Book Review - Code Girls

One of the best audiobooks I have listened to in the last year is called Code Girls by Liza Mundy.  It is about a little known aspect of World War II history in which talented women were recruited as code breakers.

The woman that were recruited were talented at math and language skills.  They were found in colleges and universities, as well as through ads in the newspapers.

After a number of tests, the qualified women would be offered a war-time job and told to report on a specific date.  When they were hired, they were not immediately told what the job would entail, but they were told that they would never talk about it outside of the office.  Much of their work remained classified until recently, and some things are still classified.  Liza petitioned for some declassification, so should could write the book.

As the war went on, many of these amazing women joined the military as WACS or WAVES.  WACS were in the Army, and WAVES were in the Navy.

Earlier in the war, these code breakers broke one of the Japanese codes, and found out their plans for the Battle of Midway.  The Imperial Navy was going to try to pull part of the United States Navy to the Aleutian Islands by starting a smaller battle, and leave most of their forces to attack Midway.  The United States Navy learned of their plans, and left the vast majority of their forces at Midway, resulting in a huge victory from which the Japanese Navy never fully recovered.  Without the incredible work of the code breakers, the battle could have ended very differently.

The book also portrays women who constructed the code breaking machines which were used to crack the German Enigma code.  They were brought to a factory in Ohio, where they were trained to make specific parts of the machine.  Very few people were given the knowledge of what their machine did, but many figured out that it had something to do with code breaking since they had to make 26 of every part, and that is how many letters are in our alphabet.

The reason the work of these code breakers was so secretive is if the other side found out their code had been broken, they would totally change the code, and it would take months or even years to break the code again.  This happened after the battle of Midway when a reporter credited the code breakers with helping to turn the tide of battle.

When a code was broken, they had to take steps to make sure the other side didn't know.  For instance, they would send a spotter plane ahead of the bombers to make it look like a ship was found by such instead of a broken code.

Every great audiobook needs a great narrator, and Erin Bennett fit the bill very nicely.  She had a good, consistent delivery throughout the book.  Her voice was expressive enough to do justice to the material presented.

I recommend this audiobook to young adults and adults.  It is a great portrayal of some of the silent heroes of World War II as well as a fascinating aspect of women's history.