40 miles away.
Arguably the most renowned of the Radio Security Service personnel at Bletchley was Alan Turing, who was depicted by Benedict Cumberbatch in the 2014 film The Imitation Game, a film which Mike said his family had watched with great interest.
After making the move to Jersey in the 1960s with his first wife Betty and sons Nick – who died in 2021 – and Mike, Duncan Walker was involved in the installation of the TV transmitter at Fremont Point in St John and became a well-known figure in the Island’s sailing and golfing communities. However his wartime exploits remained unknown, even to his close family, until he received his medal at the age of 84.
Earlier this summer, a celebration was held for Mr Walker’s 100th birthday at Abbeyfield residential home in St Helier, with Jersey’s Lieutenant-Governor, Vice-Admiral Sir Jerry Kyd, among the attendees.
The efforts of the men and women who worked for the Radio Security Service are to be recognised later this month when a dedication will be made at Bletchley Park by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for Colossus, the pioneering computer developed between 1943 and 1945. Transcripts provided by Duncan were among the intelligence fed into Colossus, enhancing the Allied codebreaking efforts.
