For decades, he kept his wartime work secret even from his wife. Now Ferdynand Stanisław Vanke, known as Fred, is one of 27 Polish specialists whose names have been added to Bletchley Park’s Roll of Honour. A new BBC feature explores the story of the Polish man living in Breaston, Derbyshire, and a less familiar chapter of Polish-British intelligence cooperation.
Vanke did not work at Bletchley Park itself. He served at The Arches in Boxmoor, near Hemel Hempstead — a Polish radio intelligence station supporting the British codebreaking centre. According to the BBC, he belonged to a team working on German radio signals and attempts to decipher them. The work of these supporting stations forms part of a history whose full extent researchers are still uncovering.
From Kraków to a secret station in England
Vanke grew up in Kraków and fled Poland after the German invasion in 1939. His wartime journey took him through service with the Polish Carpathian Rifle Brigade in the Middle East, followed by training in Britain associated with the Cichociemni, Poland’s wartime special operations troops. He was eventually assigned to The Arches to work on German communications.
Speaking to the BBC, Vanke explained that his obligation to maintain secrecy meant he said nothing about this chapter of his life for decades, including to his wife. After the war, he settled in Nottingham and ran a photography business. Behind that civilian life lay a history of service he had not shared with his family.
27 names and a history still being uncovered
According to a BBC feature published on 10 October 2026, around 100 Poles in Britain carried out work for Bletchley Park between 1940 and 1945. Research described by the broadcaster led to 27 Polish specialists involved in codebreaking and radio intelligence, including Vanke, being added to its Roll of Honour, which recognises those who contributed to its work. Marian Rejewski and Henryk Zygalski are also among the names identified in the research.
Bletchley Park Trust historian Dr David Kenyon told the BBC that the long secrecy surrounding this work had made it difficult to establish the full extent of Polish involvement. Adding names to the Roll of Honour therefore does not mark the end of the research. It is another step towards documenting the contribution of people whose activities remained outside the public account of the war for many years.
In the feature, Rafał Wiśniewski, a representative of the Polish Embassy in London, highlights the importance of Polish cryptologists and the evidence of their cooperation with Bletchley Park. Vanke’s story also shows that Poland’s contribution extended beyond the best-known names to specialists at stations supporting Britain’s intelligence effort — people who built their post-war lives in the UK while keeping their service secrets for years.
