“Whenever the main code was not being read”: RG 38, Box 4, “COMNAVSECGRU Commendations Received by OP-20G.”
When U.S. Marines hit the beaches of Guadalcanal: RG 38, Box 117, “CNSG History of OP-20-GYP-1 (Rough), 1945 (1 of 2).”
“I have not seen the sea for two weeks”: Ibid.
Her college training course did come in handy: Carpenter, underlying notes for Carpenter and Dowse, “Code Breakers of 1942.”
“JN-20 ciphers were broken with increasing speed”: RG 38, Box 116, “CNSG-OP20-GYP History for WWII Era (3 of 3).”
Bets Colby, a math major from Wellesley, was a favorite of Raven: Raven, oral history, NSA-OH-1980-03, 55.
“I felt so lucky to be in this small interesting unit”: Carpenter, underlying notes for Carpenter and Dowse, “Code Breakers of 1942.”
“Never in my life since have I felt”: Carpenter and Dowse, “Code Breakers of 1942.”
The only hitch was the heat: Carpenter, underlying notes for Carpenter and Dowse, “Code Breakers of 1942.”
“The women are arriving in great numbers”: Graig Bauer and John Ulrich, “The Cryptologic Contributions of Dr. Donald Menzel,” Cryptologia 30, no. 4, (2006): 313.
Chapter Six: “Q for Communications”
Women were proving so useful to the war effort: A good summary of the creation of the WAVES and their training is in an unpublished history by Jacqueline Van Voris, “Wilde and Collins Project,” Folder “Women in the Military, Box 6,” Ready Reference Section, Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington, D.C., as well as articles cited below. Also Jennifer Wilcox, Sharing the Burden: Women in Cryptology During World War II (Washington, DC: Center for Cryptologic History, National Security Agency, 2013), and underlying files from the Wilcox archives that she provided.
The WAACS, coming first, bore the brunt: Harriet F. Parker, “In the Waves,” Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin 23, no. 2 (March 1943): 8–11.
10,000 WOMEN IN U.S. RUSH TO JOIN NEW ARMY CORPS: Lucy Greenbaum, New York Times, May 28, 1942, A1.
Despite fears that women would become hysterical: Mattie E. Treadwell, United States Army in World War II: Special Studies; The Women’s Army Corps (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1995), 290–91.
When Nimitz polled the naval bureaus—the branches of the Navy: D’Ann Campbell, “Fighting with the Navy: The WAVES in World War II,” in Sweetman, Jack, ed., New Interpretations in Naval History: Selected Papers from the Tenth Naval History Symposium Held at the United States Naval Academy, 11–13 September 1991 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1993), 344.
“If the Navy could possibly have used dogs or ducks or monkeys”: Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve, Many a Good Crusade (New York: MacMillan, 1954), 267.
“Volunteer” assured the public that women: Ibid., 273.
Virginia Gildersleeve would later recall that at one: Ibid., 271.
McAfee, appalled, thought this so gaudy: D’Ann Campbell, “Fighting with the Navy,” 346.
“Utility was sacrificed to looks”: Gildersleeve, Many a Good Crusade, 272.
Others chose the Navy over the Army: Myrtle O. Hanke, oral history interview, on February 11, 2000, WV0147 Myrtle Otto Hanke Papers.
“The work the women are now doing is too important”: Wilcox, Sharing the Burden, 5.
“Hide your disappointment,” he urged his students: Smith College Archives, 1939–45 WAVES, Box 1, “Broadcasts by Mr. Davis 1942–1943.”
The heels presented a problem: The description of officer training is drawn from Fran Steen interviews; Nancy Dobson Titcomb, interview with the author at her home in Maine on October 1, 2015; Nancy Gilman McKenna, interview with the author; Edith Reynolds White, interview with the author; Anne Barus Seeley, interview with the author; and Viola Moore Blount, correspondence with the author.
Ordered to salute the first lady: Erma Hughes Kirkpatrick, oral history interview on May 12, 2001, WV0213.
Erma Hughes, the bricklayer’s daughter, came to Smith: Ibid.
The women retaliated by singing, with spirit: Frances Lynd Scott, Saga of Myself (San Francisco: Ithuriel’s Spear, 2007).
During services the men would sing the original and the women: Ibid.
They were missed so badly that most were snatched: Ann White Kurtz, “From Women at War to Foreign Affairs Scholar,” American Diplomacy (June 2006), http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2006/0406/kurt/kurtz_women.html.
Cars would have fender benders: Mary Carpenter and Betty Paul Dowse, “The Code Breakers of 1942,” Wellesley (Winter 2000): 28.
Their bosses were glad to see them: Ibid.
Blanche DePuy sensed veiled resentment: Carpenter, underlying notes for Carpenter and Dowse, “Code Breakers of 1942.”
Nancy Dobson from Wellesley was asked: Nancy Dobson Titcomb, interview with the author.
There was nobody who outranked her: Fran Steen Suddeth Josephson, interview with South Carolina Educational Television.
Jaenn Coz, a bored librarian: Jaenn Coz Bailey, oral history interview on January 13, 2000, and papers, WV0141.
At the outset there was a cap on the number: Van Voris, “Wilde and Collins Project,” 17.
Georgia O’Connor joined the WAVES out of curiosity: Georgia O’Connor Ludington, oral history interview on September 5, 1996, NSA-OH-1996-09, 4.
Ava Caudle joined because: Ava Caudle Honeycutt, naval code breaker, oral history interview on November 22, 2008, and papers, WV0438.
“I had such a yearning to do something”: Hanke, oral history.
Ida Mae Olson: Ida Mae Olson Bruske, naval code breaker, telephone interview with the author on May 8, 2015.
On the train to Cedar Falls, Betty Hyatt: Betty Hyatt Caccavale, naval code breaker, oral history interview on June 18, 1999, and papers, WV0095.
Since southerners were considered slow: Betty Hyatt Caccavale, Sing On Mama, Sing On, self-published memoir, shared with the author.
The women officers continued to train: A description of the Hunter College boot camp is in Campbell, “Fighting with the Navy,” 349.
Jaenn Magdalene Coz, the librarian from California: WV0141 Jaenn Coz Bailey papers.
Other women were in for shocks of a different nature: Veronica Mackey Hulick, telephone interview with the author, undated.
The WAVES by mid-1943 were a big deal: Gildersleeve, Many a Good Crusade, recalls the mayor’s last-minute calls, 285, and the splendid marching, 278.
It was not only women from rural families: Jane Case Tuttle, interview with the author at her home in Scarborough, Maine, on September 30, 2015.
The Navy began to cast around for a bigger facility: A good history of Mount Vernon Seminary, the naval takeover, and the transformation of the campus is in Nina Mikhalevsky, Dear Daughters: A History of Mount Vernon Seminary and College (Washington, DC: Mount Vernon Seminary and College Alumnae Association, 2001), 63–135.
Cover names were proposed, such as “Naval Research Station”: RG 38, Box 81, “CNSG Staff Conference Notes-Oct-Dec 1942.”