The 2017 book Code Girls by Liza Mundy is the untold story of the American women code breakers of World War II. Recruited from small Southern towns and posh New England colleges, more than 10,000 American women served in the U.S. Army and Navy as code breakers during World War II.

Two women quoted in the book are Elizabeth Reynard and her cousin Virginia Gildersleeve, ladies very important in the founding of the Dennis Historical Society. Elizabeth was a retired Barnard College professor when she purchased the Captain Theophilus Baker House and buildings at the corner of Main Street and Trotting Park Road in South Dennis in the 1950s. She named the house “Jericho” after the city in the Bible whose “walls were falling down.” Following her death in January 1962, the restoration of the house and grounds was continued by Virginia Gildersleeve, Dean Emeritus of Barnard, who then gifted the property to the Town of Dennis in 1962.

Following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the U.S. military began recruiting educated young women with degrees from top colleges like Wellesley, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Goucher, Radcliffe, Barnard and Bryn Mawr to start the meticulous work of breaking the German and Japanese military codes. At the time, it was not easy to convince the all male, military bureaucracy that women could take on this difficult task. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was joined by advocacy groups in the push to let them serve, such as the American Association of University Women, with outspoken members like Virginia Gildersleeve, who was quoted as saying, “If the Navy could have possibly used dogs or ducks or monkeys, certain of the older admirals would probably have greatly preferred them to women.”

Gender equality was not a term even remotely understood, much less expressed at the time. In 1942, it was Elizabeth Reynard, who came up with the acronym WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Services) to describe the newly created Women’s Naval Reserve, in which she was the first to be appointed a Lieutenant.

A WAVE decoding unit stationed at the Naval Communications Command Annex, Washington, DC 1945.

In 1942, only 4% of women in America had college degrees and they were almost never seen in the male dominated workplace. With so many men in the military, however, the timing was right for women to jump at this opportunity to go to Washington and start new careers, even though they were told absolutely nothing about what they would be doing! These were women who were curious and resourceful. They wanted to earn a living on their own. Often, they excelled in foreign languages and math and were on the lookout for work that satisfied them intellectually.

The work was very challenging and frequently included 12 hour days. Conditions were often hot, humid, and very crowded. Secrecy was of the highest priority, as any leaks, even to family members, might result in military deaths. Living conditions in Washington, DC were worse than the working conditions, with several women often sharing a room and communal lavatories.

The first breakthrough came in cracking the code of the Japanese “Purple” machine, a truly unbelievable accomplishment that could only be duplicated decades later with the use of computers. Code breaking enabled our military to know the locations of enemy ships, their payloads, and travel routes. Breaking the codes the Germans transmitted on their Enigma machines led to General Eisenhower’s decision to land US troops at Normandy instead of Calais, when D-Day finally arrived. At the height, the code breaking women were deciphering over 126,000 enemy messages a month.

Two women with Yarmouth ties were also involved. Ann Barus Seeley was a history major at Smith College in the early 1940s when the dean asked her to attend a clandestine meeting in the science building - a recruiting meeting. Ann put her plans to be an intern at a prestigious firm in Washington on hold and jumped at the chance to be part of this new code breaking effort. Her job involved ceaseless mental math, performed day after day and week after week for more than three years. One of her gifts was the ability to detect common mistakes the enemy made in their coded messages. Identifying these mistakes was key in breaking the very complex Japanese codes.

Ann Seeley passed away in 2018 at the age of 97. She lived in a wonderful, early house on the Bass River in South Yarmouth and enjoyed sailing, kayaking and giving tours of the Judah Baker Windmill close to her home on the river.

Elizabeth “Betty” Green Crist joined the Navy as an officer after graduating from Smith in 1943. She met her South Yarmouth husband Bainbridge Crist at an embassy gathering in Washington, DC. She also worked as a code breaker and may well have been recruited by the same Smith College dean.

They take their places along with Elizabeth Reynard, Virginia Gildersleeve, and other smart, courageous women who greatly contributed to the war effort and succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations. When the war was finally over these outstanding women went back to their homes and lives, promising to keep their efforts secret, and did so for many, many years. To Ann, Betty, Elizabeth, Virginia and thousands of other women, we honor and remember you and your outstanding accomplishments, especially during Women’s History Month.

Adapted from an article researched and written by Bob Poskitt