Code Girls

Code Girls, by Liza Mundy, Hachette 2017

Ann Caracristi, Agnes Driscoll, Dot Braden and others...

An amazing story told in the words of the Code Girls who deciphered Japanese and German messages in World War II, Code Girls reveals long-held secrets that saved thousands of lives.  Gathered from elite women's colleges, lesser known colleges, and small Southern towns, these very smart, very special women were drawn into a top-secret cadre of frantic code-breaking.  Working with early IBM computers and pencils, they puzzled night and day over messages' patterns and translations.  What that meant was that they forgot time - often they grabbed odd meals, pulled all-nighters, and ran with the intensity of their work.  But they never talked about it - they were sworn to secrecy long ago - until author Mundy located the few survivors, and turned on her tape recorder.  No only did the Code Girls crack the Japanese code that gave the U. S. an acute advantage in the Battle of Midway, but they also interfered with German communications on the European front, and of course they paved the way for decades of new stealth technology developments.  A great story, energizing and well told, a real page-turner.