Richard Hayes kept his role in Irish military intelligence, so his own family did not know the role he played to help protect the country during World War II
There are many hidden heroes associated with World War II, and one of them was a quiet Irish Librarian by day and a secret codebreaker at night.
Ireland maintained its neutral position throughout World War II but The people of Ireland still played several roles in war efforts. Many of the brightest minds in Ireland were called by the Allies at their time. One of these was the Irish librarian, Richard Hayes.
Hayes was described as a light mandate, Trinity College Graduate, who worked as a librarian. However, he was done a monumental task and would be responsible for breaking the friendly Nazi code, which even meant the largest minds in America and Britain.
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Hayes was born in 1902 in Abbeyfeale, Co Limerickand later became the director of The National Library of Ireland. His deep profession helped to maintain his covert identity as he played a critical role in Irish military intelligence.
Hayes was called to action in 1940, after a encryption was discovered in a captured German agent. It was given the difficult task of decoding wireless messages secretly transmitted from a northern house Dublin Owned by the German Legation.
His most significant achievement was to break the Görtz Cipher: a complex Nazi code that British Codebreakers could not break Bletchley Park – the main center of the Allied Code rupture during World War II.
The encryption was linked to Hermann Görtz, a Nazi spy that stopped in Ireland in 1940 with the alleged intention to sabotage British control. Northern Ireland In collaboration with IRA. Görtz had escaped from the capture and hid.
The best minds in the United States and Bletchley Park in Britain worked tirelessly to break the code, but continuously failed. Hayes was ultimately the man to complete the apparently impossible task, although Görtz was really captured before breaking the code. Hayes continued to decode another correspondence between Görtz and the outside world during the following years.
Despite his contributions, Hayes remained largely unknown for many years. His work was so secret that even his own family did not know his role. He worked with Colonel Dan Bryan, the head of the G2 military intelligence service in Ireland.
Mi5, the UK Home Security and Home Contintelligence Agency, described Hayes as the “great non -known hero in Ireland”, while the United States Strategic Services Office (OSS) called it “a man’s colossus.”
Hayes’s story has gained more attention in recent years, after Marc Mc Menamin shared his work with RTE In 2017. His role in the protection of Ireland’s neutrality, while helping the Allied War Effort, is now celebrated through books and documentaries that highlight their brightness.
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