Codebreaker Betty Webb reveals D-Day confidence

A 101-year-old woman who worked as a codebreaker during World War Two said, ahead of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, she "just knew" Britain was going to win.

Charlotte "Betty" Webb said she "never had a feeling of fear" and that those who took part in the operation "didn't question" whether "it was the right thing to do".

Reflecting on the bravery of servicemen who landed on the beach, she said the outcome could have been "very different" but "they had a job to do and they did it."

"You signed up to do what you were told and you got on with it," she told BBC Hereford and Worcester.

Ms Webb, from Wythall, Worcestershire, worked at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire during the war, where enemy messages were decrypted.

"I was a member of the ATS, the Auxiliary Territorial Service, as were I think about 300 others," she said.

She added it was "not very clear" the D-Day landings were happening on 6 June 1944, as the report on the radio at the time "didn't tell us very much" but she "just knew we were going to win".

"It was very strange to think in our situation we really didn't know more than very brief comments on the wireless," she explained.

Troops from the UK, the US, Canada and France attacked German forces on the coast of northern France on the day of the Normandy landings.

D-Day was the largest naval, air and land operation ever attempted and marked the start of the campaign to liberate Nazi-occupied north-west Europe.

Ms Webb, who in 2021 was awarded the Légion d’Honneur, France's highest honour, for her work, said she recalled hearing from her boss at the time that "our job's done now".

Speaking of the troops, she added: "They were splendid people and had the most awful time. Can you imagine it?

"So many of them of course, just trying to get through, were drowned, that was even worse in my view, worse than fighting."