Eight decades after secretly cracking codes in a Brisbane garage, three women have been recognised for their World War II service.
Coral Hinds, Joyce Grace and Ailsa Hale were among a group of women who played a critical but largely unrecognised role in the Allied victories in the Pacific, including the battle of Midway in June 1942.
From the garage of the Brisbane suburban mansion that served as a top-secret signals base, the women worked around the clock on 12 British Typex cipher machines, decoding encrypted messages from German and Japanese forces.
Among their most consequential contributions was decrypting communications that played a key role in the intelligence that led to the shooting down of Admiral Yamamoto….