The Woman Who Smashed Codes

by Jason Fagone

During the Second World War, an American woman figured out how to sweep the globe of undercover Nazis. The proof was on paper: four thousand typed decryptions of clandestine Nazi messages that her team shared with the global intelligence community. She had conquered at least forty-eight different clandestine radio circuits and three Enigma machines to get these plaintexts. The pages found their way to the navy and to the army. To FBI headquarters in Washington and bureaus around the world. To Britain. There was no mistaking their origin. Each sheet said “CG Decryption” at the bottom, in black ink. These pieces of paper saved lives. They almost certainly stopped coups. They put fascist spies in prison. They drove wedges between Germany and other nations that were trying to sustain and prolong Nazi terror. By any measure, Elizebeth was a great heroine of the Second World War. The British knew it. The navy knew it. The FBI knew it. But the American public never did, because Elizebeth wasn’t allowed to speak. She and every other codebreaker who worked on ULTRA material was bound by oath to keep the ULTRA secret. Even if she had been free to discuss her triumphs, explaining them to the public would have taken some time.