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

by Liza Mundy

It was women who helped found the field of clandestine eavesdropping—much bigger and more controversial now than it was then—and it was women in many cases who shaped the early culture of the NSA.

They did not constitute the top brass, and they did not write the histories afterward, nor the first-person memoirs. And yet women were instrumental at every stage.

It was not easy being a smart girl in the 1940s. People thought you were annoying.

Through their brainwork, the women had an impact on the fighting that went on. This is an important truth, and it is one that often has been overlooked.