Code Girls audiobook cover - The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II

Code Girls

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

Liza Mundy

★ 4.6 / 5(68 ratings)
Start ListeningDownloadQR code that opens AudiobookHub on the App StoreTry free on iPhoneScan to start in 5 seconds
Categories:
History

If You're Curious About These Questions...

You should listen to this audiobook

Listen to Code Girls — Free Audiobook

Loading player...

Key Takeaways from Code Girls

Learning Tools

Reinforce what you learned from Code Girls

Mind Map

Code Girls
Origins & Recruitment+
Cryptography Methods+
Major Breakthroughs+
Impact on the War+
The G-Girl Experience+
Post-War Legacy+

Quiz — Test Your Understanding

Question 1 of 8
Why were women specifically favored for early cryptography roles prior to and during the war?
  • A. They were believed to possess a higher level of mathematical intelligence than men.
  • B. They were assumed to have the intense focus and patience required for the grueling work.
  • C. They were already employed in government administrative roles and could be easily transferred.
  • D. The military lacked enough male recruits due to the high casualty rates of World War I.
Question 2 of 8
How did early code-breaking pioneer Elizebeth Smith (Friedman) initially get involved in cryptanalysis?
  • A. She was hired by the Navy after passing a secret crossword puzzle test.
  • B. She was recruited to decipher intercepted German radio communications during World War I.
  • C. She was hired by an eccentric millionaire to prove Sir Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare's works using a hidden cipher.
  • D. She was developing mathematical equations to crack the newly invented Enigma machine.
Question 3 of 8
In addition to a liberal arts education and a talent for math and languages, why did the Navy specifically want to recruit 'attractive' women?
  • A. They wanted the women to serve as public faces for military recruitment propaganda.
  • B. They believed attractive women would be better suited for overseas espionage and gathering intelligence.
  • C. They assumed these women would marry and leave the workforce sooner once the war ended.
  • D. They wanted to boost the morale of the male soldiers and sailors stationed in Washington, DC.
Question 4 of 8
What was Genevieve Grotjan's crucial breakthrough regarding the Japanese 'Purple' machine?
  • A. She successfully located the repeating patterns in the cipher, allowing the US to recreate the machine without seeing it.
  • B. She stole the physical additive codebooks used by the Japanese fleet prior to Pearl Harbor.
  • C. She developed the 'bombe' machines used to decipher the complex Japanese codes.
  • D. She discovered that the Japanese were using a combination of the Vigenère square and Roman numerals.
Question 5 of 8
The cracking of the Japanese water transport code 2468 by the women at Arlington Hall directly resulted in:
  • A. The successful deception of German troops during Operation Bodyguard.
  • B. The sinking and damaging of dozens of Japanese ships by tracking their locations and cutting off supplies.
  • C. The immediate surrender of the Japanese government to neutral Switzerland.
  • D. The prevention of a massive kamikaze attack on the US Pacific fleet.
Question 6 of 8
How did the female code breakers directly contribute to the success of the D-Day landing at Normandy?
  • A. They intercepted German messages that revealed the exact location of Hitler's bunker.
  • B. They physically infiltrated occupied France to disrupt German communication lines before the invasion.
  • C. They wrote coded messages generating fake radio traffic to trick the Germans into expecting an invasion at Calais.
  • D. They broke the Soviet codes to coordinate a simultaneous attack from the Eastern Front.
Question 7 of 8
How did the code girls at Arlington Hall learn that World War II was finally ending?
  • A. They were informed by President Truman during a secret briefing before his public announcement.
  • B. They intercepted and deciphered a Japanese message to neutral Switzerland stating their intent to surrender.
  • C. They decoded a message from the German Enigma machine ordering all Axis troops to stand down.
  • D. They read the news in the local Washington, DC papers along with the rest of the American public.
Question 8 of 8
What was a significant obstacle many code girls faced in their post-war careers or education?
  • A. They were legally barred from working in the newly formed National Security Agency (NSA).
  • B. They were unable to claim GI Bill benefits because they could not disclose the true, classified nature of their wartime work.
  • C. The military destroyed all records of their employment, leaving them with no proof of their service.
  • D. They were forced to return to their pre-war jobs as schoolteachers due to a federal mandate.

Code Girls — Full Chapter Overview

Code Girls Summary & Overview

Code Girls (2017) is about the thousands of American women who worked as code breakers during World War II. Informed by interviews with over 20 surviving women, archived documents, and recently declassified oral histories, author Liza Mundy details the unprecedented lives of female code breakers in Washington, DC and beyond as well as the American intelligence that led to the success of the Allied war efforts.

Who Should Listen to Code Girls?

  • History buffs
  • Espionage enthusiasts interested in the history of cryptography
  • Students of science or gender studies

About the Author: Liza Mundy

Liza Mundy is an award-willing journalist and author of the New York Times bestselling The Richer Sex: How the New Majority of Female Breadwinners Is Transforming Sex, Love and Family. She has contributed to publications such as TIME, the Guardian, the New Republic, and Slate and was previously a reporter at the Washington Post. As a senior fellow at the think tank New America, she is a leading expert on women and work issues.

🎧
Listen in the AppOffline playback & background play
Get App