Female code breakers: The hidden figures of the greatest generation
Liza Mundy
In her new book " Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II   " journalist Liza Mundy  tells the stories of many of these women who  because they were sworn to secrecy about the nature of their work  have been all but forgotten. Just because these women agreed to be invisible to the enemy  however  doesn't mean they need to be invisible to history.
 Liza Mundy 
Some of these barrier-breaking code breakers are still alive and in  Mundy 's estimation would be "delighted" by developments like the renaming of a residential college at Yale for Grace Hopper  "the queen of code" and "mother of computing" who was a pioneering American computer scientist and United States Navy rear admiral.
Says  Mundy : "We need a few more buildings to be renamed or named after some of these figures and I hope that happens. I think it will."
On the occasion of the publication of "Code Girls " and International Day of the Girl on Wednesday  CNN Opinion spoke with  Mundy  about  her  experience writing a book about the women  she  calls "the hidden figures of the greatest generation."
 Liza Mundy : In a way  it's thanks to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He insisted that the government consider declassifying its records around the Russian code-breaking project In a way  it's thanks to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He insisted that the government consider declassifying its records around the Russian code-breaking project Venona   which started during the war and then continued for many decades during the Cold War. And because he prevailed  there was a document that was declassified  in which a wonderful NSA historian named Lou Benson wrote about the recruitment of a number of schoolteachers to work on it. Almost alone among historians  Lou not only noticed that there were a lot of women working on the Venona project  but he also thought that it was worthwhile to interview them. So while it was still possible  he interviewed a number of schoolteachers who were recruited during the war. And in many cases these women continued working on it for decades for the NSA. And I thought  "Well that's an interesting kind of small story for an article of a short book."
 Mundy : It's really the work of : It's really the work of Agnes Driscoll   who was working on the Japanese fleet code throughout the 1920s and 1930s and kept diagnosing and re-diagnosing it as it was changing. If Agnes Driscoll had not diagnosed overall how their system worked  we would have gone into World War II with no ability to read the naval communications of the Japanese. It had taken her years to diagnose that entire system of code. We would have been a lot worse off if she hadn't spent more than a decade working on that code system and then teaching it to the male naval officers who would go out to the Pacific and then ultimately write the memoirs and get the credit.
 Mundy : It's hard even to convey what it was like. I was desperate to do it as fast as I could because I knew that I was up against an actuarial deadline -- women might be passing away as I was trying to find their phone number. I would obtain rosters with maiden names  and I had a researcher with the Washington Post helping me track down what their married names might have been and if they still had a phone number. Sometimes [the researcher] would give me a list of 12 and 11 wouldn't work or they would have passed away  but then I would call the one and leave a message and they would call me back -- or they would answer the phone.
 Mundy : When I was doing my research  I read the memoir of Virginia Gildersleeve  who was the dean of Barnard College. She was older than some of the women who served in the WAVES [the women's branch of the US Naval Reserve  better known as Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service] like Wellesley's Mildred McAfee. She and others clearly saw what was an opportunity. Before the war  women's colleges had taught women math and science but they were reluctant to train very many women because they knew they couldn't get jobs. And so when the war started  they were still skeptical about putting too many women into math majors because they just worried that all of this was going to be yanked away after the war. But I also thought Virginia Gildersleeve was very crafty. She and some of the other leaders did see this as a way to try to persuade MIT and Columbia and other places to open up some more slots in graduate school for women. I was fascinated by the way they did see [code breaking and military recruitment] as an opportunity to expand opportunities for women even as they were worried that it would be temporary after the war.
 Mundy : The Army women were civilians and the Navy women weren't. And the Navy really agonized over its no-pregnancy rule  because they worried women would get abortions. And they did. But they were just so uncomfortable with the idea of a pregnant woman in uniform or a pregnant woman serving in the military that they were actually willing to force women to resign  even if they were married  when they became pregnant. It was very hard on the women who got pregnant  because they loved the work and suddenly had to leave. Obviously  men did not have to leave if their wives got pregnant. There were several women who described really being traumatized by becoming accidentally pregnant -- married women who didn't have enough information about birth control -- and having to leave this work that they loved and that they thought was so valuable. So even during the war we were willing to sacrifice female talent because we didn't know how to cope with a pregnant woman in uniform.
 Mundy : At the very beginning [of the book]  there's a letter from one of the Navy code-breaking officers that shows they didn't want Jewish women from the Seven Sisters schools  they didn't want women with family ties to occupied European countries  who might feel sympathy to European countries. The Navy was always paranoid about any sort of "unconventional" background. And when African-American women were admitted to the WAVES in 1945  they were not admitted to the code-breaking facility for that same fear of anybody who seemed like an outsider.
 Mundy : The thought that recurs to me  in addition to just being grateful to be able to try to tell this story  is the phrase "hidden figures." These women really were the hidden figures of the greatest generation.
 Mundy : I worried at the outset of this project that there wouldn't be enough information out there to tell the story. I was astonished when I went to the National Archives that although it was scattered and uneven  that there really was a great deal of material -- rosters  memos  oral histories. It had been overlooked by  I think it's fair to say  the many historians who have gone through these collections. I was surprised that there was more out there that was hiding in plain sight than I thought.
In her new book " Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II   " journalist Liza Mundy  tells the stories of many of these women who  because they were sworn to secrecy about the nature of their work  have been all but forgotten. Just because these women agreed to be invisible to the enemy  however  doesn't mean they need to be invisible to history.
  [TGT] 
Some of these barrier-breaking code breakers are still alive and in   [TGT]  's estimation would be "delighted" by developments like the renaming of a residential college at Yale for Grace Hopper  "the queen of code" and "mother of computing" who was a pioneering American computer scientist and United States Navy rear admiral.
Says   [TGT]  : "We need a few more buildings to be renamed or named after some of these figures and I hope that happens. I think it will."
On the occasion of the publication of "Code Girls " and International Day of the Girl on Wednesday  CNN Opinion spoke with   [TGT] about   [TGT]   experience writing a book about the women   [TGT]   calls "the hidden figures of the greatest generation."
 Liza Mundy : In a way  it's thanks to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He insisted that the government consider declassifying its records around the Russian code-breaking project In a way  it's thanks to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He insisted that the government consider declassifying its records around the Russian code-breaking project Venona   which started during the war and then continued for many decades during the Cold War. And because he prevailed  there was a document that was declassified  in which a wonderful NSA historian named Lou Benson wrote about the recruitment of a number of schoolteachers to work on it. Almost alone among historians  Lou not only noticed that there were a lot of women working on the Venona project  but he also thought that it was worthwhile to interview them. So while it was still possible  he interviewed a number of schoolteachers who were recruited during the war. And in many cases these women continued working on it for decades for the NSA. And I thought  "Well that's an interesting kind of small story for an article of a short book."
  [TGT]  : It's really the work of : It's really the work of Agnes Driscoll   who was working on the Japanese fleet code throughout the 1920s and 1930s and kept diagnosing and re-diagnosing it as it was changing. If Agnes Driscoll had not diagnosed overall how their system worked  we would have gone into World War II with no ability to read the naval communications of the Japanese. It had taken her years to diagnose that entire system of code. We would have been a lot worse off if she hadn't spent more than a decade working on that code system and then teaching it to the male naval officers who would go out to the Pacific and then ultimately write the memoirs and get the credit.
  [TGT]  : It's hard even to convey what it was like. I was desperate to do it as fast as I could because I knew that I was up against an actuarial deadline -- women might be passing away as I was trying to find their phone number. I would obtain rosters with maiden names  and I had a researcher with the Washington Post helping me track down what their married names might have been and if they still had a phone number. Sometimes [the researcher] would give me a list of 12 and 11 wouldn't work or they would have passed away  but then I would call the one and leave a message and they would call me back -- or they would answer the phone.
 Mundy : When I was doing my research  I read the memoir of Virginia Gildersleeve  who was the dean of Barnard College. She was older than some of the women who served in the WAVES [the women's branch of the US Naval Reserve  better known as Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service] like Wellesley's Mildred McAfee. She and others clearly saw what was an opportunity. Before the war  women's colleges had taught women math and science but they were reluctant to train very many women because they knew they couldn't get jobs. And so when the war started  they were still skeptical about putting too many women into math majors because they just worried that all of this was going to be yanked away after the war. But I also thought Virginia Gildersleeve was very crafty. She and some of the other leaders did see this as a way to try to persuade MIT and Columbia and other places to open up some more slots in graduate school for women. I was fascinated by the way they did see [code breaking and military recruitment] as an opportunity to expand opportunities for women even as they were worried that it would be temporary after the war.
 Mundy : The Army women were civilians and the Navy women weren't. And the Navy really agonized over its no-pregnancy rule  because they worried women would get abortions. And they did. But they were just so uncomfortable with the idea of a pregnant woman in uniform or a pregnant woman serving in the military that they were actually willing to force women to resign  even if they were married  when they became pregnant. It was very hard on the women who got pregnant  because they loved the work and suddenly had to leave. Obviously  men did not have to leave if their wives got pregnant. There were several women who described really being traumatized by becoming accidentally pregnant -- married women who didn't have enough information about birth control -- and having to leave this work that they loved and that they thought was so valuable. So even during the war we were willing to sacrifice female talent because we didn't know how to cope with a pregnant woman in uniform.
  [TGT]  : At the very beginning [of the book]  there's a letter from one of the Navy code-breaking officers that shows they didn't want Jewish women from the Seven Sisters schools  they didn't want women with family ties to occupied European countries  who might feel sympathy to European countries. The Navy was always paranoid about any sort of "unconventional" background. And when African-American women were admitted to the WAVES in 1945  they were not admitted to the code-breaking facility for that same fear of anybody who seemed like an outsider.
  [TGT]  : The thought that recurs to me  in addition to just being grateful to be able to try to tell this story  is the phrase "hidden figures." These women really were the hidden figures of the greatest generation.
  [TGT]  : I worried at the outset of this project that there wouldn't be enough information out there to tell the story. I was astonished when I went to the National Archives that although it was scattered and uneven  that there really was a great deal of material -- rosters  memos  oral histories. It had been overlooked by  I think it's fair to say  the many historians who have gone through these collections. I was surprised that there was more out there that was hiding in plain sight than I thought.