THE ENIGMA GIRLS: How Ten Teenagers Broke Ciphers, Kept Secrets and Helped Win World War II, by Candace FlemingAs war raged in Europe in 1941, Sarah Norton, the 18-year-old daughter of an English lord, received a letter in a plain brown envelope with no return address.
“You are to report to Station X at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire in four days’ time,” said the letter, signed by a mysterious “Commander Travis.” “That is all you need to know.”Little did Sarah realize she was being recruited for Britain’s top-secret wartime code-breaking operation.
“This is the story of a handful of young women — teenagers really — who left their childhoods behind and walked into the unknown,” Candace Fleming writes in “The Enigma Girls,” her beguiling new account of their contributions.
“For most of their lives, they never breathed a word about their war experiences.”We learn about 10 of these real-life conscripts.
And there was Diana Payne, just 17, who helped operate the massive “Bombe” machines, which sped up the process of breaking the enemy’s ever-shifting codes.
Persons:
Candace Fleming, Sarah Norton, ”, Travis, ” Little, Sarah, —, ” Candace Fleming, Mavis Lever, Dilly Knox, “, Patricia Owtram, Diana Payne
Organizations:
Bletchley, Britain’s, British Museum
Locations:
Europe, Bletchley Park , Buckinghamshire, Bletchley