What Textbooks Never Taught Me: Women Codebreakers
This article is written by Sophia Peckner
Click. Fingers racing across metal keys.
Clack. Each message scrambled by the Japanese Purple machine put another Allied life at risk.
During World War II, allies coordinated with one another using wireless radio communication. While this form of communication served its purpose, it lacked security.
To combat the looming threats, both sides utilized encryption machines that transformed classified messages into indecipherable forms. The Americans used the SIGABA. The Germans used Enigma. The Japanese used Purple.
The Japanese Purple machine was made up of two typewriters. An operator would use one of the typewriters to type the message. An electric mechanism would then scramble this input randomly out of a trillion combinations and the second typewriter would print out the encoded message. Purple ensured secure diplomatic communication between the Japanese and their European war allies allowing the Japanese to communicate with comfort since the code was unbreakable.
Across the Pacific in Washington D.C., a top-secret cryptology (code-breaking) team worked to uncover the Japanese code. William Friedman, a famed cryptologist, was one of the operation’s leads. For eighteen months, Friedman’s team pored over snippets of code, trying to distinguish a pattern, any pattern. The mental strain got to such an extreme that Friedman had a mental breakdown. Many began to feel that the Purple machine was truly unbreakable.
Then, on September 20, 1940, Genevive Grotjan, an aspiring math teacher in her late 20’s, made a fascinating discovery on the spacing between certain symbols. This finding advanced the team closer to the finish line. Replicas of the Japanese Purple machine were created, an impressive feat considering that no one had ever actually seen it before. Thanks to Grojtan’s discovery and her team’s effort, the Purple machine was decoded.
Grojtan wasn’t the only woman codebreaker whose work saved American lives during World War II. In fact, about 70% of codebreakers were women, each of them having an impact on the outcome of the war.
These collective efforts allowed for the location and sinking of enemy ships, gave insight on enemies’ strategies, and even set the groundwork for cybersecurity. Codebreaking shortened the span of World War II with some estimates claiming the conflict could have dragged on for as long as two more years.
After reading about the impact women codebreakers had on World War II, I was first amazed. Then I perceived these stories as bitter-sweet. In my ninth grade history class, I was only taught of the women who worked in factories and hospitals. I’d never considered that about ten thousand women were working in top-secret missions to crack codes.
I hope that in the future, history books can cover these extraordinary accomplishments made possible through dedication and intelligence.
References:
Mundy, Liza. “The Secret History of the Female Code Breakers Who Helped Defeat the Nazis.” POLITICO Magazine, 10 Oct. 2017, www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/10/the-secret-history-of-the-women-code-breakers-who-helped-defeat-the-nazis-215694.
Ouchchy, Anna. “Cracking Code Purple.” CommonLit, 2017, www.commonlit.org/texts/cracking-code-purple.
Perez, Alberto. “How the U.S. Cracked Japan’s ‘Purple Encryption Machine’ at the Dawn of World War II.” io9, io9, 22 Mar. 2013, io9.gizmodo.com/how-the-u-s-cracked-japans-purple-encryption-machine-458385664.
“War of Secrets: Cryptology in WWII.” National Museum of the United States Air Force™, 1 May 2015, www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/196193/war-of-secrets-cryptology-in-wwii/
Wei-Haas, Maya. “How the American Women Codebreakers of WWII Helped Win the War.” Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian Institution, 5 Oct. 2017, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-women-codebreakers-wwii-helped-win-war-180965058/.