Cresswell village organising a special tribute to its war hero

Captain Joe Baker-Cresswell, who spent a lot of time in Cresswell during his childhood, played a crucial role in what King George VI described as “the most important single event in the whole war at sea”.

He was in command of a Royal Navy vessel that in the early 1940s captured vital equipment used by German U-boats to attack and sink shipping carrying supplies across the Atlantic.

Residents in Cresswell are planning to tell his story with a permanent exhibition at its restored 14th Century Pele Tower, which will have as its centre-piece a replica Enigma machine.

Volunteers who run the Pele Tower as a visitor attraction have raised the £350 needed to purchase the replica machine that they plan to put on display in the tower.

Volunteer co-ordinator and events manager Steve Lowe says they are also talking to Bletchley Park to see if they can acquire more information, and perhaps items, for their display.

They hope to have the exhibition up and running early in 2024.

Steve added: “What Captain Joe Baker-Cresswell did to change the course of the war was quite remarkable and it is a story we want visitors to our Pele Tower to know about.

“His decision to search the U-boat rather than sink it turned out to be an inspired one because of what they found and were able to rescue.

“He spent a lot of time in Cresswell growing up as a young boy and the exhibition will be a fitting tribute to him in a place he loved so much.”

In May 1941, from the bridge of his own vessel HMS Bulldog, Captain Joe witnessed his convoy come under attack by German U-boats. They retaliated with depth-charges, which forced one U-boat to surface and its crew begin to abandon ship by jumping into the waters of the Atlantic.

Seeing what was happening, Captain Joe issued an order to board and search the stricken U-boat rather than sink it.

Once on board, his crew found an Enigma cypher machine used by the German navy to send coded messages between its U-boats and plot the position of Allied ships to attack.

What turned out to be crucially even more important, however, was the discovery of secret code books that were forwarded by Captain Joe when HMS Bulldog returned to port to the top-secret Bletchley Park codebreaking headquarters.

There, Alan Turing and his team were able to use the captured grid charts and codebooks to successfully decipher German naval Enigma messages, and changed the course of the Battle of the Atlantic by dramatically reducing both the loss of supply ships and the men who sailed them.

Captain Joe was presented with a DSO by the King, but the story of his remarkable decision to search rather than sink the U-boat remained untold for more than 50 years after the war ended.

He returned to Northumberland after ending his naval service to live at Budle Hall, near Bamburgh, and for many years he served as the High Sheriff of the county.