A Game of Birds and Wolves: The Ingenious Young Women Whose Secret Board Game Helped Win World War II

by Simon Parkin

Each course, which lasted from Monday to Saturday*, and which ran weekly without interruption from the first week of February 1942 to the last week of July 1945, involved up to fifty officers at once. It consisted of four game scenarios, which each varied details such as the weather conditions, visibility, time of day and the size, speed and start point of the convoy. Finally, when the game finished the officers would step from behind the canvas screens and, along with the Wrens, sit in a square of chairs around the room. Then, with a ten-foot wooden pole Roberts would commentate on the preceding battle, blow by blow, like a sports pundit delivering a post-match verdict. He would draw attention to moments of particular brilliance, moments of particular disaster and the turning points of each game. These summations were, for Roberts, the most enjoyable aspect of the work. He relished the opportunity to create a picture of the battle far more vivid and engaging than the reports written by officers returning from earnest action at sea.