Summary

Mundy begins the work with the intriguing description of "the secret letters" that eventually brought in excess of ten-thousand women to Washington, D.C. to become code breakers in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Initially, she describes the attacks on Pearl Harbor's Battleship Row, emphasizing how shocked and ill-prepared America was in the face of such an attack. American warships sat in "the blue Hawaiian waters, placid and unprotected" and this is perhaps the reason for the subsequent emphasis on cryptology: America needed far better means of acquiring international intelligence. As the need for a superior and sophisticated code-breaking operation becomes paramount, the "Code Girls" begin to appear on the horizon. In truth, months prior to the Pearl Harbor attack, secret letters were sent to elite colleges in November 1941. The Navy began sending letters to colleges as educated women were...