Margaret Cooper (WRNS officer)

Margaret Elizabeth Cooper (née Douglas; 25 January 1918 – 18 July 2016) was a member of the Women's Royal Naval Service during the Second World War who worked at the signal interception and deciphering centre at Bletchley Park, England.

Early life and education

Cooper was born Margaret Elizabeth Douglas in Punta del Este, Uruguay, on 25 January 1918. Her father, Jack Douglas, originally from Canada, owned a beach house across the River Plate from Argentina, where he owned a beef ranch. Her mother Vera was Anglo-Argentinian, and she had three siblings, Katherine, Evelyn and Sholto Douglas. She was educated at St Mary's School, Wantage, in England.

Career

Cooper joined the Women's Royal Naval Service ("Wrens") in September 1941. She was trained at Westfield College, London, and expected to become a cook but part way through her training a request was received, said to be from Winston Churchill himself, for volunteers to do unspecified secret work. Cooper and most of her class accepted and quickly found themselves at the signals interception and decoding base of Bletchley Park in central England and not the naval base they had expected.

At first she worked in Hut 11 on the bombes that decoded intercepted messages but in late 1942 she was moved to Stanmore where backup bombes were being set up as a precaution against the destruction of the originals by enemy bombing. She then became assistant to Frank Birch, head of the naval section in Hut 4, which was known as the "U-boat room".