Women Code Breakers: The Best Kept Secret of WWII
Brave Women Who Changed the Course of WWII
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Narrated by:
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Val Cole
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By:
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Elise Baker
About this listen
Embedded within military intelligence and communications, wartime cryptography was a man’s world filled with engineers, mathematicians, statisticians, military tacticians, political scientists, and linguists. But women working top-secret desk jobs played an integral role. They helped shorten the length of the war, saving countless lives in the process.
Bringing to light the quiet heroism of female code breakers of WWII, learn about these exceptional women who saved lives and changed the tide of the greatest war in human history.
Even as they applied themselves to complicated counterintelligence work and labored daily alongside their male colleagues, they fought an uphill battle on many different fronts, inside and outside the office.
Their stories and accomplishments have remained firmly under the radar—often missing from official documentation, history books, public lore, and public awareness.
The British feat of breaking the German Enigma code at Bletchley Park has been celebrated in popular culture in various books and movies, but the stories of many women who worked to break codes in the complex world of cryptography remain relatively untold.
Learn the true stories of female code breakers whose top-secret work helped win WWII, including:
- Elizebeth Friedman, Joan Clarke, Violet MacKenzie and other great minds working for the Allied forces from the US, UK, and Australia—all trailblazers in the field of cryptography.
- A simple rundown on cryptography as a science, the history of its use, and what it took to break wartime codes.
- The legacy of these exceptional women, and the impact of their work.
Despite the constant need to prove themselves, these brilliant women never thought of themselves as heroes.
©2022 Elise Baker (P)2023 Elise BakerListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
In 1963, a female student was attending a lecture given by Nobel Prize winner James Watson, then tenured at Harvard. At nineteen, she was struggling to define her future. She had given herself just ten years to fulfill her professional ambitions before starting the family she was expected to have. For women at that time, a future on the usual path of academic science was unimaginable—but during that lecture, young Nancy Hopkins fell in love with the promise of genetics. Confidently believing science to be a pure meritocracy, she embarked on a career.
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Unbelievable and deeply inspiring.
- By Lilit Garibyan on 06-05-23
By: Kate Zernike
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Hidden Figures
- The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race
- By: Margot Lee Shetterly
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as "human computers" used pencils, slide rules, and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets and astronauts into space. Among these problem solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation.
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Great Story of a History Obscured
- By Cynthia on 09-18-16
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Wise Gals
- The Spies Who Built the CIA and Changed the Future of Espionage
- By: Nathalia Holt
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In the wake of World War II, four agents were critical in helping build a new organization that we now know as the CIA. Adelaide Hawkins, Mary Hutchison, Eloise Page, and Elizabeth Sudmeier, called the “wise gals” by their male colleagues because of their sharp sense of humor and even quicker intelligence, were not the stereotypical femme fatale of spy novels.
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Intriguing untold history
- By Andrea Guzman on 12-15-22
By: Nathalia Holt
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My Remarkable Journey
- A Memoir
- By: Katherine Johnson, Joylette Hylick, Katherine Moore
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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The remarkable woman at heart of the smash New York Times best seller and Oscar-winning film Hidden Figures tells the full story of her life, including what it took to work at NASA, help land the first man on the moon, and live through a century of turmoil and change.
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Amazing Woman, Interesting Life
- By Grace on 08-20-21
By: Katherine Johnson, and others
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Square Haunting
- Five Writers in London Between the Wars
- By: Francesca Wade
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Mecklenburgh Square has always been a radical address. Nestled in the heart of Bloomsbury, these townhouses have borne witness to the lives of some of the century's most revolutionary cultural figures - many of whom were extraordinary women. United by their desire to experiment with new ways of living - and, therefore, of being - these authors and thinkers were trailblazers in their commitment to creative independence.
By: Francesca Wade
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The Book of Gutsy Women
- By: Hillary Rodham Clinton, Chelsea Clinton
- Narrated by: Hillary Rodham Clinton, Chelsea Clinton
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Hillary Rodham Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, share the stories of the gutsy women who have inspired them - women with the courage to stand up to the status quo, ask hard questions, and get the job done.
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More encyclopedia than book
- By Fountain of Chris on 10-09-19
By: Hillary Rodham Clinton, and others
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Our Mothers' War
- American Women at Home and at the Front During World War II
- By: Emily Yellin
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 18 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Our Mothers' War is an eye-opening and moving portrait of women during World War II, a war that forever transformed the way women participate in American society. Never before has the vast range of women's experiences during this pivotal era been brought together in one book.
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Amazing
- By Sam I on 02-04-22
By: Emily Yellin
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Knowing What We Know
- The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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From the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient museums to modern kindergarten classes—this is Simon Winchester’s brilliant and all-encompassing look at how humans acquire, retain, and pass on information and data, and how technology continues to change our lives and our minds. Throughout this fascinating tour, Winchester forces us to ponder what rational humans are becoming. What good is all this knowledge if it leads to lack of thought? What is information without wisdom?
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Colorful anecdotes but tiring after a while.
- By reader on 05-03-23
By: Simon Winchester
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Proving Ground
- The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World's First Modern Computer
- By: Kathy Kleiman
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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After the end of World War II, the race for technological supremacy sped on. Top-secret research into ballistics and computing, begun during the war to aid those on the front lines, continued across the United States as engineers and programmers rushed to complete their confidential assignments. Among them were six pioneering women, tasked with figuring out how to program the world's first general-purpose, programmable, all-electronic computer—better known as the ENIAC. Proving Ground restores these women to their rightful place as technological revolutionaries.
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A Joy to Listen To
- By Sam on 08-07-22
By: Kathy Kleiman
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Genius & Anxiety
- How Jews Changed the World, 1847-1947
- By: Norman Lebrecht
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 18 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Norman Lebrecht has devoted half of his life to pondering and researching the mindset of the Jewish intellectuals, writers, scientists, and thinkers who turned the tides of history and shaped the world today as we know it. In Genius & Anxiety, Lebrecht begins with the Communist Manifesto in 1847 and ends in 1947, when Israel was founded. This robust, magnificent volume, beautifully designed, is an urgent and necessary celebration of Jewish genius and contribution.
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Post-anxiety
- By Amaze on 03-27-20
By: Norman Lebrecht
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The Hidden Habits of Genius
- Beyond Talent, IQ, and Grit - Unlocking the Secrets of Greatness
- By: Craig Wright
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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What is genius? The word evokes iconic figures like Einstein, Beethoven, Picasso, and Steve Jobs, whose cultural contributions have irreversibly shaped society. Yet Beethoven could not multiply. Picasso couldn’t pass a fourth grade math test. And Jobs left high school with a 2.65 GPA. The Hidden Habits of Genius explores the meaning of this contested term, and the unexpected motivations of those we have dubbed "genius" throughout history, from Charles Darwin and Marie Curie to Leonardo Da Vinci and Andy Warhol to Toni Morrison and Elon Musk.
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Click-bait title, minimal substance inside
- By James S. on 11-27-20
By: Craig Wright
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Strange Angel
- The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons
- By: George Pendle
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The Los Angeles Times headline screamed: Rocket Scientist Killed in Pasadena Explosion. The man known as Jack Parsons, a maverick rocketeer who helped transform a derided sci-fi plotline into actuality, was at first mourned as a scientific prodigy. But reporters soon uncovered a more shocking story: Parsons had been a devotee of the city’s occult scene.
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Finally on Audible!
- By Jason N on 05-16-19
By: George Pendle