Jane Buckley Jackson: A True Hero

By Hana Berseneva, 2027

Published June 7, 2025

Did you know a close friend of our high school had a family member who was involved in a heroic act during World War II? If you were thinking about our beloved study hall teacher, Mrs. Naramore, you would be correct! Mrs. Naramore’s mother, Jane Buckley Jackson, served in a women's branch of the U.S. Navy's Naval Reserve (WAVE) and played a major role in the plane of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s (who was the commander-in-chief in Japan’s Navy) being shot down. Jackson graduated from Stanford High School in June 1941 at about 19-21 years old. She was then stationed in Washington D.C., where she was assigned to Naval Communications and worked as a cryptographer from 1943 to 1945. Jackson usually worked on decoding Japanese messages and had some basic training in Iowa beforehand. They had to read a ticker tape with the Japanese alphabet in front of them in order to accurately translate the messages they received in Japanese. In April 1943, U.S. received a decoded Japanese message with the exact time and date Yamamoto would be planning to fly to Bougainville to conduct a major Japanese air counter-offensive against Guadalcanal. However, on April 18, 1943, 16 American P-38s shot down Yamamoto’s plane before he could take action in Bougainville. Soon after, Jackson was told that the Naval Communication played a significant role in the heroic attack. If it weren't for Jane Buckley Jackson and her team’s persistence and skills, the message of the date and time of the attack could never have been discovered, and situations could have ended in chaos. 

These are a couple of highlights I would like to share from the interview I had with Mrs. Naramore herself. I asked her a couple of questions regarding her mother: 

●●●

“Did people usually have some sort of respect for your mother while she was working?”

“Once for her mother for Christmas one year, she was in uniform with her friends and couldn’t go home, someone on the streets inhibited them for Christmas dinner and under each plate there was a $20 dollar bill.”

“Were there any crazy or funny stories from when she served?”

“She was also very tiny and she almost didn’t get into it because she was so light that she didn’t meet the weight requirements to serve so the doctor told her to go out and eat 3 banana splits, which is exactly what she did and just barely met the weight requirement.”

“Wow, so if that doctor didn’t let her serve, then Yamamoto's plane never could have gone down.” 

Jackson was a petite lady; she stood at about 5 feet tall and weighed around 80 pounds. Luckily, the doctor gave her a second chance after she found out she was a bit short of the requirements to get recruited to work in Washington D.C. 

“What was her favorite thing about her job during that time?”

“One of her favorite things is that she was always busy and things were noisy, but she didn’t go overseas or anything. She loved being around all those people and people were all over the country and it was a real eye opener to a person from just Stanford, Connecticut.” 

“Were there any hardships she faced?”

“The only hardship was keeping quiet about it and they all worked together and couldn't say anything that they were doing, even though they worked together.”

●●●

Jackson was unable to discuss anything she was working on with anyone, not even her closest friends or family, while she was employed in Washington, D.C. She was also unable to share her achievements until after World War II ended. Jackson and her coworkers were very serious about their work. 

After her release from WAVES in 1945, Jane Buckly Jackson married Lewis Jackson, and the two of them had five children in 1949. In 1946, the U.S. Communications Intelligence Organization then presented Jackson with a ribbon bar. She was asked to keep her accomplishment a secret in the letter that accompanied the award.

All in all, it is an honor that Cheshire High School has a close relative of a person who contributed to a heroic act where the situation potentially in which the outcome could have resulted in the United States losing one of the most important battles of World War II, the Pacific War. I believe it’s important that we learn and remember the people who have made a significant impact on the world we live in today, especially when our school was closely related. The outcome of World War II might have been drastically different, and our current world would not be the same if it weren't for Jackson's bravery, tenacity, and conscientiousness.