Sigrid Augusta Green (3 December 1920 – 12 October 2012) gathered intelligence in preparation for the sabotage of the

Telemark Telemark is a traditional region, a former county, and a current electoral district in southern Norway. In 2020, Telemark merged with the former county of Vestfold to form the county of Vestfold og Telemark. Telemark borders the traditional ...

plant during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. She worked for the

Norwegian Resistance The Norwegian resistance (Norwegian: ''Motstandsbevegelsen'') to the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany began after Operation Weserübung in 1940 and ended in 1945. It took several forms: *Asserting the legitimacy of the exiled government, ...

and then as a code breaker at

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...

Life and work

Sigrid Augusta Green, known as Gusta, was born in

Darwen Darwen is a market town and civil parish in the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The residents of the town are known as "Darreners". The A666 road passes through Darwen towards Blackburn to the north, Bolton to the sout ...

, Lancashire, to a Norwegian mother and a British father. Her mother had moved to the UK to work as an au pair and married. Green joined the

Women's Auxiliary Air Force The Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), whose members were referred to as WAAFs (), was the female auxiliary of the Royal Air Force during World War II. Established in 1939, WAAF numbers exceeded 180,000 at its peak strength in 1943, with over 2 ...

at the age of 22, on 10 December 1942. Her bilingual ability from her Norwegian mother (Edith Stafford Green) was quickly recognised and she was transferred to the Norwegian Resistance. She was sent secretly to Nazi-occupied Norway to research the heavy water factory at Telemark owned by Sigrid’s uncle, which was being used to produce heavy water to further the Nazis’ nuclear ambitions. Green had visited the plant before the war started, and she remembered how to find it. Because she refused to parachute into the country, she was secretly landed in Norway by submarine. While on board, she dressed as a man because women were not allowed on submarines. After completing her assignment, she escaped from Norway to neutral Sweden and then to the United Kingdom by hiding in the empty bomb compartment of a British-made Mosquito airplane. The 1943 mission by Norwegian commandos to destroy the Telemark plant was successful and became the subject of a popular film in 1965 titled ''

The Heroes of Telemark ''The Heroes of Telemark'' is a 1965 British war film directed by Anthony Mann based on the true story of the Norwegian heavy water sabotage during the Second World War from ''Skis Against the Atom'', the memoirs of Norwegian resistance soldier ...

''. When Green returned home to the United Kingdom, she was assigned to join the secret code breakers at Bletchley Park (

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

), where German codes, that had been created by using Enigma machines, were decoded. She kept her activities as a war-time code breaker secret from everyone, including her family, until the year before she died. Green remained unmarried. She had been engaged to a fighter pilot but he was killed in action during the war.

Accolades

* Received Bletchley Park Badge * Awarded the Freedom of Bletchley Park honour

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Green, Sigrid 1920 births 2012 deaths People from Darwen Women in World War II Bletchley Park women Bletchley Park people