The untold story of American female codebreakers during WWII

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In 1941, the U.S. Navy began quietly recruiting male intelligence officers from elite colleges and universities around the country as it prepared for their inevitable involvement in World War II; they were specifically looking for codebreakers to aid in deciphering the enemy’s cryptic language.Just months before on July 9, 1941, Alan Turing and his team of 8,000 female ciphers broke the impossible German Enigma code at Bletchley Park; a feat that turned the tide of war in the Allies favor. By 1942, male enlistment abroad created a shortage in manpower on the home front and President Roosevelt designated a new division in the Navy for women; they were known as WAVES or, Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service. One of these volunteers was Judy Parsons, a 21-year-old graduate of Carnegie Mellon University who signed up for the officer training school in 1942. She was sent to the Navy’s intelligence headquarters in Washington DC where she was shuffled into a room among other WAVES graduates. ‘Does anyone know German?’ they asked. Parsons had studied it for two years in high school and was immediately assigned to OP-20-G, a codebreaking division that became the US Navy’s version of Bletchley Park. She is one of the 11,000 untold stories of American women responsible for some of the most impressive codebreaking triumphs of the war.     Judy Parsons, 99, is a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother who worked as a codebreaker for the US Navy during World War II. She signed up for the officer training program after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University in 1942 and was sent to work in the ‘OP-20-G’  – a codebreaking division within the Navy’s Office of Communications Judy Parsons is one of the many untold stories of women who worked in America’s top secret decoding program during WWII. Their work was kept secret for almost 70 years. ‘I never told my husband, I never told anybody,’ said Parsons to CNN Decoders used a complicated machine known as a ‘bombe’ (above) to help decipher German Enigma-machine encrypted messages. The bombe was designed by British cryptologist, Alan Turing at Bletchley Park in 1939. Its function was to discover the daily key – wheel order, wheel settings and plugboard configuration of the Enigma coded messages Women in the OP-20-G were recruited from elite colleges and universities around the country. They were tested with weekly numbered problem sets and less than half passed the initial recruitment stages. Those who succeeded were sent to work in the Navy’s cramped downtown Washington D.C. headquarters that had been converted from a former seminary campus      Cryptographers, both male and female, were trained to decode German encrypted communications during World War II. Those selected for the clandestine work were adept at math, science and foreign languagesThe surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941 led to the United States’ formal entry into World War II. Overnight, a sleeping nation was forced to wake up to the fact that it was woefully unprepared for war. The home front mobilized its human and material resources for the war- effort which created an unprecedented opportunity for women to enter the workforce outside the domestic sphere. Epitomized by Rosie the Riveter, many women rolled up their sleeves to work in factories that built bombs, ships, tanks, and aircraft. Far less known are the stories like Judy Parsons, who joined the WAVES after discovering that the Navy was accepting women for its officer training program in a newspaper ad.   RELATED ARTICLES Previous 1 Next Son of RAF gunner whose bomber was shot down and vanished… WWII boat that sank off Kent carrying 1,400 tons of… Goya’s American dream: How Spanish immigrants turned their… Sorting the mail and blazing a trail: Remembering the unsung… PICTURED: Wreckage of gunboat that JFK commanded under fire… Britain’s wartime women of steel: Stories of the unsung WWII…

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By 1945, 11,000 women were hired to work as codebreakers for the Army and Navy but their work was to be kept entirely secret for almost 70 years. ‘We were told that we would be hung at the gallows,’ said Parsons to ‘I never told my husband, I never told anybody,’ she said. It wasn’t until the 1990s, when information became declassified that Parsons began discussing the work she did among friends and family. If asked what they did, they were told to tell people that they emptied trash cans and sharpened pencils. ‘It was kind-of a blow to my pride not be able to talk about it because everybody assumed I was a secretary,’ said Parsons. Others improvised a more cheeky response and said their job was to sit on the laps of commanding officers.’I would love to have said, I had such a good job you wouldn’t believe, but I couldn’t say that,’ lamented Parsons.  They worked hard at dispelling t