Code Girls

Book:  Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II

Basic Information : Synopsis : Characters : Thoughts : Evaluation : Book Group : New Words : Book References : Good Quotes : Table of Contents : References

Basic Information:

Author: Liza Mundy

Edition: eBook from the Fresno County Public Library

Publisher: Hachette Books

ISBN: 0316439894 (ISBN13: 9780316439893)

Start Date: September 20, 2018

Read Date: October 9, 2018

416 pages

Genre: History, Biography, World War II

Language Warning: None

Rated Overall: 3 out of 5

History: 4 out of 5

Synopsis (Caution: Spoiler Alert-Jump to Thoughts):

This books traces the roots of women in code breaking in the United States War effort during World War II. It starts pre-World War II moves through recruitment of people for code breakers. When there was a major effort to replace the men who either worked as code breakers or the need to add a vast number of people to the effort, women were recruited. First the elite women intellects from major women’s colleges and then from other places which looked like likely possible fits.-such as teachers.

The book then goes through the process of code breaking and the relationships which these women formed among their group. In the end, there were several thousand women who were part of this effort. The book continues on through the tediousness of breaking code, the frustrations of problem solving, the inspiration which allows a code to be broken, and the lives lived outside of the confines of the particular facilities they worked in.

The book also talks about the friendly rivalry between the Army and Navy’s code breaking groups. Also the relationships between the US code breakers and England.

This was a great deal of secrecy involved. They could not talk to outsiders. Even talk among the internal divisions was not encouraged-you wondered if this would have sped up the process of could breaking. Then there was the successes. The shooting down of Yamamoto’s plane, the battle of Midway, the understanding of diplomatic cables all were talked about.

Cast of Characters:

Agnes Meyer Driscoll-cracking the Japanese Navy fleet codes in the 1920’s and 30’s.

Elizebeth Smith Friedman-helped found first government code-breaking bureau.

Genevieve Grotjan-math professor. Broke code which allowed Allies to listen in on the Japanese diplomatic communications

Dorothy Ramale-codebreaker

Mary Court

Jacqueline Jenkins

Gwynneth Gminder

Fran Steen

Dot Braden

Ann Caracristi

Edith Reynolds

Ruth “Crow” Weston

Elizabeth Alen Butler

Ruth Schoen Mirsky

Georgia O’Connor Ludington

And others

Thoughts:

Introduction: "Your country needs you, young ladies"

Theme of the book: the women who worked in code-breaking were behind some of the significant individual code-breaking triumphs of World War II.

By understanding an enemy’s code, it provides a way to know what the enemy is thinking, doing and antagonizing over.

Half of those recruited actually passed their courses. The type of talent looked for was adept at math or science or foreign languages. Also needed to be dutiful and patriotic. Also this was not a glamorous job where they could tell what they were doing. Some of the women kept the secret for over 50 years after the war was over.

Part I. "In the event of total war women will be needed"

Twenty-eight acres of girls

Talks about the stories of various of the code breakers.

Such as Dot Braden. Her brother thought she possessed a highly analytical mind.

"This is a man's size job, but I seem to be getting away with it"

Another description of who these women were almost always school teachers, curious, brilliant, resourceful. Wanting to find an outlet for their intelligence.

You could not be too concerned about reading other people’s mail. But isn’t that the whole point of this kind of operation?

The author traces the World War II cryptography to a couple who picked up work after World War I. They even wrote books and had their own publishing company-Riverbank Publishing. The couple William Friedman and Elizebeth Smith Friedman. Also there was another couple who did a lot of cryptography- Parker and Genevieve Hitt.

The most difficult problem

Crossword puzzles are designed to be solved, while codes and ciphers are designed to prevent solution. At one time being able to do crossword puzzles was a sign that you might be good at cryptography. But Friedman’s thoughts as paraphrased above shows the opposite. Since crossword puzzles are meant to be solved, they give you hints and encourage you to the solution. But a cipher tries to lead you into the wrong paths and makes it more difficult to solve. He also understood that solving ciphers was much more like solving a math proof, so a good foundation of math, particularly statistics was of benefit to solving ciphers.

"So many girls in one place"

Charles Taft lays out the dimensions of the social upheaval World War II is bringing. Not just females coming into the workplace, but also minorities are coming in and doing jobs which formerly was only white male. How we react will be an indication of us as a society. This may be the biggest residue of World War II on America. There was no going back to how things were before. We needed to figure out a way to accommodate all of these changes.

Part II. "Over all this vast expanse of waters Japan was supreme"

"Q for communications"

Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers started working on the Navy to admit women even before World War II. There was resistance to this, particularly from Admiral Nimitz. She was instrumental in getting the Army version going. I wonder about Mundy’s reference to her. She did not include the Edith. Oversight? She has included first names before. Did this little factoid just appear because it was interesting, but not researched?

It was noted that there was concerns which today seems a bit ignorant, but seemed valid at the time, Such as a woman’s voice might be too soft to be used in an aircraft tower. As a note: my mother served in WWII as an air traffic controller as a WAVE.

Why did women serve? Mundy says two reasons: 1) There were no males in the family eligible to serve; 2) They wanted to bring home their own men sooner. Was that the only two reasons?

While it was the men who lead the groups who got the credit for breaking the codes in the Pacific, it was a group effort. Women outnumbered men in the groups. Since the book is about women code breakers, Mundy does not try to determine the importance of men vs women in each group. She does talk about how breaking the code in the Pacific was based upon Agnes Driscoll’s work. Gary’s note: I think very few breakthroughs happen in isolation. So it does not surprise me to have the statements about it being a group effort. Still the leader of a group usually gets the credit, even if the person is not the smartest or most talented. It is that person who leads a group to accomplish things.

One of the main places which I did enjoy this book was when Mundy talked about the WAVES. She traces the effort to create the WAVES and the resistance for it. What was really interesting was how the uniforms were created. Josephine Ogden Forrestal-wife of James Forrestal the secretary of Navy pushed the design. She engaged a fashion house, Mainbocher to design the uniform. It was said the utility was sacrificed for looks-later corrected. A really good description of the way the WAVES uniform looked is n this chapter. Mundy makes a comment that some of the women decided to service in the WAVES instead of the WAACS. I can testify to this as my mother often repeated she went into the WAVES because of the uniform.

"Hell's half-acre"

What is the mind of an engineer? Also what kind of an engineer? I think what Mundy is saying is that Annie Caracristi could problem solve in an orderly manner.

Mundy talks about the Army’s cryptographic unit as being a flat organization, both from the type of people who worked their, but also from the desperation of trying to crack Japanese codes. Ideas could come from anywhere.

"It was only human to complain"

One of the listening posts was at a place called Two Rocks Ranch which is near Petaluma. Now it is a Coast Guard training facility.

...they [women] discovered what workplaces are and have been since the dawn of time: places where one is annoyed and thwarted and underpaid and interrupted and underappreciated. Yep, sounds about right. Later on, Mundy gives examples of the gossip and issues. But for the most part they seem to be the normal issues facing any work places.

Pencil-pushing mamas sink the shipping of Japan

Mundy explains some terms in cryptography:

• Sono-the part number of a message (first, second, …)
• Indicator-which code book to use
• Discriminant-what code was being used
• GAT-Group as transmitted-the code group plus the cipher

When a Japanese code book on Okinawa fell into Allied hands, the code breakers were able to figure out messages which lead the planners to expect over a million casualties on the Allied side would occur upon an invasion of any part of the Japanese main islands. thinks that this is what lead Truman to decide to drop the atomic bomb. For more of the thoughts and information Truman got, see the book, The Accidental President byA.J. Baine.

Part III. The tide turns

"Enemy landing at the mouth of the Seine"

During the D-Day invasion, there was a feeling of great achievement. Going to church was the only way they could think of to honor the tragedy and loss, … Sometimes even when we know we have contributed to our maximum, our souls will reach out for something more.

The surrender message

On the day when Hiroshima was bombed, the intercept station at Two Rock Ranch could not hear the normally strong signal which came out of there. They were at a loss about why.

Epilogue: The mitten.

This is a good description of anyone, but Mundy applies it particularly to women: ...rather than as complicated human beings with quiet but rich interior lives. Don’t we wish that was a good label for ourselves?

After the war, there was some people who continued on with cryptography in reading Russian communications.. One of these was called the Venona project. This enabled the Americans to understand and prosecute spies in America who were betraying the American spies against Russia.

=========

I am wondering what “take-aways” do I get from the book? Like the various other books like Hidden Figures, The Girls at Atomic City, and one I am currently reading, Sisters in Law, the authors would like you to understand that a woman could fulfill any man’s job. I am thinking this is a bit passe in the 21st century. While there is a glass ceiling, some of that is breaking. I think as more women rise through the ranks, this will go away as well.

So will this book be worth reading in 20 years? Not as a book, but more as an attempt to gather a place where women were able to influence and change some of the course of World War II.

I am also left to wonder, did any other nation use their women in this way? German’s, Russian’s, Japanese? British? … Or was the United States the only one? If so, what made the United States accepting of their input (accepting after the initial resistance.)?

Evaluation:

 I wanted to like this book-cryptography is a fascinating subject. Telling untold stories draws me in. But I do not think the author did her job. She did extensive research on both the subject and the people involved. But where she failed was to focus me and make the people in the book compelling to me.

There was so many stories she wanted to tell that for the most part, we got snippets of these women and their contributions. There are a few people whom a fuller story is told, but usually they are intertwined with the lesser stories. There is some confusion about the timeline. While told mostly chronologically, in places she jumps around without giving good warning. Consequently I would be wondering about where does this fit in.

So will this book be worth reading in 20 years? Not as a book, but more as an attempt to gather a place where women were able to influence and change some of the course of World War II.

 
Notes from my book group:

The women of this book are titled as code breakers. But this is a general classification. What functions are involved in this process? What skills and/or mindset does it take to be a code breaker?

Charles Taft notes in his introductory speech the racial and sexual turmoil World War II was leading into. Place yourself in that time. How would you have reacted to now working if you were a woman? Or working alongside a black or a woman if you were a while male? Did the United States handle this transition well? How could it have done better?

What is the mind of an engineer? This is in reference to Mundy’s comment on why Annie Caracristi was a good code breaker.

Mundy talks about the Army cryptology group as being a flat organization. So they got innovated thoughts. Why does a flat organization this? Why doesn’t any organization try to flatten their structure?

How would you have improved this book?

Many of these questions are either from or adapted from LitLovers.

• Why the title of Code Girls? Is this a sexist title? Would it have been OK for a male author to have titled a book this way?
• Does this history make sense to you?
• Which characters were you most interested in?
• Every story has a world view. Were you able to identify this story’s world view? What was it? How did it affect the story?
• In what context was religion talked about in this book?
• Why do you think the author wrote this book?
• What would you ask the author if you had a chance?
• What “take aways” did you have from this book?
• What central ideas does the author present?
  • Are they personal, sociological, global, political, economic, spiritual, medical, or scientific
  • What implications for you, our nation or the world do these idea’s have?
  • Are these idea’s controversial?
    • To whom and why?
• Describe the culture talked about in the book.
  • How is the culture described in this book different than where we live?
  • What economic or political situations are described?
  • Does the author examine economics and politics, family traditions, the arts, religious beliefs, language or food?
• Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...?
  • What was memorable?

New Words:

• homogamy: inbreeding, especially as a result of isolation.
• putative: generally considered or reputed to be.

Book References:

• Treatise on Cryptography by Andre Lange, S. A. Soudart, E. A. Soudart
• Notes on Communications Security
• The Contributions of the Cryptographic Bureaus in the World War.
• Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
• The American Black Chamber by Herbert O Yardley
• Cours de Cryptographie by General Marcel Givierge
• Manuale di Crittografia by General Luigi Sacco
• Elements of Cryptography by Roger Baudouin
• Elements of Cyrptanalysis by William F Friedman
• The Principles of Indirect Symmetry of Position in Secondary Alphabets and their Application in the Solution of Polyalphabetic Substitution Ciphers by William F Friedman
• The Index of Coincidence and Its Applications in Cryptanalysis by William F Friedman
• Saga of Myself by Frances Lynd Scott

Good Quotes:

• First Line: The planes looked like distant pinpoints at first, and few who saw them took them seriously even up to the moment they dropped their payloads.
• Last Line: It feels as if an enemy might still be at the window, listening in.

Table of Contents:

• The secret letters
• Introduction: "Your country needs you, young ladies"
• Part I. "In the event of total war women will be needed"
• Twenty-eight acres of girls
• "This is a man's size job, but I seem to be getting away with it"
• The most difficult problem
• "So many girls in one place"
• Part II. "Over all this vast expanse of waters Japan was supreme"
• "It was heart-rending"
• "Q for communications"
• The forlorn shoe
• "Hell's half-acre"
• "It was only human to complain"
• Pencil-pushing mamas sink the shipping of Japan
• Part III. The tide turns
• Sugar camp
• "All my love, Jim"
• "Enemy landing at the mouth of the Seine"
• Teedy
• The surrender message
• Good-bye to Crow
• Epilogue: The mitten.

References:

• Publisher's Web Site for Book
• Author's Web Site
• Wikipedia-Book
• Wikipedia-Author
• Amazon-Book
• Amazon-Author
• Barnes and Noble
• GoodReads-Book
• GoodReads-Author
• New York Times Review. A good review, helps to put the book into perspective.
• Washington Post’s review
• CIA’s book review
• National Archives blurb on the book
• CSPAN2 video