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Health & Fitness

Heroes, Detectives And Just Plain Good Persons

 Mavis Batey was celebrated for her code-breaking work in England during World War Two.

 

 

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Mrs. Batey also helped crack the even more complex Enigma codes employed by the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service. Some decoders were trained in mathematics and approached cryptography from a technical perspective. Mrs. Batey worked differently.

 

“I used the psychological approach,” she told the Telegraph. “To test the day’s settings, the Germans sometimes used their girlfriends’ names and dirty words; it was a great shame when they were stopped, as we enjoyed the dirty words.”

 

By penetrating Abwehr communications, Mrs. Batey and her colleagues helped confirm the success of the XX, or Double-Cross, an anti-espionage operation in which captured Nazi spies were used to transmit false information to the Axis.

 

The deceptive tactics were used throughout the war — most notably to fool Germans into believing that the D-Day invasion would take place not in Normandy, but at the Pas-de-Calais. Bletchley Park decoders confirmed that the ruse had worked and

 

 

instead of golfing, the troops led the British in a preemptive attack on the Italian navy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   It was all written about her in a recent obituary article. Above writings are from her obituary. She died recently at age 92.

 

There are so many heroes and heroines from World War Two and we do not know their names or what happened to them. Mavis’ children never knew of her heroic deeds.

 

 

I have written previously about Irena Sendler who saved thousands of Jewish children from being gassed during the Holocaust.

 

Now days it seems the television news is all about what the Kardashian family has non-accomplished, what they are wearing and about one of them getting engaged after their child was born. Celebrities are now known for naming their children weird names such as Apple, Blue or even North when the dad’s name is West. When I was a kid, I lived near west North Avenue. Maybe I should write an email to Mr.and Mrs. West and tell them I was ahead of their naming antics.

 

I had a doctor many years ago whose name was Jerrie Berry. I had a dentist named Dr.Brave which was so cute. I had a florist whose real name was Don Flowers which was his real name. I had a repairman whose name was Tommy Thompson. I had a neighbor whose name was Aaron Aaron. There was a synagogue whose real address was on Church Lane.That was interesting. Her full name was Mavis Lever Batey. You could say she was not a leaver; she was a do-er.

 

Mrs. Batey was a true heroine in her work and her knowledge. I guess in London, they knew of her, we are only finding out about it from an article sent to me from my friend Jim Dewey Williamson of Savage,Maryland which is about 25 miles from where we reside.

 

 He and I became friends via email when I researched my grandfather’s job in Savage,Maryland way back in about  1900.He ran a cotton mill when he and my grandmother Bella arrived from Kiev, Russia (legally) with my Dad Joseph and his four siblings. They lived there somewhere at the mill or beyond. Jim lives there and helped me to find some information on my Dad’s family at that time.

 

My uncle by marriage to my Aunt Ruth had been a translator for the government after the war because he knew and spoke about 12 languages. We never knew exactly what he did other than that he helped out with people who did not speak English and they had come to this country at that time. He was a modest man and did not talk a lot about it. His name was Lawrence Ellinger and he and my aunt resided in New York City.

 

There are many people out there now and probably quite aged who performed extra good deeds during the Second World War who do not if they are still living talk much about it. Others do come forward and talk about it so in order that those times are never forgotten. Next week will be the anniversary of the 50th date of the killing of our President John F. Kennedy. There are many articles written about it now in the papers asking people to think what they were doing when they heard the news.

 

I was a young woman of 29 at home taking care of my young daughter of age two. I had gone downstairs to the laundry room of our apartment building to wash clothes and I heard from a neighbor that it had happened and I ran upstairs to tell my husband who was on his day off from work. We were shattered and the news of the following days was filled with the details of the coming funeral and other events.

 

On the day of the funeral, I was driving home from where my husband worked in Phoenix, Maryland to obtain a car his employer was letting him use for some time until we bought one for me. We were crossing over the bridge there as it was happening and I had the radio on and my young daughter asked me “Mommie, what is going on?” I could not explain it to her in childish words because it was difficult to tell in adult words.

 

Even now with all the events going on in this country on healthcare, Benghazi and other scandals as they are called on the news; it is always almost impossible to comment and understand what is going on.

 

Mavis was a decoder during the Second World War and the article on her in the British papers expounded on what she did for her country and the Allies. Irena Sendler did her magnanimous deeds too in Poland.

 

People here did what they could for the war efforts; my own Dad Joseph was a block captain for our street which meant he went out after dark and he made sure all the neighbors had their black window shades pulled down for the night in case we were bombed here in this country. It was scary for us kids to see this to be needed to be adhered to. My blind uncle George Weinstein was one of the most giving of citizens in Baltimore for donating blood as often as was allowed for the war efforts. He was commended here in our city for being one of the top blood donors.

 

Jim gave to me all the information he could detect about my grandparents and my Dad and their arrival as immigrants from the archives in Savage, Maryland of the old mill which is now a very historic place there.

 

We are all detectives of sorts in our own lives. We read and understand about historic events, wonderful folks who help others to survive and that in turn ameliorates our current lives into honoring the past about the good times and the evil events too.

 

Knowledge is power. Dr. Ben Carson said in his book Take The Risk  “I’ve really taken so much for granted in my life. I’m just going to enjoy all these beautiful things that God created.” This was when he had cancer many years ago.

 

Let us celebrate in these coming days of Thanksgiving, Chanukah and Christmas what we have and not take for granted for one moment what we do have and who we love.

 

                     

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