Any number of archivists helped bring records to light. Among these are Megan Harris, reference specialist with the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress; Susanna Ola Lee, archivist at Winthrop University; Beth Ann Koelsch, curator of the Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project in the Hodges Special Collections and University Archives at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Tara Olivero, curator of special collections and archives at Goucher College; Nathaniel Patch, archivist in the reference section at the National Archives II facility at College Park; Paul Barron, director of Library and Archives at the George C. Marshall Foundation; Curt Dalton at Dayton History; Ellen Shea, head of research services at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe; Nanci Young, archivist at Smith College; Mary Yearl, archivist at Wellesley College; Jessica Smith, research services librarian at the Historical Society of Washington, D.C.; John Stanton, archivist at the Center for Local History at the Arlington County public library; Frances Webb and Ted Hostetler at Randolph College; Amy Hedrick at the Women Veterans Oral History Project at the University of North Texas; and Daniel A. Martinez, chief historian of the WWII Valor in the Pacific National Monument. Leila Kamgar at the U.S. State Department facilitated my tour of Arlington Hall, and Brandon Montgomery at the Department of Homeland Security showed me around the former naval code-breaking compound on Nebraska Avenue. David Sherman at NSA did his best to get more wartime records declassified, though this remains an uphill battle.
I would also like to thank the family members who facilitated interviews and provided recollections. Chief among these is Jim Bruce, who put me in touch with his wonderful mother, Dot Braden Bruce, and was a cheerleader for this book all along. Others are Forrest White, who set up my interview with his mother, Edith Reynolds White; Cam Weber, who shared essays by her mother, Elizabeth Bigelow Stewart; Kitty Beller-McKenna, who helped me Skype with Margaret Gilman McKenna; Larry Gray, who wrote an essay about his late mother, Virginia Caroline Wiley; Sarah Jackson, who conducted an oral history with her late mother, (Miriam) Louise Pearsall Canby. Others who gave interviews were Barbara Dahlinger, Bill Cable, Carolyn Carter, and Kitty and Clyde Weston on behalf of Ruth Weston; Mike Sinkov for Delia Taylor Sinkov; Graham Cameron for Charlotte McLeod Cameron; Janice McKelvey for Sara Virginia Dalton; Laura Burke for Helen C. Masters; William Ludington for Georgia O’Connor Ludington; Linda Hund for Muriel Stewart; Eddie and Jonathan Horton, Virginia Cole, Eleanor Grabeel, and Daphne and Jerry Cole for Gene Grabeel; Pam Emmanuel for Martha Odum; Gerry Thompson for Nancy Abbott Thompson; Betty Dowse for the Wellesley code breakers; Jed Suddeth, Mary Isabel Randall Baker, Mabel Frowe, and Charlotte Anderson Stradford for Fran Steen Suddeth Josephson, as well as Rear Admiral (ret.) David K. Shimp, who did his best to honor and recognize her when she was alive.
Experts who shared their knowledge include Tom Johnson, David Hatch, Robert Lewand, William Wright, Suzanne Gould of AAUW, and Karen Kovach. Providing help and support along the way were Elizabeth Weingarten, Jaclyn Ostrowski, Christine Erskine, Rosalind Donald, Madonna Lebling, Nell Minow, Margaret Talbot, Ann Hulbert, Kate Julian, Denise Wills, Meagan Roper, Michael Dolan, Nancy Tipton, John Kirtland, Roy Caracristi, Allison Wood, and my family.
I am grateful to my longtime book agent, Todd Shuster of Aevitas Creative, who provided every kind of support and guided me into the office of Paul Whitlatch. Truly, this book could not have had a better editor. From our early meetings about form and content to the finishing touches, Paul has been a trusted wellspring of ideas and expertise. At Hachette Books, publisher Mauro DiPreta was supportive from our first meeting, as were marketing director Betsy Hulsebosch and associate publisher Michelle Aielli. Art director Amanda Kain came up with the perfect cover. I am grateful to publicity director Joanna Pinsker and production editor Carolyn Kurek, as well as Michael Gaudet, Jennifer Runty, Marisol Salaman, Odette Fleming, Carlos Esparza, Mark Harrington, and assistant editor Lauren Hummel, who kept everything running, and to Eileen Chetti for her expert copy editing. And to Chelsey Heller and Elias Altman at Aevitas.
I also would like to express my gratitude to those many authors whose books about aspects of war, code breaking, and twentieth-century history were so helpful in learning this terrain, as well as those whose writing about women and their achievements I found inspiring. This list includes, but by no means is limited to, Karen Abbott, David Alvarez, Christopher Andrew, Rick Atkinson, Julia Baird, Antony Beevor, Rosa Brooks, Stephen Budiansky, Elliot Carlson, Edward Drea, Glenn Frankel, David Garrow, Nathalia Holt, Ann Hulbert, Walter Isaacson, John Keegan, Denise Kiernan, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, Jill Lepore, Candice Millard, Lynn Povich, John Prados, Gordon Prange, Stacy Schiff, Margot Lee Shetterly, Michael Smith, Dava Sobel, Margaret Talbot, and Katherine Zoepf. And I would like to especially thank
David Kahn, who pioneered work in this field and has been a friend to so many in it. I am grateful for his generosity, insight, and of course the lunch at his club, to which he treated me, as he has done for so many authors, in the spirit of research and camaraderie.
ALSO BY LIZA MUNDY
Everything Conceivable
Michelle: A Biography
The Richer Sex
Advance praise for
CODE GIRLS
“Code Girls is an extraordinary book by an extraordinary author. Liza Mundy’s portraits of World War II code breakers are so skillfully and vividly drawn that I felt as if I were right there with them—mastering ciphers, outwitting the Japanese army, sinking ships, breaking hearts, and even accidentally insulting Eleanor Roosevelt. I am an evangelist for this book: You must read it.”
—Karen Abbott, New York Times bestselling author of Sin in the Second City
“Code Girls reveals a hidden army of female cryptographers, whose work played a crucial role in ending World War II. With clarity and insight, Mundy exposes the intertwined narratives of the women who broke codes and the burgeoning field of military intelligence in the 1940s. I cannot overstate the importance of this book; Mundy has rescued a piece of forgotten history, and given these American heroes the recognition they deserve.”
—Nathalia Holt, New York Times bestselling author of Rise of the Rocket Girls
“Liza Mundy’s Code Girls reveals one of World War II’s last remaining secrets: the true tale of the young American women who helped shorten the war and saved thousands of lives by breaking the codes of the German and Japanese armed forces. But it’s also a superbly researched and stirringly written social history of a pivotal chapter in the struggle for women’s rights, told through the powerful and poignant stories of the individuals involved. In exploring the vast, obscure, and makeshift offices of wartime Washington where these women performed seemingly impossible deeds, Mundy has discovered a birthplace of modern America.”
—Glenn Frankel, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of High Noon
“Code Girls is a riveting account of the thousands of young coeds who flooded into Washington to help America win World War II. Liza Mundy has written a thrilling page-turner that illuminates the patriotism, rivalry, and sexism of the code breakers’ world.”
—Lynn Povich, author of The Good Girls Revolt
Bibliography
Selected Interviews
Deborah Anderson in Dayton, Ohio, and by telephone, numerous between May 2015–May 2017
Janice Martin Benario, in Atlanta, Georgia, December 2, 2015
Viola Moore Blount (email correspondence) numerous between April 27–30, 2016
John “Teedy” Braden, in Good Hope, Georgia, December 1, 2015
Dorothy “Dot” Braden Bruce, in Midlothian, Virginia, between June 2014 and April 2017
Ida Mae Olson Bruske, by telephone May 8, 2015
Ann Caracristi, at her home in Washington, D.C., numerous between November 2014 and November 2015
Suzanne Harpole Embree in Washington, D.C., August 11, 2015
Jeuel Bannister Esmacher, in Anderson, South Carolina, November 21, 2015
Josephine Palumbo Fannon in Maryland, April 9 and July 17, 2015
Jeanne Hammond in Scarborough, Maine, September 30, 2015
Veronica “Ronnie” Mackey Hulick, by telephone, undated
Millie Weatherly Jones in Dayton, Ohio, May 1, 2015