Strand School - History - Strand and The D-Day Crossword

Strand and The D-Day Crossword

In May 1944 ‘Utah’ appeared as a solution in The Daily Telegraph crossword that was to have major repercussions. In May 1944 Utah was also the codename for the D-Day beach assigned to the 4th US Assault Division. This would have been considered coincidence; however, in previous months the solution words Juno, Gold and Sword (all codenames for beaches assigned to the British) had appeared but they are common words in crosswords and then on 22 May 1944 came a clue with the solution Omaha – codename for the D-Day beach to be taken by the 1st US Assault Division. Overlord appeared on 27 May – codename for the whole D-Day operation, and the pattern continued ending on 1 June, with the solution to 15 Down being Neptune – codeword for the naval assault phase. MI5 became involved and called on Leonard Dawe, Telegraph crossword compiler and creator of the puzzles in question, at his home in Leatherhead. Dawe was also headmaster of Strand School. Dawe recalled the episode in a BBC TV interview in 1958. However, an explanation of how the codewords came to appear in the paper emerged only in 1984. Ronald French, a property manager in Wolverhampton, came forward to say that, as a 14-year-old at the school in 1944, he inserted the names into the puzzles. According to French, Dawe occasionally invited pupils into his study and encouraged them to help fill in the blank crossword patterns. Later, Dawe would create clues for their solution words. French claimed that during the weeks before D-Day he had learned of the codewords from Canadian and American soldiers camped close by the school, awaiting the invasion. French believed that hundreds of kids must have known what he knew. Another Old Strandian in 1980 is reported to have also owned up to being the perpetrator of the codenames.