Pamela Mary Pigeon (15 September 1918 – 6 June 2009), a New Zealand-British cryptographer, was the first female commander in Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).
[2] Pamela grew up in Wellington, where she was educated at Chilton House,[2] a private girls' day school,[3] and Queen Margaret College.
[4] However, during World War II she worked as part of a secret intelligence unit located in Marston Montgomery, a remote base in Derbyshire set up in 1941 as an outpost of RAF Cheadle.
In c. 1943, she became the leader of a team of linguists who listened in on shortwave German naval and air force radio broadcasts to decode information on troop movements.
[6] Pigeon married Clifford Lionel Wale in 1948,[7] the couple had three children and both worked as teachers.