Ruth Baron, a Jewish woman who served in the British military during World War II and helped crack the Nazi Enigma code, has died at the age of 99.
Born in Manchester in 1926 and raised in Birmingham, Baron joined the Royal Navy in 1944. After training in Scotland, she was assigned to what she was told were “special duties.” The work, she was warned, would be secret, demanding and offer no promotion, and once assigned, she would not be allowed to leave. She agreed, signed the Official Secrets Act and was informed she would be involved in breaking German codes.
Baron worked under intense pressure and was required to maintain absolute precision. She operated on eight hour shifts around the clock and was among those who ran the Bombe machine, developed by Alan Turing to crack Nazi Enigma communications. Decoded messages were then passed on to intelligence officers, who determined how the information would be used.
At the time, Baron had no idea of the impact of her work. Bound by secrecy, she later said, “I only knew my part.”
In 2009, the British government formally recognized Baron with a commemorative badge inscribed with the words, “We also served.” In 2018, France awarded her its highest military honor, the Legion of Honor.
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A Nazi Enigma machine discovered in the Baltic Sea
(Photo: AFP, WWF / SUBMARIS / Florian Huber)
Her granddaughter told the BBC, “My grandmother was a brilliant spark, intelligent, creative and witty. She was always happy to share her story and volunteered for decades as a guide at Bletchley Park. She will be deeply missed by all of us.”
British intelligence devoted enormous resources to cracking the Enigma machine used by Nazi Germany. As the machines became increasingly complex, Turing and his team at Bletchley Park developed new methods and more advanced versions of the Bombe, breakthroughs that later helped lay the foundations for modern computing.