Codebreakers of World War 2 - Behind the Scenes Heroes - 25 Interesting Facts

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Codebreakers of World War 2 - Behind the Scenes Heroes - 25 Interesting Facts

The Code Girls or World War II Code Girls is a nickname for the more than 10,000 women who served as cryptographers (code makers) and cryptanalysts (code breakers) for the United States Military during World War II, working in secrecy to break German and Japanese codes.  These women were a crucial part of the war and broke numerous codes that were of significant importance to the Allied Forces and helped them to win and shorten the Second World War.

During the recruitment process, the women were asked if they liked crossword puzzles and if they were engaged or wanted to be married.  Those who answered 'yes' and 'no', respectively, were moved forward in the hiring process.  The military were looking for women that were willing to relocate and had little to no ties to their current lifestyle.  Candidates were invited to secret meetings where they were offered the opportunity to take a code-breaking training course and were sworn to secrecy- exposing their work was considered treason and could have been punishable by death. Those who passed the course were invited to Washington, D.C. after college graduation to join the Navy as civilian employees.  The Army also began recruiting women code breakers around this time. Army officials met with representatives from women's colleges at the Mayflower Hotel in hopes of recruiting their top students before the Navy was able to do so, and in May of 1942, the female civilian code breakers, were accepted into the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, and thus into Military Service.  

Due to the nature of secrecy of the female code-breakers of World War II and the "loose lips sink ships" propaganda and mentality during that time, a significant amount of their work and recruitment process remains a mystery, and without an existing record of a roster of all of the Code Girls, it is almost impossible to track down all of these individuals and get all of the details of their recruitment experience.

We also review Bletchley Park an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire), that became the principal center of British code-breaking during the Second World War.  The mansion was constructed during the years following 1883 for the financier and politician Herbert Leon in the Victorian Gothic, Tudor and Dutch Baroque styles, on the site of older buildings of the same name.  During World War II, the estate housed the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), which regularly penetrated the secret communications of the Axis Powers – most importantly the German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers. The GC&CS team of codebreakers included Alan Turing, Harry Golombek, Gordon Welchman, Hugh Alexander, Bill Tutte and Stuart Milner-Barry.  Bletchley also was staffed by hundreds of British "Code Girls" assisting in code and cipher breaking.

We review several short videos and interviews of the Code Girls from the excellent book "Code Girls" by Liza Mundy.  We also watch a short clip of a scene from the movie "Imitation Game" when Alan Turing and his team break the German Enigma code machine!  ss always we discuss the 25 Interesting Facts about the Codebreakers of World War 2!

Check out our videos leading up to this episode on Pearl Harbor -- https://youtu.be/QB2alARk060?si=mWzl9fDEflsM9THV 

and on D-Day -- https://youtu.be/xeILuYzMnZI?si=teQMPqijOuLy-u0F 

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