Even from her distant vantage point, Dot could tell that things were going much better for the Allies in the Pacific, thanks in part to the efforts of women like her and Crow and even Miriam. “Now we’re getting somewhere,” she would think as she ran between the table where she worked and the console where Miriam put together the overlaps. She and the other women knew that ship sinkings were the logical and desired consequence of their concerted efforts. They did not feel remorse. America was at war with Japan; Japan had started the war; the lives of American men were at stake, not to mention America itself. It really was that simple. Sometimes Frank Lewis would walk through the room and the women would take notice; they knew he was one of the people who had broken the 2468 code. She also recognized William Friedman, one of the men not in military uniform. Dot would hear high-ranking military officers talking, saying that things were going well. She had never thought the United States would be defeated. Now she could feel, almost viscerally, that the progress of the war was on the upswing.
So she did the best she could, giving her all on every shift she worked, using the stereotypes to get started, doing mental math, differencing up and down columns, going to the filing cabinets to retrieve cross-dupes, running over to Miriam and tolerating her contempt for southerners. Dot’s unit was completely run by women, and she took pride in the work they did. She liked it much better than teaching school.
“It was like a puzzle,” she remembered later. “We were getting somewhere. I was proud I was doing it.”
During the course of 1943 and 1944, while Dot Braden scurried to and fro between her table and the overlapper’s console, nearly the entire Japanese merchant fleet was wiped out. Beginning in 1943, starvation became the common lot of the Japanese soldier. Officials later estimated that two-thirds of Japanese military deaths were the result of starvation or lack of medical supplies.
Broken messages revealed the extent of the devastation. One message described how a group of Japanese soldiers were making a ten-day supply of rice last for twenty-five days. “By resorting to chewing it raw instead of cooking it,” the message said, “the period of consumption had been prolonged somewhat.”
At Arlington Hall, even the instructional materials revealed the profound impact that breaking 2468 and other codes was having on the Pacific War. One document provided a list of cribs and stereotypes for a code system called JEB. It noted that one Japanese transmitting station reported frequently on the arrival of personnel, as well as their nonarrival.
“If the latter,” the document noted, “the question ‘What has become of them?’ may appear next.”
PART III
The Tide Turns
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sugar Camp
April 1943
They boarded the train at midnight, leaving Washington under sealed orders. The women knew only that they were headed “west.” The train departing the capital was an ordinary troop train—dirty, crowded—with no sleeping berths. The women slept sitting up, if they slept at all, and three who were unable to find seats took turns resting in a cubbyhole used by the brakeman. Some cherished the hope that they were being sent to California. But when the train arrived at their destination, it emerged that “west” didn’t mean quite what they thought. They were in another Union Station, this one in Dayton, Ohio.
The women gathered their things and made their way into the chill morning air, where they mustered for roll call. Although this was a secret mission, a photographer stood waiting to greet them, so the women lined up and smiled for group photos, smart and polished despite the grime and fatigue of the all-night train ride. They wore their naval uniforms, of course: six-gored skirts and chic fitted jackets, white-and-blue caps, white gloves, blue belted greatcoats, stockings and pumps, smart pocketbooks strapped catty-corner over their shoulders. Each woman held a little hard-backed suitcase that contained everything else she needed.
A bus waited in the parking lot. They climbed on and it carried them away from downtown Dayton and into the nearby countryside, where after a short drive the bus swung into a driveway marked by stone gateposts. The women entered a grassy compound: elevated, bucolic, peaceful. If they didn’t know better they’d think the U.S. Navy was taking them to a Girl Scout camp. There were maple trees and rustic cabins clustered around a central clearing.
The women disembarked and mustered, once again, and a Navy color guard greeted them. The American flag was raised. They felt tired, but by now they were used to feeling tired. They lined up to receive linens and pillows and dispersed to find their cabins. As fresh Navy recruits, their lives for the past two months had been a series of unfamiliar lodgings, first at boot camp and then in Washington, D.C., where they spent several weeks sitting in the hard upright benches of the chapel in the Naval Communications Annex compound, taking tests, listening to security lectures, and waiting while their backgrounds were investigated. Nobody told them the nature of the work they had been brought to Dayton to perform.
The cabins were small but pleasant. The women pushed open the wooden shutters to let in sunlight. Each cabin was divided into two bedrooms, with two beds per bedroom. Each bedroom had two closets, and there was a small writing desk built into the wall beside each bed, with a gooseneck lamp over each desk. There were no screens for the latticed windows, but there didn’t seem to be any bugs in Ohio. Nearly everything was made of wood, including the desks, the beds, the floors, the walls, and the ceilings. Between the bedrooms was a bathroom with a toilet, a shower, and two sinks. The cabins were unheated.