Dorothy Du Boisson

Dorothy Du Boisson, MBE, (November 26, 1919 – February 1, 2013) was a codebreaker stationed at Bletchley Park during World War II.

Bletchley Park
Du Boisson joined the Women's Royal Naval Service (known as WRNS) in 1943 and was stationed at the Newmanry in Bletchley Park. Along with other WRNS, she operated codebreaking machines, including the Colossus computer. She began her work at Bletchley Park by operating the codebreaking machine, Heath Robinson, which was a predecessor to the Colossus machine. Later, Du Boisson operated the prototype Colossus as well as the Mark 2 Colossi. Her final job at the Newmanry was as a registrar in the Ops Room, where she tracked and distributed tapes of encrypted messages.

Du Boisson and her fellow WRNS operators intercepted encoded messages from Nazi leaders and entered them into codebreaking computers. Recalling her time at the Newmanry, she observed that her superiors stressed the importance of the messages they were receiving and that "speed was the essence" for decryption. She worked at Bletchley Park for two-and-a-half years, from 1943 until the end of the war.

After the war ended, Du Boisson worked as a typist in the Air Ministry.