The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II

The book is an informative special slice of history for the predecessor organization of NSA. It is an accurate reflection of the gender prejudices of the times and the lives of the young women who answered the call to Washington early in WWII. The book pays tribute to a set of very talented women that have been overlooked by history books. I know from my work on the history of the Pacific War how important the code breaking was to the success of the war effort. The first part of the book moved fairly well, however, I found the later part of the book tended to drag as the story moved more slowly.

Fascinating story, however as a man I found the personal information about the women less interesting than the intellectual challenges of code breaking and its consequences. Of course, the changes in career opportunities for women over the past 70 years are profound, and these women were on the cutting edge of the revolution.

I have to say right off - the blurb on the front cover of this book is misleading. It claims to be "The untold story of the American women code breakers of World War 2". It should more accurately state "The history and methodology of code breaking during World War 2".
It's quite clear the author did her research into code breaking as she details it meticulously. As for the women? Not so much. There were occasional anecdotes about the women but 85% of what I read was about code breaking. I honestly expected to read about these women and their lives, how they battled against convention to do their jobs. I did NOT expect to give up on the book about 40% in because of the dry, boring details of code breaking!
I'm glad I checked this one out of the library instead of spending money on it.

If you enjoyed Hidden Figures or The Boys On The Boat, you are definitely going to want to pick up a copy of Code Girls.

While I was loosely familiar with Bletchley Park codebreakers in England, I didn't know anything about the US efforts, much less the important role women played. Due to the level of secrecy their job required, many people haven't heard of these amazing cryptanalysts and what they did to help end the second World War. Many of the women maintained confidentiality for decades after the war, even after the ban on talking was lifted, to the extent they were doubtful about whether they should talk to the author. I'm so grateful they did decide to share their stories, however. Mundy gives us a fascinating and valuable history with this work.

The effort to recruit women to serve as codebreakers began shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor. (Women also helped with cryptanalysis during the first World War and the chapter that centers on that period of time was mind-blowing, particularly how the women were basically dropped once the war ended.) The Navy targeted women's colleges of the Northeastern Seaboard, while the Army sent recruiters to teaching colleges throughout the South and Midwest.

Mundy gives her readers a good understanding of what cryptanalysis is, as well as what it takes to be a good code breaker. This understanding made me even more in awe of what these women accomplished, especially given how much sexism and misogyny they experienced.

Women were not welcomed with open arms when it came to the war effort, even though hundreds of thousands ultimately served. While the war was largely viewed as men's domain, women were given positions deemed less interesting, like code breaking. Mundy does not shy away from showing how prevailing sexist attitudes negatively affected the women's careers, especially post-war.

Racism was also a factor. Although Eleanor Roosevelt wanted a certain percentage of the Arlington Hall workforce should be black, segregation and Jim Crow were at work. Black workers were given primarily menial jobs but the Army did have an African American code-breaking unit whose existence was so secretive, most white workers didn't know anything about it. Racism also affected Asian Americans who served as translators and in other capacities and who were largely distrusted due to the campaigns against the Japanese.

Mundy showcases stories from both the WAVES at the Navy and the Arlington Hall workers at the Army. At times, I became confused about who was who and whether we were talking about the Army or the Navy. Picking a few women to focus on and letting their stories play out throughout the war years would have made for a stronger narrative. However, I learned a lot and I can't imagine how hard it would be to leave certain women's stories out so I can appreciate the choices Mundy made. 

I was caught up in the code breaker's successes and frustrations and by the time Germany and then Japan surrendered, I wanted to shout their names from the rooftops. These women sacrificed so much for their country and received little recognition in return. Mundy has changed that by shining a light on their contributions and we are better for it.

Oh, and the last paragraph of this book? Perfection.

Disclosure: I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Affiliate links included in this post.

Hachette Books and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Author Liza Mundy takes a comprehensive look at the more than ten thousand women who served as code breakers during World War II. Many of the women had attended college for teaching, although women from other professions were chosen as well. Having to pay their own way to Washington DC, many of the women found themselves in substandard housing with very tight quarters. Although they were earning much more than their previous jobs, men were paid a larger salary for the same work. These cryptographers helped the United States in the effort to end the war, although the secretive nature of their jobs meant that their success remained hidden from public record for many years.

In her effort to try and humanize the women, the author went into too much detail about their personal lives. I wanted to read a history book about code breakers and how their efforts helped to turn the tide of World War II. Code Girls gets bogged down because of this and makes it drag in the middle. If the book were tightened up a bit, it would have had a larger impact. Despite all of this, I definitely learned a great deal about these courageous women. Readers who are fans of World War II history may find Code Girls to their liking.

The last decade has produced books and films about many types of people whose efforts helped the Allies win World War II. The fiction and non-fiction have centered around the Navajo Code Talkers, and then, the mostly women (and one film about black women) who helped break the encrypted messages of the enemy. Deciphering the coded messages was a vital task, and incredibly complicated. Once the branches of the US military (and the armed forces of the Allies) knew the military plans of the enemy, they could strategize properly and win the war. These stories have needed to be told for a long, long time.

The story (and identities) of the Code Girls is extremely important, from both historical and feminist perspectives. These women were brilliant, having studied mathematics, languages, and even physics. They had to put up with a lot of sexism. It's a fascinating tale, and I'm grateful for Liza Mundy's perseverance in telling it. The exhaustive research, gleaned from formerly classified documents, obviously wasn't easy. This is why I sincerely wish I could have given the book a higher rating.

There are two major flaws in this book: the choppiness of the narrative and the editing. The former is particularly distressing, because the reader can quickly lose focus. Mundy skips around a lot--between World War I and World War II; between background events and the topic she's supposed to be discussing; between the women, so that who they were as individuals blur into each other; and in the explanations of what exactly was entailed in the decoding of the enemy messages, which should have been explained sooner in the book. I found the way Mundy goes back and forth between different time periods and topics to be especially jarring.

The editing is atrocious. There are colons where there shouldn't have been. Run-on sentences are common, which don't make any sense and which I had to read two or three times in order to grasp the meaning. There's an excessive use of semicolons, when separate sentences or dashes would have been preferable. Other times, dashes are used excessively. She also uses slang, which not only doesn't fit in with this topic, it's sometimes incomprehensible--as in the sentence, "Even the great ones, like William Friedman, at some point go off the boil." What the heck does this even mean? There are spelling errors too. Early on, the word "material" is misspelled as "materiel." Then there's the misuse of words, such as on page 119, with the phrase, "it was impossible to do chores in normal hours." The "in" should have been "during." There are also inconsistencies in the story line. Early in the book, one of the young women is portrayed as refusing to wear her would-be suitor's ring--and shortly thereafter, she's portrayed as taking it off. Very sloppy! These are just a few examples, as the errors could fill several pages.

A poorly edited book can detract greatly from even the most compelling tale. Laura Hillenbrand, author of the book Seabiscuit, had a similarly daunting job writing a historical novel--yet I never felt the same sense of unease, or lack of cohesion, when reading Seabiscuit. Was Mundy (or her publisher) trying to release her book too hastily?

This book deserves 3.5 stars for the presentation, and a hearty thanks for the effort, the voluminous amount of research, and the vision for telling a tale that needed to be told. The book deserves to be read because the story of these women is quite compelling. However, if you like good writing, try to overlook the flaws and focus on the subject matter.

Liza Mundy's "Code Girls" is a splendid, well-researched work of non-fiction that sheds light on the contribution of highly educated women who were plucked from their hometowns and colleges to serve their country during the Second World War. What they had in common was an aptitude for breaking the enemies' complex codes. After being vetted and tested by government officials, the recruits were trained in the top-secret science of cryptanalysis.

The author conducted interviews, consulted oral histories and other primary sources, and studied declassified documents stored "at the national Archives and Record Administration II in College Park, MD." These files "had sat gathering dust for over seventy years." We now know that the U. S. Army and Navy created a program that taught thousands of women to closely examine and decrypt German and Japanese message systems. Gleaning facts about the enemies' casualties, troop movements, supply convoys, and planned attacks gave our military leaders the information that they needed to make strategic decisions. There is no question that the code breakers' work saved countless American lives.

Mundy provides an overview of the attack on Pearl Harbor; America's shift from isolationism to a war footing; the shortage of men to fill jobs on the home front; and the horrible toll that the Second World War took on American troops and their loved ones. However, it is her focus on particular women that creates a vivid picture of who the code girls were, where they came from, how they handled their demanding jobs, and what effect their clandestine activities had on their personal lives.

Code breaking was a painstaking task that required skilled workers who were patient, highly motivated, and intuitive. The most successful among them had excellent memories and the ability to see both the forest AND the trees. "Code Girls" is an entertaining, enlightening, and riveting account of a turning point in American history. Liz Mundy's beautifully crafted prose flows effortlessly. She brilliantly portrays the personalities, successes and failures, and personal sacrifices of the female code breakers who, without fanfare, played a key role in helping the Allied forces defeat Germany and Japan.

This is a riveting account of a little known story of code breaking not at Bletchley park but in Washington D.C. And Dayton, Ohio. The author stumbled on a cache of recently declassified documents detailing the recruitment and placement of schoolteachers and college girls to serve as code breakers for the Army and the Navy.
The girls, all of whom took a vow of secrecy, wrote little about their lives as code breakers and this is one of the few complete histories of their activities. Much of the book centers on the efforts to break the far to numerous Japanese Imperial codes, which directly effected our war in the Pacific.
Code breaking efforts were not a high priority before Pearl Harbor and the drastic need for information after that event caused much scrambling in military echelons. The campaign to recruit, especially women, went from non existent to high gear in a very short time. Sprinkled throughout the narrative are personal stories of individuals but many of the women took their vow of secrecy very seriously and took that to the grave.
This book is very well done and it makes this history really come alive. The Author includes an extensive source and bibliography for further study . As this is a review copy, there were no photographs which I hope will be in the "real" book. Many of the explainations of codes and code breaking really need visuals rather than just written descriptions. This is really my only complaint.
In the end, I have enjoyed this book and the many explainations of cryptography and hope that there will be more books on this subject.

This book left me astounded that I had never heard the story of WWII women code breakers before now. They did have to keep quiet about the work they did, even years after the war; but it's unbelievable so little is known by the general public of their accomplishments; particularly the code breaking that devastated the Japanese navy, and led to the assassination of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Author Liza Mundy also details the creation of the WAVES and WACS. Complaints? I have only two. First, I think the book had too many details about too many things. Second, it was impossible to keep all the women straight. Other than that, though, this story shows how the accomplishments of women in the past have often been overlooked, or intentionally obscured for one reason or another.

(Note: I received a free e-copy of this book from NetGalley and the author or publisher.)

Following the recognition of Navajo “code talkers” who served the US with distinction during World War II, and for the many men working in espionage in what have been depicted as dangerous and romantic postings, women who assisted in the war effort as codebreakers are finally recognized and appropriately regaled by bestselling author Liza Mundy.

Drawing from US Army and Navy archives, Mundy managed to get data declassified in order to access oral histories and contact roughly 20 surviving participants, like Dot Braden, a high school teacher with a facility for languages when she was hired to work for the US Army Signal Intelligence Service at nearly twice her former salary. In some cases, the codebreakers were recruited from women's colleges, indicating their intellectual status at a time when few women ventured beyond secondary education.

They were initially trained and housed at Arlington Farms in northern Virginia. Freed from household chores and plunged into work within weeks, they and the other women crowding into the Washington area to aid in the war effort became known as "g-girls." The code girls would eventually be inducted into the newly formed WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service). Battling the usual bias against women, they were drawn in for the tasks of cryptanalysis mainly because, like “Rosie the Riveter,” they were there and men were not.

Among those whose lives during and after the war are explored in this fascinating work is Genevieve Marie Grotjan. It was Grotjan who cracked the Purple code, a Japanese machine-based cipher said to be unbreakable. Her feat was described by an expert as “by far the most difficult cryptanalytic problem successfully handled and solved by any signal intelligence unit in the world.” Breaking the Purple gave the allies a way into the thinking of the Japanese at the diplomatic level, as well as the ability to follow their military strategy. Of course, Grotjan, like others on her team, would receive no public credit for her work.

Despite the tedium of the work and the strict military rules, fun was not ruled out. “Fraternizing” occurred between the WAVES and their male counterparts --- and among female counterparts, though lesbianism, like pregnancy even for married participants, would have meant instant dismissal. Yet they were far from the undisciplined group the military was leery of when it recruited civilians. The code workers took their jobs very seriously and knew the consequences of breaking the secrecy oath.

An epilogue traces the later lives of these intrepid women. Some used the GI Bill to further their education; many suffered the same old discrimination that had existed pre-war, watching men get the best jobs; some lived "happily ever after" while others suffered lingering depression. Some in the group instituted a round-robin letter to maintain contact. One small edge that women had over men in the military was that their lives were not as closely scrutinized post-war. Friends and family noticed the complex thinking processes of these remarkable females; one man remarked that, when asked directions, his mother had to “start with the address and work backward,” harking back to the tedious work she had done with Japanese address codes.

There is no doubt that the code analysis carried out by these women shortened the war, and since nearly all of them had family members in combat, this was the ever-present goal, even as the last days of WWII brought heart-rending slaughter. Tracking their work and personal lives, almost on a daily basis, Mundy brings back the tensions and rigors of that seminal time in our history, while paying homage to a group of heroines unsung until now.

Reviewed by Barbara Bamberger Scott

If you enjoyed Hidden Figures or The Boys On The Boat, you are definitely going to want to pick up a copy of Code Girls.

While I was loosely familiar with Bletchley Park codebreakers in England, I didn't know anything about the US efforts, much less the important role women played. Due to the level of secrecy their job required, many people haven't heard of these amazing cryptanalysts and what they did to help end the second World War. Many of the women maintained confidentiality for decades after the war, even after the ban on talking was lifted, to the extent they were doubtful about whether they should talk to the author. I'm so grateful they did decide to share their stories, however. Mundy gives us a fascinating and valuable history with this work.

The effort to recruit women to serve as codebreakers began shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor. (Women also helped with cryptanalysis during the first World War and the chapter that centers on that period of time was mind-blowing, particularly how the women were basically dropped once the war ended.) The Navy targeted women's colleges of the Northeastern Seaboard, while the Army sent recruiters to teaching colleges throughout the South and Midwest.

Mundy gives her readers a good understanding of what cryptanalysis is, as well as what it takes to be a good code breaker. This understanding made me even more in awe of what these women accomplished, especially given how much sexism and misogyny they experienced.

Women were not welcomed with open arms when it came to the war effort, even though hundreds of thousands ultimately served. While the war was largely viewed as men's domain, women were given positions deemed less interesting, like code breaking. Mundy does not shy away from showing how prevailing sexist attitudes negatively affected the women's careers, especially post-war.

Racism was also a factor. Although Eleanor Roosevelt wanted a certain percentage of the Arlington Hall workforce should be black, segregation and Jim Crow were at work. Black workers were given primarily menial jobs but the Army did have an African American code-breaking unit whose existence was so secretive, most white workers didn't know anything about it. Racism also affected Asian Americans who served as translators and in other capacities and who were largely distrusted due to the campaigns against the Japanese.

Mundy showcases stories from both the WAVES at the Navy and the Arlington Hall workers at the Army. At times, I became confused about who was who and whether we were talking about the Army or the Navy. Picking a few women to focus on and letting their stories play out throughout the war years would have made for a stronger narrative. However, I learned a lot and I can't imagine how hard it would be to leave certain women's stories out so I can appreciate the choices Mundy made. 

I was caught up in the code breaker's successes and frustrations and by the time Germany and then Japan surrendered, I wanted to shout their names from the rooftops. These women sacrificed so much for their country and received little recognition in return. Mundy has changed that by shining a light on their contributions and we are better for it.

Oh, and the last paragraph of this book? Perfection.

Disclosure: I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Affiliate links included in this post.

Hachette Books and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Author Liza Mundy takes a comprehensive look at the more than ten thousand women who served as code breakers during World War II. Many of the women had attended college for teaching, although women from other professions were chosen as well. Having to pay their own way to Washington DC, many of the women found themselves in substandard housing with very tight quarters. Although they were earning much more than their previous jobs, men were paid a larger salary for the same work. These cryptographers helped the United States in the effort to end the war, although the secretive nature of their jobs meant that their success remained hidden from public record for many years.

In her effort to try and humanize the women, the author went into too much detail about their personal lives. I wanted to read a history book about code breakers and how their efforts helped to turn the tide of World War II. Code Girls gets bogged down because of this and makes it drag in the middle. If the book were tightened up a bit, it would have had a larger impact. Despite all of this, I definitely learned a great deal about these courageous women. Readers who are fans of World War II history may find Code Girls to their liking.

The last decade has produced books and films about many types of people whose efforts helped the Allies win World War II. The fiction and non-fiction have centered around the Navajo Code Talkers, and then, the mostly women (and one film about black women) who helped break the encrypted messages of the enemy. Deciphering the coded messages was a vital task, and incredibly complicated. Once the branches of the US military (and the armed forces of the Allies) knew the military plans of the enemy, they could strategize properly and win the war. These stories have needed to be told for a long, long time.

The story (and identities) of the Code Girls is extremely important, from both historical and feminist perspectives. These women were brilliant, having studied mathematics, languages, and even physics. They had to put up with a lot of sexism. It's a fascinating tale, and I'm grateful for Liza Mundy's perseverance in telling it. The exhaustive research, gleaned from formerly classified documents, obviously wasn't easy. This is why I sincerely wish I could have given the book a higher rating.

There are two major flaws in this book: the choppiness of the narrative and the editing. The former is particularly distressing, because the reader can quickly lose focus. Mundy skips around a lot--between World War I and World War II; between background events and the topic she's supposed to be discussing; between the women, so that who they were as individuals blur into each other; and in the explanations of what exactly was entailed in the decoding of the enemy messages, which should have been explained sooner in the book. I found the way Mundy goes back and forth between different time periods and topics to be especially jarring.

The editing is atrocious. There are colons where there shouldn't have been. Run-on sentences are common, which don't make any sense and which I had to read two or three times in order to grasp the meaning. There's an excessive use of semicolons, when separate sentences or dashes would have been preferable. Other times, dashes are used excessively. She also uses slang, which not only doesn't fit in with this topic, it's sometimes incomprehensible--as in the sentence, "Even the great ones, like William Friedman, at some point go off the boil." What the heck does this even mean? There are spelling errors too. Early on, the word "material" is misspelled as "materiel." Then there's the misuse of words, such as on page 119, with the phrase, "it was impossible to do chores in normal hours." The "in" should have been "during." There are also inconsistencies in the story line. Early in the book, one of the young women is portrayed as refusing to wear her would-be suitor's ring--and shortly thereafter, she's portrayed as taking it off. Very sloppy! These are just a few examples, as the errors could fill several pages.

A poorly edited book can detract greatly from even the most compelling tale. Laura Hillenbrand, author of the book Seabiscuit, had a similarly daunting job writing a historical novel--yet I never felt the same sense of unease, or lack of cohesion, when reading Seabiscuit. Was Mundy (or her publisher) trying to release her book too hastily?

This book deserves 3.5 stars for the presentation, and a hearty thanks for the effort, the voluminous amount of research, and the vision for telling a tale that needed to be told. The book deserves to be read because the story of these women is quite compelling. However, if you like good writing, try to overlook the flaws and focus on the subject matter.

Liza Mundy's "Code Girls" is a splendid, well-researched work of non-fiction that sheds light on the contribution of highly educated women who were plucked from their hometowns and colleges to serve their country during the Second World War. What they had in common was an aptitude for breaking the enemies' complex codes. After being vetted and tested by government officials, the recruits were trained in the top-secret science of cryptanalysis.

The author conducted interviews, consulted oral histories and other primary sources, and studied declassified documents stored "at the national Archives and Record Administration II in College Park, MD." These files "had sat gathering dust for over seventy years." We now know that the U. S. Army and Navy created a program that taught thousands of women to closely examine and decrypt German and Japanese message systems. Gleaning facts about the enemies' casualties, troop movements, supply convoys, and planned attacks gave our military leaders the information that they needed to make strategic decisions. There is no question that the code breakers' work saved countless American lives.

Mundy provides an overview of the attack on Pearl Harbor; America's shift from isolationism to a war footing; the shortage of men to fill jobs on the home front; and the horrible toll that the Second World War took on American troops and their loved ones. However, it is her focus on particular women that creates a vivid picture of who the code girls were, where they came from, how they handled their demanding jobs, and what effect their clandestine activities had on their personal lives.

Code breaking was a painstaking task that required skilled workers who were patient, highly motivated, and intuitive. The most successful among them had excellent memories and the ability to see both the forest AND the trees. "Code Girls" is an entertaining, enlightening, and riveting account of a turning point in American history. Liz Mundy's beautifully crafted prose flows effortlessly. She brilliantly portrays the personalities, successes and failures, and personal sacrifices of the female code breakers who, without fanfare, played a key role in helping the Allied forces defeat Germany and Japan.

This is a riveting account of a little known story of code breaking not at Bletchley park but in Washington D.C. And Dayton, Ohio. The author stumbled on a cache of recently declassified documents detailing the recruitment and placement of schoolteachers and college girls to serve as code breakers for the Army and the Navy.
The girls, all of whom took a vow of secrecy, wrote little about their lives as code breakers and this is one of the few complete histories of their activities. Much of the book centers on the efforts to break the far to numerous Japanese Imperial codes, which directly effected our war in the Pacific.
Code breaking efforts were not a high priority before Pearl Harbor and the drastic need for information after that event caused much scrambling in military echelons. The campaign to recruit, especially women, went from non existent to high gear in a very short time. Sprinkled throughout the narrative are personal stories of individuals but many of the women took their vow of secrecy very seriously and took that to the grave.
This book is very well done and it makes this history really come alive. The Author includes an extensive source and bibliography for further study . As this is a review copy, there were no photographs which I hope will be in the "real" book. Many of the explainations of codes and code breaking really need visuals rather than just written descriptions. This is really my only complaint.
In the end, I have enjoyed this book and the many explainations of cryptography and hope that there will be more books on this subject.

This book left me astounded that I had never heard the story of WWII women code breakers before now. They did have to keep quiet about the work they did, even years after the war; but it's unbelievable so little is known by the general public of their accomplishments; particularly the code breaking that devastated the Japanese navy, and led to the assassination of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Author Liza Mundy also details the creation of the WAVES and WACS. Complaints? I have only two. First, I think the book had too many details about too many things. Second, it was impossible to keep all the women straight. Other than that, though, this story shows how the accomplishments of women in the past have often been overlooked, or intentionally obscured for one reason or another.

(Note: I received a free e-copy of this book from NetGalley and the author or publisher.)

Following the recognition of Navajo “code talkers” who served the US with distinction during World War II, and for the many men working in espionage in what have been depicted as dangerous and romantic postings, women who assisted in the war effort as codebreakers are finally recognized and appropriately regaled by bestselling author Liza Mundy.

Drawing from US Army and Navy archives, Mundy managed to get data declassified in order to access oral histories and contact roughly 20 surviving participants, like Dot Braden, a high school teacher with a facility for languages when she was hired to work for the US Army Signal Intelligence Service at nearly twice her former salary. In some cases, the codebreakers were recruited from women's colleges, indicating their intellectual status at a time when few women ventured beyond secondary education.

They were initially trained and housed at Arlington Farms in northern Virginia. Freed from household chores and plunged into work within weeks, they and the other women crowding into the Washington area to aid in the war effort became known as "g-girls." The code girls would eventually be inducted into the newly formed WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service). Battling the usual bias against women, they were drawn in for the tasks of cryptanalysis mainly because, like “Rosie the Riveter,” they were there and men were not.

Among those whose lives during and after the war are explored in this fascinating work is Genevieve Marie Grotjan. It was Grotjan who cracked the Purple code, a Japanese machine-based cipher said to be unbreakable. Her feat was described by an expert as “by far the most difficult cryptanalytic problem successfully handled and solved by any signal intelligence unit in the world.” Breaking the Purple gave the allies a way into the thinking of the Japanese at the diplomatic level, as well as the ability to follow their military strategy. Of course, Grotjan, like others on her team, would receive no public credit for her work.

Despite the tedium of the work and the strict military rules, fun was not ruled out. “Fraternizing” occurred between the WAVES and their male counterparts --- and among female counterparts, though lesbianism, like pregnancy even for married participants, would have meant instant dismissal. Yet they were far from the undisciplined group the military was leery of when it recruited civilians. The code workers took their jobs very seriously and knew the consequences of breaking the secrecy oath.

An epilogue traces the later lives of these intrepid women. Some used the GI Bill to further their education; many suffered the same old discrimination that had existed pre-war, watching men get the best jobs; some lived "happily ever after" while others suffered lingering depression. Some in the group instituted a round-robin letter to maintain contact. One small edge that women had over men in the military was that their lives were not as closely scrutinized post-war. Friends and family noticed the complex thinking processes of these remarkable females; one man remarked that, when asked directions, his mother had to “start with the address and work backward,” harking back to the tedious work she had done with Japanese address codes.

There is no doubt that the code analysis carried out by these women shortened the war, and since nearly all of them had family members in combat, this was the ever-present goal, even as the last days of WWII brought heart-rending slaughter. Tracking their work and personal lives, almost on a daily basis, Mundy brings back the tensions and rigors of that seminal time in our history, while paying homage to a group of heroines unsung until now.

Reviewed by Barbara Bamberger Scott

This book is utterly fascinating. This is as much for the social comment of the time as the actual subject of the book. The glimpses of life and manners we get from letters, activities, expectations and descriptions of travel and housing shows a world and ethic lost to us now. The book covers so many aspects from recruitment, training for a host of jobs related to cryptology, the brutal hours, pressure and genuine desire to work for the 'war effort.' These have been detailed so well by other reviewers. Sometimes it's hard to follow who is who, and the story jumps around in chronology enough that it's best to just set aside expectations of a linear story line. There is a LOT to tell, and I think the author does an excellent job pulling it into an engrossing story.

The one sour note - and the reason I subtract a star from 5 stars - is the overblown harping on "women's place" in society at the time was not in the workplace. As unusual circumstances brought scores of women into the workplace who would not otherwise have come, the author pesters the reader beyond the point of irritation about how women did not have opportunities in work outside the home. We understand (as I myself experienced) the rejection for work or school when a slot is being offered to a man (who, of course, were the principal breadwinners generally). But the author beats this to death. It detracts from the story which is marvelous enough to stand on its own without all the preaching and sniping.

This is not to say I don't appreciate the examples given in the story (WAVES returning to Washington put to menial work by a resentful male who sidetracked women from their duty stations in the code work - yes, awful; the context that teacher was one of the few professions open to women). I do! I just wish the author had let them speak for themselves. At one point the author even states that having so many women leave the workplace to return to homes as wives and mothers after the war was a great "loss of talent" to the country. What? Where does Mundy think those women went? They didn't fall off the planet. They raised children, anchored home life (few 'latchkey' kids) and neighborhood life, and became the backbone and executives of prodigious charitable works for which this country is famous. We did not "lose" any talent. It just didn't go in the direction of the author's bias. And had it, we would have lost other "talent." Recommended, with this caveat.

*I received a free copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

Code Girls is far and away the BEST non-fiction I’ve read this year, if not in the past five years. Following the style of Hidden Figures in showing just how much work women have done to make our country what it is today, Liza Mundy reveals the women behind the code-breaking operation during World War II. During her research, she asked for documents to be declassified (some successfully, some not), giving us access to a whole new world of information about the lives of women during the war that they were never allowed to talk about.

What struck me most about this book is how well the author formats the narrative; she gives plenty of background information in the field of cryptanalysis, the context of what was happening during World War II at various times, and the context of just what the military was doing in order to combat the Axis nations. Within that, she follows the lives of a few women who left their normal lives to work for the government and help the war effort by joining a super secret project that broke codes for the military. Because of the way it’s written, you get both the full context of what’s happening and what the work the women are doing means, but you also get the human element of being able to relate to specific women who served as codebreakers, which is such a great balance to have in a non-fiction. It really helps it to become a page-turner and I was enthralled.

I never realized how much I didn’t know about the US World War II effort; I would poke at my husband throughout the day to share the most interesting tidbits and tell him about what I was learning; it almost made me feel like a little kid again, discovering information that fascinated and enthralled me. And, of course, it’s so great to hear the stories of women who were rock stars but never able to tell anyone about their accomplishments; it’s humbling to read about how much work they did and the sort of conditions they put up with in order to simply help us win the war.

This book is everything — heartbreaking, inspiring, emotional, and intelligently researched. I’m going to be buying copies of this for friends for Christmas this year, because this is a story that people need to know.

This is a good book that could have been great. The contribution of cryptographers, including the code girls, to the winning of World War II is not generally acknowledged, and this book goes a long way to addressing that gap. However, in my opinion the book misses in two important ways:

1. It is not nearly clear enough about the mechanics of the crypto systems used by the Axis powers, and thus does not make clear to the reader just how difficult the job accomplished by the code girls really was. The book describes, in sentences, some broad descriptions of the systems used. But it completely lacks any clear worked examples of how those systems really worked. It may be that the author herself does not understand them, or it may be that this level of detail was considered inappropriate. However, some examples of how messages were encrypted -- even if these examples are put in an appendix for the interested reader -- would clearly illustrate the challenges that the code girls faced, and put some focus on how much they were able to do with very basic tools and a great deal of effort.

2. The book quotes at numbing length the details of the life histories of code girls who are barely memorable across the length of the book, and who are in most cases distinguishable from other code girls only because they lived long enough to be interviewed or left behind a bundle of tedious letters to and from GIs. The author is not clear on what the reader is meant to do with this information. Are the individuals important enough historically that the minutiae of their lives is worth examining? (No.) Are the cumulative details supportive of some overall trend or change? (No.) The details feel like filler that the author couldn't bother, or couldn't manage, to pull together into a coherent narrative.

So overall, IMHO not worth the slog.

I liked Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers Who Helped Win World War II. I would have given the book 5 stars, however about half-way through the story started falling apart. There was information that had previously been covered and the author added personal letters from the girls and the men they were writing. It seemed the author decided to change directions in the middle of the story. I appreciate hearing about the girls personal lives, but this didn't seem to be in keeping with the story line. Then about three-fourths into the book, the direction changed and we were concentrating on what the women were doing. The author did an excellent job of researching and writing Code Girls. I learned a lot about women during WWII reading the book. Overall a great read.

I would highly recommend Code Girls to readers who like: non-fiction, history, stories about WWII, stories about women and well written and researched books.

In World War II, a critical part of the war effort was breaking German and Japanese codes. Yet, unlike major European countries, the US had very little in the way of a cryptography operation. One had been developed during the first World War, but Henry Stimson, William Howard Taft's Secretary of State, closed it down when he came into office in 1929. His statement, "Gentlemen don't read each other's mail," is beautiful, but of course, in the context of international diplomacy, completely wrong The Navy managed to preserve a tiny operation, but the onset of World War II, the US needed to ramp cryptography back up from almost nothing, very rapidly.

Yet the men, who "ought" to have done that work, were needed for combat operations. Enter the women.

Mundy, based on extensive research including interviews with many of the surviving "code girls," gives us a revealing, compelling picture of the women, their experiences, the history of American cryptography, and the vital role it played in WWII.

Drawing women in to war work, as well as industrial work, to fill the places of men needed for combat, was a major social upheaval in America, and after the war ended, there was an equally major effort to roll it back and send women back home to make room, and inviting homes, for returning men. Yet "freeing the men to fight" had also meant, in many cases, that the women's own brothers or husbands or sweethearts were killed, even as the coders' and others' work had been aimed at keeping the fighting men safe and bringing them home faster.

At the same time, cryptography during the war was a major opportunity for women interested in math to do real and meaningful work in it, rather than being regarded as having wasted their time on a subject not really considered fit for women.

The conflicting pressures, as well as both the restrictions of highly classified war work combined with the freedom of earning their own money in settings far removed from their families and the neighbors they grew up among, created an exciting, confusing, challenging life for women cryptographers, even as the small number of men in their ranks experienced, too often, being regarded as failures and perhaps cowards, despite often being men who were too old for military service, or classified as 4F, medically unable to meet the physical demands of combat. Like the women, they were doing the work they could do, valuable work, that enabled the combat soldiers to fight more effectively.

It's a fascinating look at a long-hidden but vital aspect of the war, one the women and men involved couldn't talk about until decades later.

Highly recommended.

I bought this audiobook.

CODE GIRLS: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE AMERICAN WOMEN CODE BREAKERS OF WORLD WAR II by Liza Mundy. Published October 10, 2017 by Hatchette Books.

The women came from all walks of life. Farm girls, city girls, teachers, librarians, college students and graduates, Master’s students and PhD professors, and some telephone operators.

In the early days they were gathering by the tens of thousands just outside Washington, DC. The Army wanted them. The Navy wanted them. Lots of men wanted them, men who were generals, admirals, and members of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s staff. They were wanted for their mathematical skills, or just for their potential. They were often referred to as “machines.”

Most often, they were referred to as Code Girls, and it would become their primary job to break Japanese and German military and diplomatic ciphers, along with codes from a host of other countries. And they did it. They broke the German four wheel enigma code. They broke Japan’s JN-25 code, which proved to be a real boom for the Navy. The Japanese Navy really appreciated punctuality, and Imperial Japanese Commanders liked to inform people exactly when their ships would arrive at a certain place on the high seas at noon. American submarines would be waiting to greet them, thanks to the Code Girls. The Code Girls also told American naval personnel when Midway was about to be attacked, and the United States Navy was waiting, and prepared.

The Code Girls’ biggest coup during the Battle of the Atlantic was when they broke the four wheel Enigma code. American ships were being sunk left and right by German U-Boats. After the code was broken the shipping convoys were better protected, the U-Boat fleet was virtually destroyed, and Admiral Donitz was apoplectic.

What makes CODE GIRLS all the more interesting is author Liza Mundy’s stories of the women. We are reminded that they were not machines, they were human beings, with husbands, sons, and brothers in the service. We feel the drama of women who were cracking messages from far away places, where their loved ones were locked in fierce struggles for land and sea. Occasionally, these women were the ones receiving Western Union telegrams, notifying them that a loved was missing in action or had been killed in action.

They experienced it all. They knew that the lives of millions of men hung in the balance, and their work was very important in bringing home safely as many of those men as possible. They experienced the joy of being the first to read the messages announcing the surrendering of Germany and Japan. They wondered aloud about Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

They had fun. For most of them it was the first time they had been more than a few miles from home. They fell in love with co-workers. They fell in love with soldiers they corresponded with and never met until the war was over and the men came home. Some of them fell in love with each other.

Liza Mundy’s book is a terrific example of what can be done through persistence and excellent research. Many of the records related to the work are still classified, and Mundy’s dogged pursuit of information through Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests and interviews with some of the surviving women, along with a beautiful narrative style, makes CODE GIRLS both easy and enjoyable.

Most of them have passed on now. CODE GIRLS reminds of a time when we all came together, for the greater good. This is a story that needed to be told, and these women need to be remembered. Liza Mundy has gone a long way to accomplish that.

I knew a tiny bit about codes. Now I know more. I had never heard of ‘code girls.’ I’m glad I know more. Because they did not write the histories afterward, nor the first-person memoirs, much of this information could have been lost. Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers is a fascinating story.

Why were music majors and school teachers as well as math majors highly desired as code breakers? Mundy shares names, personalities, and interesting exchanges of these previously unknown women. Everything from difficulties finding housing to “coming to work with bobby socks, flat shoes, and a pleated skirt that billowed and swung” are woven seamlessly into the meticulously researched book.

An example: One code breaker wanted to go to college, but her family said they needed her income. She worked for a lawyer and taught herself how to execute legal documents while part of her earnings went to pay her brother’s college tuition. “Enlisting in June 1943, she picked the Navy because her father had served in it in WWI. Being underage, she needed a parent’s consent. Her father would not give it, but her mother did…a pound too light, Ruth ate as much as she could and managed to pass the weight requirement. The lawyer she worked for wept when she left.”

While familiar with American culture and women’s roles during WWII, I especially found Mundy’s observations powerful. Women were able to break into the field because cryptology was a new field and because men were being shipped abroad to fight in a different way. It was not a compliment that women were considered better suited for code-breaking work. In the 1940’s some thought they were “better equipped for boring work that required close attention to detail.” Jobs at the time were strictly separated by gender. “There were newspaper want ads that read ‘Male help Wanted’ and others that read ‘Female Help Wanted.’”

Of about 20,000 American code breakers, about 11,000 were women. The vast amount of research Mundy did, including many oral interviews take up the last 20% of the book. How Mundy organized such a huge amount of information into an interesting and informative read is beyond me.

Dot, Mary Lou, Nelle, Agnes, Wilma, Delia Ann, Ruth, Myrtle. You will be remembered. Deservedly so.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for granting access to an arc of this book for an honest review.

I receive this book for Christmas because I am old enough to know about WW2 both in the US and the UK. It's a great book and I am struggling through it but only gave it three stars because it's so hard to read. As an author myself with 16 books on the store I am sensitive to the font size of my books.
This publisher believed their target audience is all under 30 years and have perfect eyesight. But those over 40 have trouble seeing that very tiny font. One way to keep the cost down is to make fewer pages and one way to do that is to make it all a smaller font. It looks like about 8 or 9 pt. type and for those old enough to have an interest in this book it needs to be 11 or 12 pt. fonts.

This is an amazing and untold story of the women who helped break codes during WWII. If you liked stories like Hidden Figures, you will likely enjoy these stories. Through interviews with not only the codebreakers but their families as well, the author goes beyond a mere technical discussion and focuses on how this uniquely secretive work impacted the lives of these women. I loved the technical details on the code breaking - the author does a good job of popularizing the science and math into an understandable narrative while also focusing on the human side of these code breakers. Highly recommended for history buffs, mathematicians, or to understand the lives of these amazing women.

I enjoyed this book. Liza Mundy tells a good story about the women who broke enemy codes during World War II. So far I have read two other books about the unknown roles of women in science (Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly) or industry (The Radium Girls by Kate Moore) and The Code Girls is almost as good as the former and as good as the latter. My only quibble with The Code Girls is that there was too much detail about some of the letters that went back and forth between some of the personalities of the book, which was not essential to the story and were an unwelcome, but short, detour. All three books, however, are must-reads for anyone interested in science or history of science. I am also sure that these books will appeal to a much broader audience as well.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book for review purposes via Netgalley.

When did women start breaking codes in the USA? In World War One! And more than ten thousand women made significant contributions in World War Two. And collaborated with the British of Bletchley Park. And some did continue after WW II.

We learned all about this in history classes in elementary school and junior high and high school and college, right? Absolutely not!!!

Loose lips sink ships, right? So did these ladies sealed lips.

A good explanation of the codes, too.

Everyone knows who won WW II. But here’s how we won, in getting vital intelligence information to the sailors, airmen and soldiers to enable faster victories, and minimize losses.

The story is emotional too and very personal.

During WWII, over ten thousand women were recruited by the Army and Navy to serve as code breakers. These women were sworn to secrecy and placed in unique and important positions. Through their efforts, codes were broken, intelligence was uncovered and the war was shortened.

Although I found the women's stories interesting, I thought this book could have used some careful editing. It was extremely repetitive. It felt as if each chapter reiterated the same information, causing the book to seem slow and tedious. I liked how the author followed certain girls, and came back to their stories. Overall, not a bad book, but not something I would re-read.

Ms. Mundy gave a talk at the Great Lives Series, through the University of Mary Washington, to a packed auditorium of all ages. Her passion for, and knowledge of, this forgotten history captivated the audience. After the talk, I couldn't imagine what more the book might cover... but I was incredibly surprised to discover the details and woven stories of just a few of these women. The book is one of the best I've read (or listened to) in decades. The amount of work Ms. Mundy must have put into the research, preparation, and rebuilding of this story is difficult to fathom. The scale of the work of the "code girls" reveals itself in layers, with depth of experience from the perspective of many of the women. A must-read. I just wish the book wasn't over...

This book is a poor attempt to make something of out nothing. Its rather humorous that the author states there were thousands of these code girls and can only find photos that show maybe 10. The authors bias against men comes through strong and only shows how weak and insecure she is. I'm so thankful I only rented it from the library and didn't buy it. Please carefully check the author's citations at the end and you'll see this is more fiction than history.

"This is your mission. If you choose to accept it..."

That line from the old Mission Impossible series is something akin to the real life "mission" hundreds of school teachers, librarians, and math and science majors from an elite set of women's colleges were invited to join in the late 1930s and throughout World War II.

Pledged to extreme secrecy, these women were recruited to work on breaking the coded messages being used by Japan, Germany, and their smaller allies in the war against the Allied powers. They were selected because of their potential for being able to suss out clues that could lead to breaking ever more complex codes used by both military and diplomatic channels in Tokyo and Berlin, but also because their salaries and potential career choices were very limited. Add in the growing dearth of men available to handle these roles as they were drawn into combat, and the feminization of the code breaking work became a very real trend.

Liza Mundy has pulled together a fascinating history that even combines something of a memoir feel to the telling. She interviewed surviving code breakers and their children, dug deep into boxes of letters and now declassified documents to tell both the overall history of the coding work and the personal stories of many of the women who did so much to help win the war.

These women were sworn to secrecy for life, so their friends and family could never know the importance of the work they did. Many had to just say they did "some clerical work" while in Washington D.C. Even after the obligation of this pledge was lifted, some of them were reluctant to say more or were greeted with disbelief that they could have been so involved with critical turning points of the war. Some died before their children would ever know of the importance of their work.

Mundy's narrative, however, is not at all a downer, not a story dwelling on the slights the women often were made to endure. Instead, she emphasizes how great was the spirit of being able to help the war effort--even as some of the messages they decoded might give hints that loved ones were in great danger. She closes out the book with some where are they now stories. These, along with light-hearted memories shared by the women themselves, make this a very personal book as well as one with a lot of historic detail.

You may not "get" how these codes were broken--there is a lot of detail about some of the technicalities of the process--but that should not deter you in any way from reading this wonderful behind the scenes story of people who truly were heroes in bringing the long and ghastly war to an end.

Fascinating account of the WACs, WAVES, and civilian women recruited to work for the Government in WWII breaking codes, in particular the Japanese and German codes, and their success if helping win the war. This non-fiction account is clearly based on solid research and paints a fascinating picture of the era and the unknown and un-celebrated contributions of American women to the war effort. While the British work in this area resulted in a TV show (The Bletchley Circle - post WWII) and a movie (The Imitation Game), the American contribution is widely still a well-kept secret. Fascinating stuff!

This book revealed just how important women were to winning the war. They broke the Japanese codes and then Enigma. The story of how the women were recruited and how hard they worked - and my father was one of those Commo guys in the military receiving and sending Morse code. I read this from cover to cover and probably will again. Well documented. Took some guts and some hard work to get the classified materials released by the US government. Book even covers how women of color were denied opportunities to be code breakers - to the nation’s detriment.

Though I've long been interested in the WWll code work all my reading up until now was about Bletchley Park and the work the Brits did so Code Girls was a welcome addition to my ongoing quest for understanding of this topic. The focus stays firmly on the women's perspective which was a welcome though often frustrating outlook. The often very young women, new college grads or even teenagers, accomplished amazing things while getting little credit. Sometimes the men fulfilled strereotypes of how women were treated at this time (and even today) but in other instances there was a surprisingly level playing field as all ideas were welcomed from the youngest to the most mature minds and from the highest ranking to the non ranging civilians. There was one shared goal: to find out what the enemy was up to so they could save American and Allied lives.

There's a nice balance between the women's work and home life though the two were fairly mixed together since the women shared living quarters and tended to invite their male cohorts over for parties or meals. It was easier that way with less fear of saying the wrong thing to outsiders. Don't get me wrong the youthful high spirits were more focused on work than home or romantic life. I found this book inspiring and it was refreshing to read about the American code breakers.

I adore World War II history, so was quickly drawn to this title. I enjoyed learning more about the women who moved to Washington to become code breakers. These women gave up much to fill this important role during the war. At a time when opportunities in the sciences were more limited for women, the chance to work on such an important project was new and important for women. I thoroughly enjoyed the story telling aspects of the book. It essentially tells the story of the Code Girls by focusing on first one then another, showing how the experience transformed their lives.

This book was so painstakingly researched and I loved the information provided . . . but it sure was a dry read and very repetitive. I love that information like this is now becoming available, whether becoming declassified or whatever, to make the public aware of the amazing contributions women made during war time. Acknowledging and understanding the important role women played, not just in winning the war but in history itself, is something I think a larger light needs to be shone on.

Like several of the other reviewers, I know a woman who was a Navy code breaker, one of the 4,000 stationed at the Mount Vernon Seminary during WWII. Until a few years ago, when she was told that the work was declassified, she would only tell her neighbors that she had been in the Navy during the war. Since then, she has gone into some information but nothing like the details in Ms. Mundy's book. While the read may, at times, be slow going, it is very enlightening. Like the NASA mathematicians, these women are truly unsung heroes, whose remarkable talents and efforts deserve recognition. This is an excellent book for those who want to know more about the WWII contributions of both civilian women and women in the armed forces during an important period in U.S. history.

Fascinating information about something I had never even thought about. I loved hearing the stories from the women who broke secret codes during WWII. I suppose it's because Mundy is a journalist, but I found the book a little hard to follow at times - it tended to jump around. I was expecting more of a story of a few women with all the information about the programs interlaced, but it was kind of the other way around. Certainly worth the read though it's long.

This book is a well written book about the female code breakers who worked for the U.S. government during World War II. Secret until recently, this is a detailed look at the girls work and some of the girls themselves. It boggles my mind that we are still uncovering previously classified information about the war today, and a fair amount is about the role women played in winning the war!

I received an Advanced Reader Copy from NetGalley for my unbiased opinion of the book. It is an insight into women who where code breakers in WWII. These women are the unsung heroes, who are just now getting the credit they greatly deserve. They did so much for the women's movement and showing men we can do a just as good, if not better than them. It is full of technical jargon and mind blowing assumptions that were the norm regarding women in all facets during this time period. The story flips between several featured women during WWII era makes you feel right there with them while its happening. It was very hard to put down. I look forward to this book being reviewed for cousin's book club!

Interesting nonfiction account of American women who served as code breakers during World War II. The book is well-researched and written in a more narrative style that should grab the attention of readers from teenagers to adults. I highly recommend it for those who are interested in the war as well as those whose interests may go more to the beginnings of the modern women's movement.

I loved the stories about all of the code girls, but this was overshadowed by too much minutia of the technology of coding. Much of the book reads like a scientific manual instead of a nonfiction book.

***I received a electronic galley of this book from netgalley.com and the publisher***

Code Girls was billed as similar to Hidden Figures and other recently released books and movies. In subject matter, this is correct. The book talks about the role young, intelligent woman played in the United States code-breaking operation during World War II. As opposed to the centralized focus of Hidden Figures-the book tends to jump around and back and forth profiling many different woman and some men. While there is something of a core of people they keep coming back to, it wasn’t as focused as they must have liked.

That being said, it is a very interesting look at how woman’s role in World War II both challenged the traditional assumption of women’s place in society and how the war was something that altered American society forever. It’s a solid book, but didn’t quite grab me the way the books and movies this is compared to did.

After the success of the book and movie, "Hidden Figures", I was intrigued about reading more real stories like that. "Code Girls" fits that bill. The book features the previously untold story of the women that helped the army and navy in World War Two. These women help break codes and affected the war effort in ways that we couldn't have imagined. But because of the way these women were sworn to secrecy, we are really only learning about their efforts now.

Overall, I quite enjoyed this book. I didn't find it to be a dry history read at all. It was engaging and made me want to keep reading. What these women did was amazing. It really is to bad that they didn't receive the recognition they deserved for the longest time. It made me really admire what these women did. They couldn't serve on the front lines but they found another way to serve and helped us in defeating the German and Japanese. It's a story that deserves to be told.

If you enjoyed "Hidden Figures" or are very interested in WWII, give this book a read

Fascinating account of the WACs, WAVES, and civilian women recruited to work for the Government in WWII breaking codes, in particular the Japanese and German codes, and their success if helping win the war. This non-fiction account is clearly based on solid research and paints a fascinating picture of the era and the unknown and un-celebrated contributions of American women to the war effort. While the British work in this area resulted in a TV show (The Bletchley Circle - post WWII) and a movie (The Imitation Game), the American contribution is widely still a well-kept secret. Fascinating stuff!

This book revealed just how important women were to winning the war. They broke the Japanese codes and then Enigma. The story of how the women were recruited and how hard they worked - and my father was one of those Commo guys in the military receiving and sending Morse code. I read this from cover to cover and probably will again. Well documented. Took some guts and some hard work to get the classified materials released by the US government. Book even covers how women of color were denied opportunities to be code breakers - to the nation’s detriment.

Though I've long been interested in the WWll code work all my reading up until now was about Bletchley Park and the work the Brits did so Code Girls was a welcome addition to my ongoing quest for understanding of this topic. The focus stays firmly on the women's perspective which was a welcome though often frustrating outlook. The often very young women, new college grads or even teenagers, accomplished amazing things while getting little credit. Sometimes the men fulfilled strereotypes of how women were treated at this time (and even today) but in other instances there was a surprisingly level playing field as all ideas were welcomed from the youngest to the most mature minds and from the highest ranking to the non ranging civilians. There was one shared goal: to find out what the enemy was up to so they could save American and Allied lives.

There's a nice balance between the women's work and home life though the two were fairly mixed together since the women shared living quarters and tended to invite their male cohorts over for parties or meals. It was easier that way with less fear of saying the wrong thing to outsiders. Don't get me wrong the youthful high spirits were more focused on work than home or romantic life. I found this book inspiring and it was refreshing to read about the American code breakers.

I adore World War II history, so was quickly drawn to this title. I enjoyed learning more about the women who moved to Washington to become code breakers. These women gave up much to fill this important role during the war. At a time when opportunities in the sciences were more limited for women, the chance to work on such an important project was new and important for women. I thoroughly enjoyed the story telling aspects of the book. It essentially tells the story of the Code Girls by focusing on first one then another, showing how the experience transformed their lives.

This book was so painstakingly researched and I loved the information provided . . . but it sure was a dry read and very repetitive. I love that information like this is now becoming available, whether becoming declassified or whatever, to make the public aware of the amazing contributions women made during war time. Acknowledging and understanding the important role women played, not just in winning the war but in history itself, is something I think a larger light needs to be shone on.

Like several of the other reviewers, I know a woman who was a Navy code breaker, one of the 4,000 stationed at the Mount Vernon Seminary during WWII. Until a few years ago, when she was told that the work was declassified, she would only tell her neighbors that she had been in the Navy during the war. Since then, she has gone into some information but nothing like the details in Ms. Mundy's book. While the read may, at times, be slow going, it is very enlightening. Like the NASA mathematicians, these women are truly unsung heroes, whose remarkable talents and efforts deserve recognition. This is an excellent book for those who want to know more about the WWII contributions of both civilian women and women in the armed forces during an important period in U.S. history.

Fascinating information about something I had never even thought about. I loved hearing the stories from the women who broke secret codes during WWII. I suppose it's because Mundy is a journalist, but I found the book a little hard to follow at times - it tended to jump around. I was expecting more of a story of a few women with all the information about the programs interlaced, but it was kind of the other way around. Certainly worth the read though it's long.

This book is a well written book about the female code breakers who worked for the U.S. government during World War II. Secret until recently, this is a detailed look at the girls work and some of the girls themselves. It boggles my mind that we are still uncovering previously classified information about the war today, and a fair amount is about the role women played in winning the war!

I received an Advanced Reader Copy from NetGalley for my unbiased opinion of the book. It is an insight into women who where code breakers in WWII. These women are the unsung heroes, who are just now getting the credit they greatly deserve. They did so much for the women's movement and showing men we can do a just as good, if not better than them. It is full of technical jargon and mind blowing assumptions that were the norm regarding women in all facets during this time period. The story flips between several featured women during WWII era makes you feel right there with them while its happening. It was very hard to put down. I look forward to this book being reviewed for cousin's book club!

Interesting nonfiction account of American women who served as code breakers during World War II. The book is well-researched and written in a more narrative style that should grab the attention of readers from teenagers to adults. I highly recommend it for those who are interested in the war as well as those whose interests may go more to the beginnings of the modern women's movement.

I loved the stories about all of the code girls, but this was overshadowed by too much minutia of the technology of coding. Much of the book reads like a scientific manual instead of a nonfiction book.

***I received a electronic galley of this book from netgalley.com and the publisher***

Code Girls was billed as similar to Hidden Figures and other recently released books and movies. In subject matter, this is correct. The book talks about the role young, intelligent woman played in the United States code-breaking operation during World War II. As opposed to the centralized focus of Hidden Figures-the book tends to jump around and back and forth profiling many different woman and some men. While there is something of a core of people they keep coming back to, it wasn’t as focused as they must have liked.

That being said, it is a very interesting look at how woman’s role in World War II both challenged the traditional assumption of women’s place in society and how the war was something that altered American society forever. It’s a solid book, but didn’t quite grab me the way the books and movies this is compared to did.

After the success of the book and movie, "Hidden Figures", I was intrigued about reading more real stories like that. "Code Girls" fits that bill. The book features the previously untold story of the women that helped the army and navy in World War Two. These women help break codes and affected the war effort in ways that we couldn't have imagined. But because of the way these women were sworn to secrecy, we are really only learning about their efforts now.

Overall, I quite enjoyed this book. I didn't find it to be a dry history read at all. It was engaging and made me want to keep reading. What these women did was amazing. It really is to bad that they didn't receive the recognition they deserved for the longest time. It made me really admire what these women did. They couldn't serve on the front lines but they found another way to serve and helped us in defeating the German and Japanese. It's a story that deserves to be told.

If you enjoyed "Hidden Figures" or are very interested in WWII, give this book a read

OH Boy, this was pretty awesome. My mother served in the Navy during WWII (not as a code breaker) and she was so very proud of her ability to serve. I only wish that I had her still here to talk more about her service.

This was an amazing book that lays out the history of all the wonderful women that "Chose to Serve" our country.

This story made me prouder to be a woman today, because of these courageous women.
What a story....What a contribution to the war effort and to the world.
At some points hard to understand the technical side of their jobs, the personal glimches was worth the work.
A wonderful story.
Going to purchase it for my.grand daughters.

I enjoyed finding out about the contributions thousands of women made to code breaking, just before and during WWII. Many of these women were great influences in computer development and helped develop the current NSA. However, much of the information is dry and characters can be difficult to follow throughout the narrative.

Wonderful book covering What the women code breakers did during WW II. It is well written
And full of interesting info. I just finished it and wished I didn’t! I highly recommend it to at least all women if
Not men who might like to know how these women served and what they did which definitely lead to an earlier victory in WW II.

This is a well written, easy reading book. Also very enjoyable reading. While the book focuses on the women and their contributions to code breaking, there is plenty of information on different code systems to whet the appetite for more. Before this book, I had thought that the Enigma codes were the biggies. They were big and it was a lot more involved than discussed here.

Codebreaking is something Americans have just always been good at. Many of the wars and serious situations the US has found itself in were greatly mitigated by the reading of the other guy’s mail. WWII was no exception to that, and US Intelligence regularly read the most secret communications of both friends and enemies.

In Code Girls, Liza Mindy examines a little-known part of that battle, namely the contributions made by women in this effort. The obvious comparison to this book is the movie Hidden Figures, and I would describe this book as a superset of that movie. It expanded on many of the areas touched on in the movie, and added a bit more technical detail about the work being done.

=== The Good Stuff ===

* The book is written in a lively tone, and the many plots and subplots keep moving. I read the book in a day or two, since it captured my attention and didn’t let go. There are quite a number of named characters, but most of them only hang around for a chapter or two, so the plot doesn’t get confused or overly complicated.

* I suspect a lot of material that the author gathered didn’t make it into the book. You can almost feel the struggle for how much technical detail to include. Adding more detail lengthens the book, gives the reader a better feel for the work that was done, but probably bores some people. More technical people such as myself found the lack of detail a bit frustrating, and I wandered off to google my way to enlightenment. All things considered, I believe Mindy found a nice balance and ended up with a readable and sufficiently detailed book for the majority of readers.

* The book is about a lot more than codebreaking. The author gives us a glimpse of the difficulty of wartime relationships, the trials faced by the first women in various civilian and military roles, and the difficulties the women faced (as did everyone) finding lodging, food and basic survival necessities in wartime America.

* One of the more fascinating parts of the book was watching the women “lose their innocence”. They mostly came to Washington as amateurs, answering the call of duty for mathematically-talented people to perform calculations with little context of the big picture. Later, they found themselves intimately involved with people doing the killing and being killed. They knew the feeling of targeting a specific submarine, freighter or even Japanese Admiral, and seeing the results the next day. No one left Washington quite the same as when they arrived.

=== The Not-So-Good Stuff ===

* I found myself wanting more details. The German Enigma and Japanese Purple coding machines were remarkable for their time, and should have provided nearly foolproof protection for sensitive information. But the Americans and their allies broke into every one of these systems, and quite often had communications decoded before the intended recipient. This was possible because the people using the codes made some costly mistakes, and because the code-breakers made some incredible deductions and leaps of logic. The book only scratched the surface.

* The narrative can make some abrupt transitions, and these force the reader to do a little independent research of have some prior knowledge. For example, with no preamble or explanation, the book begins discussing American efforts to clone and improve the “bombe”. Readers familiar with WWII codebreaking will recognize this machine as an early computer, optimized to break cipher settings on the German Enigma machine. If you didn’t know what one was, and how complex it was, this section lost a lot of context.

=== Summary ===

I enjoyed the book, and learned quite a bit from it. While the book is nominally about the new female codebreakers, it turns in to a marvelous cross-section of life in wartime Washington, including the struggles of day-to-day life and the issues faced by the first female employees and soldiers.

Anyone with an interest in this area will enjoy the book, and it is written in simple enough language that the mathematics of codebreaking is explained well enough that most anyone could appreciate it.

=== Disclaimer ===

I was able to read an advance copy of this book through the courtesy of the publisher and NetGalley.

Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II by Liza Mundy. This remarkable book, clearly the product of prodigious research by NYTimes bestselling author Liza Mundy, finds an outstanding piece of hidden American military history for us: it’s worthy to be put on the shelf with the recent HIDDEN FIGURES and any available work about the British Bletchley Park cryptographers. Here, please allow me to quote Nathalia Holt, bestselling author of RISE OF THE ROCKET GIRLS, who has put the matter as well as anyone can: “Code Girls reveals a hidden army of female cryptographers, whose work played a crucial role in ending World War II.... Mundy has rescued a piece of forgotten history, and given these American heroes the recognition they deserve.’

At the very beginning of World War II, U.S. Army and Navy officials realized they would need great numbers of employees for crucial noncombatant work, realized they must look to women to fill those jobs. So they recruited more than ten thousand women from small towns – particularly Southern—and elite colleges, with particular attention paid to school teachers, telephone operators. These women, while their brothers, boyfriends, husbands went off to war, secretly served as code-breakers. The women moved to Washington, D.C., learned the meticulous demanding job of code-breaking. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, gave them access to careers previously denied to them. A strict vow of secrecy nearly erased their efforts from history; now, through mountainous research, interviews with surviving code girls, bestselling author Liza Mundy brings to life this riveting and vital story of American courage, service, and scientific accomplishment.

The author’s research really has been deep, thorough: she’s able to humanize those more than 10,000 woman by giving the reader close-ups of a dozen or so of them. Their backgrounds, recruitment, work assignments, families, love lives; how they lived in Washington, D.C., a city that was overwhelmed by incomers during WWII. The author even gives us a chapter on the post Normandy invasion, Battle of the Bulge military career of the favorite brother of one of her specific women.

Mundy is the New York Times bestselling author of The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners Is Transforming Sex, Love and Family and Michelle: A Biography. She has worked as a reporter at the Washington Post and contributed to numerous publications including The Atlantic, TIME, The New Republic, Slate, Mother Jones, The Guardian. She is a frequent commentator on numerous prominent national television, radio, online news outlets, is positioned at the prestigious New America Foundation as one of the nation's foremost experts on women and work issues.

As I’ve said before, I am a WWII junkie, so I immediately found this book immensely appealing. And as for a book about women’s great, previously unknown efforts during that war, well, the year isn’t quite over yet, but, so far as I’m concerned, this is the best nonfiction book of the year.

I found the book to be very interesting and most informative regarding the time period. However, I did find it to be a very slow read.It took me about 5 weeks to finish. I also felt there was quite a bit of repetition.

Captivating story! If the search for cryptoanalysts had gone a little further south, my mother-in-law, a math whiz, might have been a candidate.
After reading this book, I am so proud of those women who served our country so well and so honorably during WWII. I would love to see this book in high school libraries.

This another example of women who provided a valuable service being left out of history until now. Like Hidden Figures, Code Girls provides a full picture of women who were vital to America's growth. In this case, they helped win a war with their decoding skills. From recruitment through the present, we come to know these women and to fully appreciate the difficulties they encountered in making a vital contribution to the war effort. We've all heard of Rosie the Riveter, but how many of us had any idea of the valuable contribution of these women?

I read and (mostly) liked Mandy's EVERYTHING CONCEIVABLE. I did find it a bit too breezy and journalistic.....but that may be because there was something of a mismatch between Mandy's aims and my desires: in general, I appreciate more tightly-argued and well-sourced work.

I mention this because, though I think that CODE GIRLS was also breezy, I thought that the topic and Mandy's style were, here, well-suited.

This is a fast and enjoyable read.

I have not finished this book yet but so far, I'm enjoying it very much. As is the case any time I read non-fiction, I always worry that it will be too dry, even if the content is interesting. But Ms. Mundy has a great writing style and is able to tell a big picture story while also telling the individual story of so many of the women. I will admit that the explanations of the codes are way over my head so I wish I could visualize/understand that side of things, but even so, I'm able to enjoy what an exciting time this was.

This was a surprisingly good read about the women who came to Washington from lives as math teachers to work on breaking the famouns Enigma codw suring WWII. I found their experiences while adapting to ther new lives very interesting. A good read for a weekend at the beach.

What Great timing for the release of Ms Mundy’s book! Not only inspiring stories of patriotism, but of women’s roles & contributions during a time of war. Sworn to secrecy when signed on, some of these women had not shared their stories until they were interviewed.
The amount of research that went into compiling the level of detail to these stories is incalculable, as was Ms. Mundy’s intent to accurately capture the era and social culture and norms during this time in history.

As a years-long fan of Liza Mundy’s articles and features in the Washington Post for many years, I had the pleasure of meeting her at a Women’s History Month event sponsored by my employer. I purchased five copies of her book from the store to give as gifts to friends, one of whom is a vet as was her mother during WW II. Liza was gracious enough to individually sign and add a personalized message in each book.

Very interesting. Love reading about history and the things they did not teach us in school. I did find the book somewhat hard to read. It is very detailed, and as one reviewer stated overlaps the characters. Good book.

This another example of women who provided a valuable service being left out of history until now. Like Hidden Figures, Code Girls provides a full picture of women who were vital to America's growth. In this case, they helped win a war with their decoding skills. From recruitment through the present, we come to know these women and to fully appreciate the difficulties they encountered in making a vital contribution to the war effort. We've all heard of Rosie the Riveter, but how many of us had any idea of the valuable contribution of these women?

I read and (mostly) liked Mandy's EVERYTHING CONCEIVABLE. I did find it a bit too breezy and journalistic.....but that may be because there was something of a mismatch between Mandy's aims and my desires: in general, I appreciate more tightly-argued and well-sourced work.

I mention this because, though I think that CODE GIRLS was also breezy, I thought that the topic and Mandy's style were, here, well-suited.

This is a fast and enjoyable read.

I have not finished this book yet but so far, I'm enjoying it very much. As is the case any time I read non-fiction, I always worry that it will be too dry, even if the content is interesting. But Ms. Mundy has a great writing style and is able to tell a big picture story while also telling the individual story of so many of the women. I will admit that the explanations of the codes are way over my head so I wish I could visualize/understand that side of things, but even so, I'm able to enjoy what an exciting time this was.

This was a surprisingly good read about the women who came to Washington from lives as math teachers to work on breaking the famouns Enigma codw suring WWII. I found their experiences while adapting to ther new lives very interesting. A good read for a weekend at the beach.