Teen Codebreaker Mavis Batey: Cracking Italy’s Enigma & Altering WWII 🇮🇹

486. The teenage code breaker who deciphered enemy messages in WWII Mavis Batey's breakthrough on the Italian Enigma code was so critical to the Allied victory at the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941 that Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, the fleet's commander, personally visited Bletchley Park to thank her and her supervisor. Her success was a testament to the vital, yet often overlooked, contributions of the many young women who worked as codebreakers and signals intelligence analysts during WWII. Figures like Batey and Patricia Davies, who joined the Women's Royal Naval Service at 18, were instrumental in deciphering enemy communications, frequently overshadowed in popular history by male counterparts like Alan Turing. Their work, however, was equally essential to the war effort.