Melbourn and District u3a

May 2023: This month’s invited speaker was Dr Helen Fry with a talk titled A very secret war: bugging the Nazis in WWII. Here’s a taster of what we learned: 

During WW2, British intelligence bugged the conversations of thousands of German prisoners-of-war at three stately houses: Latimer House and Wilton Park in Buckinghamshire, and Trent Park in North London. Hitler’s Generals, captured on the battlefields, were housed in luxurious conditions and lulled into a false sense of security. They relaxed and became unguarded in their conversations, little realising the house was ‘wired for sound’. They inadvertently gave away some of Hitler’s closely guarded secrets. For over 60 years the secret listeners never spoke about their work, not even to their families. They died, little knowing that they, alongside Bletchley Park, not only shortened the war but helped toward the victory on VE Day.

Historian Dr Helen Fry has written books on espionage and the Second World War. Her latest book is Women in Intelligence: The Hidden History of Two World War. She wrote the bestsellers Spymaster: The man who saved MI6 - The Walls have Ears - MI9 the British Secret Service and The London Cage (about a secret interrogation centre in WWII). Helen appears in TV documentaries. She is an ambassador for the National Centre for Military Intelligence. See Helen Fry - website.

The meeting was also broadcast via Zoom. We respect that our speaker’s almost always don’t want us to record their talks. In the past a few speakers encouraged us to record them but rarely do they today.