The woman who helped protect the White Cliffs

Thought to be the last of the Wrens trained to eavesdrop on German naval communications during the Second World War, Pat Owtram recalls a remarkable life as she celebrates her 103rd birthday

- Simon Robinson

PATRICIA Owtram is 103 today and remains one of the most interesting, intelligent and remarkable people you could ever hope to meet.

It’s very easy to see the young woman she once was — determined, witty, courageous, fiercely intelligent and quietly modest about a very interesting life that helped shape history.

Pat is believed to be the last surviving member of an elite group of 400 young women in the Women’s Royal Naval Service.

They spoke German and were recruited as Special Duties Linguists in the secret Naval Y Service during the Second World War.

For decades, she could tell nobody what she had done. Like so many of her generation, she simply got on with life.

In 1941, while much of Britain lived under the shadow of invasion, the young Lancashire-born woman left the comfort of home and headed towards danger.

Writing to her mother at the height of the Blitz and with a German invasion thought to be imminent, she explained why she wanted to remain in London: “I would hate to run away while everyone else stayed put... all my life I should feel I had run away from it.”

Aged 18, Pat volunteered for the “Wrens”.

In childhood she suffered from bovine tuberculosis, which should have prevented her from joining. However, one detail on her application changed everything. She added she could speak conversational German.

The navy desperately needed German speakers and her language skills opened a door that would lead to one of Britain’s most secret wartime organisations.

Those skills had been learned from Austrian Jewish refugees who had fled Nazi persecution and found work at Pat’s childhood home. Lily Getzel and Edith Krochmalnik would remain life-long friends.

Pat’s wartime role involved intercepting German naval radio communications.