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

by Liza Mundy

The women were billeted at a place called Sugar Camp, a thirty-one-acre property named for the magnificent maple trees on the grounds. For much of its history the state of Ohio was agrarian, and the trees at one time had been tapped for maple syrup. Dayton had been transformed during the War of 1812, when it served as a mobilization point for American attacks on Canada and British troops in the northwest U.S., bringing banks, businesses, and factories. This continued during the Civil War, when it served as a supplier for the Union Army. The city nurtured more than its fair share of inventors and entrepreneurs, including not only Orville and Wilbur Wright, the aviation pioneers, who had their bicycle shop here, but also Charles Kettering, who invented the automobile ignition system. Kettering’s self-starter was the reason Dayton had a General Motors plant. It also had Dayton Electric; the headquarters of Frigidaire; and Wright Field, used for aviation and testing.