As Jimmie Lee and the other women settled into their duties, they became part of an Enigma code-breaking chain that was virtually all female. When a message arrived at the Annex, it would first go to the cribbing station. The cribbers had one of the hardest jobs, sifting through intelligence from the war theater, including ship sinkings, U-boat sightings, weather messages, and battle outcomes. Scanning intercepts, they had to select a message that was not too long—a long message might involve more than one setting—and guess what it likely said.
