“Codebreakers train themselves to see more deeply.”
Elizebeth was one of America’s original codebreakers. She started working for an eccentric millionaire who wanted to prove Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare’s plays and put coded messages in them. It was there that she met her future husband, William Friedman, and together they started cracking codes when the government requested their assistance during World War I. Eventually, they had to break off their relationship with the millionaire to work for the government full-time.
A friend recommended The Woman Who Smashed Codes to me recently. I put it on hold with the local library through Libby and it was available fairly quickly. I knew of women who were codebreakers in Dayton, but hadn’t heard of Elizebeth Friedman. I was excited to read about her story.
Elizebeth and her husband worked for different government agencies and couldn’t often talk about what codes they were working on breaking. Between the wars, Elizebeth worked on breaking smugglers’ codes and often testified at trials. Once WWII started, she shifted to breaking Enigma codes, focusing on the messages send out of South America. She started up an office for the Coast Guard, trained the people who worked there and set up systems to help them all break the codes. Her mind saw patterns unlike most humans.
History lovers will really enjoy reading The Woman Who Smashed Codes. While the FBI and CIA often took credit for what the Friedmans accomplished for the U.S., this book tells the true story. And, it’s fascinating. To her death, Elizebeth never talked about what she did during WWII, but the author researched her personal records and government records to fill in the details.
What have you read about codebreakers? Share in the comments!