Darwen code breaker calls for unsung heroes to be recognised (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Darwen code breaker calls for unsung heroes to be recognised

3:00pm Thursday 29th December 2011 in Looking Back

SECRET AGENT Sigrid who worked undercover in Norway

A SECOND World War code breaker is calling for unsung heroes who shipped vital supplies from the UK to the Soviet Union to be given official recognition.

Sigrid Green, 91, known as Gusta to her friends, said she is haunted by an image of a group of dead British merchant sailors who sailed on the Arctic Convoys.

Sigrid, who speaks fluent Norwegian, was secretly landed in Nazi-occupied Norway for a few months in 1943 as part of the resistance to gather intelligence about the movements, tactics and strategic operations of German and Norwegian traitor vessels.

During 1941 and 1945 around 1,400 UK and US merchant ships travelled across the Arctic to deliver supplies including arms and food to ports in the Soviet Union to aid efforts to defeat Nazi Germany.

These ships were torpedoed by Germany and its allies and more than 3,000 sailors died.

The former Darwen Grammar School girl, whose mother was Norwegian, operated under the codename Nora and would feed her intelligence back to MI6.

Sigrid, who believes she was the only British woman in Norway at the time, said the sailors who died as well as those who survived the journeys should be remembered alongside soldiers who also died in the war.

Sigrid, of Darwen, said: “I was looking through a window in Haugesund and I saw a crowd and I was seeing what was going on.

“Then I saw a German ship towing a lifeboat which turned out to be British.

“In that boat there were 10 to 12 men who were literally frozen stiff, they had frozen to death.

“It took me a few moments to realise what it was, then it dawned on me.

“This has haunted me ever since and will haunt me until the day I die.

“The merchant sailors on the Arctic Convoys knew what they were doing when they signed up, they didn’t have a chance against the torpedoed.

“I think there should be a memorial for them. I don’t know where. There should be some kind of recognition for them from the government.”

As well as the secret missions to Norway to infiltrate German sea patrols, Sigrid worked for three years at Bletchley Park, near Milton Keynes, home of the Enigma decoder.