AN MI6 radio operator who helped break the Enigma code during the Second World War is to be honoured for her work.

Mynne Boaz, of West Park in Selby, will receive her Bletchley Park Commemorative Badge on Sunday in honour of her work for the Secret Service.

Some of her work involved spotting the Enigma code – a German code which the enemy believed to be uncrackable.

Speaking on his wife’s behalf, husband Ken said his wife, who has had a stroke, had served as an intercept operator in the Auxiliary Territorial Service attached to the Royal Signals.

She trained as a special operator in the Y-Service – the branch of MI6 responsible for the interception and deciphering of enemy radio traffic.

Mr Boaz said: “Her specific job was searching radio wavelengths and spotting a message being transmitted – including messages being transmitted in the Enigma code.

“She would tune in, copy the message down as it was then transmitted and then her transcript would be sent to Bletchley Park for deciphering.”

Mrs Boaz, 86, was based at the former Forest Moor radio station near Menwith Hill, but was trained on the Isle Of Man.

Mr Boaz was a radio instructor during the war, but when it came to transmitting and listening to messages his wife was in a different league. While Mr Boaz could send a Morse code message of about 17 words in a minute, his wife was capable of going at twice that speed. She could also spot a message in a high-speed burst of dots and dashes which most people would hear as a buzz.

Volunteering for the ATS, Mrs Boaz went through a basic assessment where the instructors noticed her aptitude.

Mr Boaz said: “Apart from being able to read Morse at speed, they also had to be tremendously accurate, as a misread letter could make all the difference.”

Mrs Boaz and her colleagues were so skilled they could even tell when the same German radio operator was sending a message by the way they sent it, or their “fist”.

The enemy operators were given nicknames like Fritz or Adolf and analysts were then able to look back at previous messages the same operator had sent and work out where they were based or which regiment they were attached to.

The Bletchley Park Commemorative Badge will be presented to Mrs Boaz on Sunday by Brigadier (retired) Nigel Wood.

Another local woman received her Bletchley Park Commemorative Badge last month. José Camidge, who lives at Ivy Lodge retirement home in Haxby, worked as a shorthand typist at Bletchley Park.