Wednesday, May 1, 2024

The Enigma Girls

About a month ago I read a review of a book by Candace Fleming about the young women who helped break the German and Italian military codes during World War II.  They worked at Bletchley Park; the most famous of the code breakers was Alan Turing.  It sounded like a good book, so I asked the Palmerton Library to order it.  


Yesterday they told me it had arrived.  They also told me it was a “young adult” book, and did I want to read it anyway.  I hadn’t known that, but I thought why not.


I finished it last night.  I learned there were far more women than men working on the project, and a majority of the women were 20 and under.  They worked in difficult conditions with bad food and sketchy housing, they were forbidden to talk about their work until the 1980s, and they were instrumental in a number of important victories by allied forces.  An amazing story. 

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