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Code Girls Book Review

February 27, 2018 By Kerry

Code Girls Book

Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II by Liza Mundy.

Published in Hardback by Hachette Books on 10 October 2017 with a paperback edition due in early October 2018.

Amazon.co.uk link

Amazon.com link

From the blurb:

“Recruited by the U.S. Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges, more than ten thousand women served as codebreakers during World War II. While their brothers and boyfriends took up arms, these women moved to Washington and learned the meticulous work of code-breaking. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them.

A strict vow of secrecy nearly erased their efforts from history…”

Howard Craston’s Review

This outstanding book looks at the many young women who wanted to help the United States during World War Two. Some were civilians, while others were in uniform as WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service) or WAACs (Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps). The women worked in total secrecy, unable to tell family members what they were doing to help the Allied war effort.

They were, in fact, helping the US to break enemy codes and ciphers.

The story of breaking code and ciphers in World War Two is not new, but Code Girls is the first book to tell some of the personal stories of the American women who played a vital part in helping the Allies win the war.

Liza Mundy has put together an exceptionally researched book, weaving together a unique selection of the women’s stories with the well-documented history of the US codebreaking attack. In her research Liza, worked her way through hundreds of boxes of archival material kept in the National Archives at College Park, Maryland. Not content with the thousands of declassified memos, internal histories and reports, she filed declassification review requests, resulting in the release of further material including fifteen interviews between women codebreakers and NSA staff to add to over twenty interviews Liza had carried out with surviving women veterans.

If you have read “The Debs of Bletchley Park” by Michael Smith or “The Secret Life of Bletchley Park” by Sinclair McKay, then you will find the style of the book familiar.

The book tends to jump about chronologically as the women’s stories overlap in time but that would be my only criticism. I am well read on the subject of World War Two codebreaking, but I learned a lot about the American women’s roles from this fresh perspective on American codebreaking history.

I wholeheartedly recommend Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II.

Amazon.co.uk link

Amazon.com link

Watch a talk given by the Liza Mundy for the US National Archives

Affiliate Notice: Links to the books are affiliate links with Amazon, whereby Bletchley Park Research gets paid a few pennies if you purchase a book after clicking of the link. These payments help fund this website and they don’t affect the price you pay for your books. Feel free to ignore the links and find the books directly with the bookseller of your choice.

Filed Under: Books & Reviews, Video

Joan Clarke arrives at BP on this Day 1940

June 17, 2017 By Kerry

On this day in 1940, Joan Elisabeth Lowther Clarke walked up to the gates of Bletchley Park for the first time and was launched head first into a whirlwind of intellectual challenge, romance, and life changing opportunity.

To celebrate, I am sharing the illustration commissioned by Sage as part of Trailblazers, a campaign to pay tribute to inspirational women ‘who have forged the path to bring positive change in their respective fields.’

The photograph is reproduced by the kind permission of Sage.

Filed Under: BP People

Joan Clarke’s comment on Alan Turing’s ‘bloody little book’

March 24, 2017 By Kerry

A notebook on mathematical notations belonging to Alan Turing is on loan to Bletchley Park for a year and is on display alongside 16 of his published papers in Bletchley Park’s B-Block. Seeing it reminds me of a written comment Joan Clarke made about Alan’s ‘bloody little book’:

www.bletchleyparkresearch.co.uk

Joan may not be talking about this exact notebook, although it is the only known notebook of Alan Turing’s in existence, but connecting someone who was close to Alan and has memories of him writing his notes, makes the notebook even more precious.

copyright Bonhams 2015
© Bonhams 2015

The 56-page notebook dating from 1942 went up for auction in 2015 at Bonhams auction house and sold for over $1 million. Bonhams’ auction page and catalogue entry for the notebook describe the notebook and contents at great length. You can view the Bonhams’ catalogue here, then click on the ‘download catalogue PDF’ on the right-hand side of the page.

www.bletchleyparkresearch.co.uk
www.bletchleyparkresarch.co.uk

The notebook, purchased from a stationer’s shop in Cambridge, and other papers were left by Alan Turing in his will to his close friend and fellow mathematician, Robin Gandy. Gandy deposited the papers at the Archive Center at King’s College, Cambridge in 1977, opening them up for scholars to research. Gandy kept the notebook to write a dream diary in the blank centre pages, which starts: ‘It seems a suitable disguise to write in between these notes of Alan’s on notation, but possibly a little sinister; a dead father figure, some of whose thoughts I most completely inherited.’

copyright Bonhams 2015
© Bonhams 2015

When Alan was at Bletchley Park everyone knows he was breaking the Enigma code. But less well known is that he was also spending a lot of time working on problems in mathematics. He wrote this notebook probably quite early on in World War Two when he was thinking about the way in which we write mathematical formulae. It’s a commentary on what’s wrong with notation.

Dermot Turing
copyright Bonhams 2015
© bonhams 2015

Images of the notebook © Bonhams 2015 and are reproduced with the kind permission of Bonhams.

Filed Under: Bletchley Park News, BP People

It’s not every day you bump into the Head of Spanish Intelligence at Bletchley Park

March 20, 2017 By Kerry

I have had many unexpected and memorable experiences while accompanying Bletchley Park veteran, Charlotte (Betty) Webb to events. One of the most surprising occurred during a relaxed visit to Bletchley Park in February 2017.

By lunch time we had an inkling that something was going on, and that a VIP group of visitors were on site. We discovered the distinguished guest was Army General (Retired) Félix Sanz Roldán, Spain’s Secretary of State Director of the National Intelligence Centre.

www.bletchleyparkresearch.co.uk

The General’s party included Robert Hannagan, enjoying an outing during his final weeks as Head of GCHQ; Sir John Scarlett, Chairman of the Bletchley Park Trust and former Head of MI6; Iain Standen, CEO of Bletchley Park Trust; Tony Comer, GCHQ Historian, David Kenyon, Bletchley Park Historian, and unnamed and can’t-be-photographed MI5 personnel.

Iain Standen introduced Betty to General Sanz Roldán, and in true Betty style, she greeted him in Spanish. I believe the unplanned meeting with a Bletchley Park veteran was a highlight of his visit. Betty made an impression – he asked for her contact details, and promised to write from Madrid.

Over a handshake, General Sanz Roldán gave me permission to take the photograph shown above.

What can I say, visiting Bletchley Park is a fantastic day whenever you visit, but you never know who you might meet!

You can read about Félix Sanz Roldán’s distinguished career on the National Intelligence Centre’s website.

Filed Under: BP People

My Engagement to Alan Turing

March 18, 2017 By Kerry

‘My Engagement to Alan Turing by Joan Clarke (later Murray)’ is an extract of the 1992 Horizon programme about Alan Turing featuring the enigmatic Joan Clarke. In this short extract from the original programme hear Joan talk about Alan’s proposal of marriage and his revelation about his homosexual tendencies.

 

Can’t see the video above. Click here to watch ‘My Engagement to Alan Turing by Joan Clarke’ on YouTube.

[Note: Somehow I managed to delete the original post so I am reposting as a chance to see Joan opening up about Alan Turing is too good to miss.]

Filed Under: BP People, Video

Jean Valentine and the Bombe

January 17, 2017 By Kerry

In 2013, Bletchley Park veteran Jean Valentine featured in a short 5-minute video where she gives a demonstration of the machine she worked on during the Second World War.

In a memoir published on her Bletchley Park Roll of Honour Page, Jean recalls:

I joined the WRNS in 1943 in a fit of pique because my application to join the WAAF as an MT driver had been turned down! How wise they were and how stupid I was to think that my little height and leg reach would have been of any useful purpose for driving anything but a saloon car!”

Bletchley Park was not put off by Jean’s stature, even though Bombe operators were supposed to be above a certain height. In the video, Jean explains the simple solution she used to give her a bit more reach.

Jean Rooke (née Valentine) 2015

Jean Valentine (later Rooke) spent time working on the Bombe machines in Hut 11a at Bletchley Park and Adstock, a small outstation located 3 miles south-east of Buckingham. Over 2,000 personnel – mostly women – worked in shifts in Hut 11a, whereas about 60 worked at Adstock.

Later in the war, Jean attended a course on Japanese codes and cyphers before departing for overseas service in Colombo (the capital of Sri Lanka), where she met and married Clive Rooke.

Read more about the Enigma-busting Bombe machine here.

Filed Under: BP People

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