Thousands of surviving codebreakers who cracked the German Enigma codes during the Second World War are to receive service medals, it was reported.
The Government's secret communications centre, the GCHQ, is reported to be finalising plans to formally honour up to 5,000 codebreakers and other members of staff who worked in secret conditions at Bletchley Park and its outlying stations around the world.
The Government is expected to announce the move as early as next month and medal designs have already been confirmed, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Bletchley Park, also known as Station X, was the UK's main decryption establishment during the Second World War.
Staff based there deciphered codes from the German Enigma and Lorenz machines, which provided crucial assistance to the Allied war effort and, according to some historians, shortened the war by two years.
Bletchley Park, in Milton Keynes, is now a museum run by the Bletchley Park Trust.
A Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokeswoman said she could not confirm or deny the story.
