Latest news with #Bombe
Boston Globe
05-05-2025
- General
- Boston Globe
Julia Parsons, Navy code breaker during World War II, dies at 104
The Germans thought their machine was impenetrable. 'They just refused to believe that anyone could break their codes,' Thomas Perera, a former psychology professor at Montclair State University who collects Enigma machines and has an online museum devoted to them, said in an interview. 'Their submarines were sending their exact latitude and longitude every day.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The unraveling of the Enigma puzzle began in the late 1930s, when Polish mathematicians, using intelligence gathered by French authorities, reverse-engineered the device and began developing the Bombe, a computer-like code-breaking machine. The Poles shared the information with British authorities. Advertisement In 1941, during an operation that was among the war's most closely held secrets, the Royal Navy captured a German submarine with an Enigma machine on board. British mathematician Alan Turing -- working secretly with intelligence services in England -- used it to refine the Bombe. British authorities sent instructions for building the Bombe to the US Navy. Advertisement At the Naval Communications Annex in Washington, Ms. Parsons and hundreds of other women used the Bombe to decipher German military radio transmissions, revealing information that was instrumental in shortening and winning the war, historians have said. 'We tried to figure out what the message was saying, then we drew up what we called a menu showing what we thought the letters were,' she told The Washington Post in 2022. 'That was fed into the computer, which then spat out all possible wheel orders for the day. Those changed every day and the settings changed twice a day, so we were constantly working on them.' She joined the war effort in the summer of 1942, after reading a newspaper article about a new Navy program called Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, or WAVES. 'There was nothing for women to do but sit at home and wait,' she told The Uproar, the student newspaper at North Allegheny Senior High School, in 2022. 'I knew I wasn't going to do that.' More than 100,000 women joined the WAVES during the war. In 1943, she left Pittsburgh for officer training at Smith College, in Massachusetts, where she took courses on cryptology, physics, and naval history. After her training, she was sent to the Naval Communications Annex. One day, an officer there asked if anyone could speak German. She had taken two years of the language in high school, so she raised her hand. 'They shot me off to the Enigma section immediately, and I began learning how to decode German U-boat message traffic on the job, Day 1,' Ms. Parsons said in an interview with the Veterans Breakfast Club, a nonprofit organization. 'Enemy messages arrived all day from all over the North Atlantic, plus the North Sea and the Bay of Biscay.' Advertisement Her cryptological handiwork saved some lives while simultaneously ending others, presenting her with a moral quandary as she parsed the day's messages. She recalled decoding a congratulatory note transmitted to a German sailor following the birth of his son. His submarine was sunk a few days later. 'To think that we all had a hand in killing somebody did not sit well with me,' Ms. Parsons told the Post. 'That baby would never see his father.' Still, she was proud to serve. 'This was a very patriotic time in the country,' she told HistoryNet in 2021. 'Everybody did something. Everybody was patriotic. It was a beautiful time for that kind of thing.' Julia Mary Potter was born March 2, 1921, in Pittsburgh. Her father, Howard G. Potter, was a professor at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, now known as Carnegie Mellon University. Her mother, Margaret (Filbert) Potter, was a kindergarten teacher. 'Her family was always a puzzle family,' Ms. Parsons' daughter Barbara Skelton said in a 2013 interview with WESA, a public radio station in Pittsburgh. 'It's always crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, so the fact that she was involved in decoding certainly makes perfect sense -- and she's very good at it.' After graduating from Carnegie Tech in 1942, Ms. Parsons worked at an Army ordnance factory. 'We were checking gauges,' she told WESA. 'The steel mills were making shells and all that kind of ordnance equipment, and they were hiring all the Rosie the Riveters to work there, which was the first time women had been in the steel mills. It was considered very bad luck to have women in, so they did not accept Rosie gracefully.' Advertisement The WAVES program provided an escape -- a clandestine one. She told people she was doing office work for the government. She married in 1944, but didn't spill the secret even to her husband, Donald C. Parsons. She didn't tell their children, either. In 1997, Ms. Parsons visited the National Cryptologic Museum near Washington, just another tourist interested in American history. 'The exhibits there astounded me,' she said in the Veterans Breakfast Club interview. 'Here was every sort of Enigma machine -- early models, late models -- on display for all to see, with detailed explanations of how they worked.' She asked a tour guide why the machines were on display. The guide replied that the Enigma work had been declassified in the 1970s. Ms. Parsons hadn't known. She spent the rest of her life visiting classrooms and giving interviews, eager to tell her story. 'It's been good to break the silence,' she said. 'Good for me, and for history.' In addition to Breines and Skelton, Ms. Parsons leaves a son, Bruce; eight grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren. Her husband died in 2006. Ms. Parsons had another distinction -- as perhaps the oldest Wordle player in the world. She played The New York Times puzzle every morning on her iPad and then texted the result to her children. It was a sort of code. 'That's how we knew she was up and about,' Breines said in an interview. 'And if we didn't hear from her, we'd call and say, 'Where's your Wordle?'' This article originally appeared in Advertisement
New York Times
30-04-2025
- General
- New York Times
Julia Parsons, U.S. Navy Code Breaker During World War II, Dies at 104
Julia Parsons, a U.S. Navy code breaker during World War II who was among the last survivors of a top-secret team of women that unscrambled messages to and from German U-boats, died on April 18 in Aspinwall, Pa. She was 104. Her death, in a Veterans Affairs hospice facility, was confirmed by her daughter Margaret Breines. A lover of puzzles and crosswords while growing up in Pittsburgh during the Great Depression, Mrs. Parsons deciphered German military messages that had been created by an Enigma machine, a typewriter-size device with a keyboard wired to internal rotors, which generated millions of codes. Her efforts provided Allied forces with information critical to evading, attacking and sinking enemy submarines. The Germans thought their machine was impenetrable. 'They just refused to believe that anyone could break their codes,' Thomas Perera, a former psychology professor at Montclair State University who collects Enigma machines and has an online museum devoted to them, said in an interview. 'Their submarines were sending their exact latitude and longitude every day.' The unraveling of the Enigma puzzle began in the late 1930s, when Polish mathematicians, using intelligence gathered by French authorities, reverse-engineered the device and began developing the Bombe, a computer-like code-breaking machine. The Poles shared the information with British authorities. In 1941, during an operation that was among the war's most closely held secrets, the Royal Navy captured a German submarine with an Enigma machine on board. The British mathematician Alan Turing — working secretly with intelligence services in England — used it to refine the Bombe. British authorities sent instructions for building the Bombe to the U.S. Navy. At the U.S. Naval Communications Annex in Washington, Mrs. Parsons and hundreds of other women used the Bombe to decipher German military radio transmissions, revealing information that was instrumental in shortening and winning the war, historians have said. 'We tried to figure out what the message was saying, then we drew up what we called a menu showing what we thought the letters were,' she told The Washington Post in 2022. 'That was fed into the computer, which then spat out all possible wheel orders for the day. Those changed every day and the settings changed twice a day, so we were constantly working on them.' She joined the war effort in the summer of 1942, after reading a newspaper article about a new U.S. Navy program called Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, or WAVES. 'There was nothing for women to do but sit at home and wait,' she told The Uproar, the student newspaper at North Allegheny Senior High School, in 2022. 'I knew I wasn't going to do that.' More than 100,000 women joined the WAVES during the war. In 1943, she left Pittsburgh for officer training at Smith College, in Massachusetts, where she took courses on cryptology, physics and naval history. After her training, she was sent to the Naval Communications Annex, in Washington. One day, an officer there asked if anyone could speak German. She had taken two years of the language in high school, so she raised her hand. 'They shot me off to the Enigma section immediately, and I began learning how to decode German U-boat message traffic on the job, Day 1,' Mrs. Parsons said in an interview with the Veterans Breakfast Club, a nonprofit organization. 'Enemy messages arrived all day from all over the North Atlantic, plus the North Sea and the Bay of Biscay.' Her cryptological handiwork saved some lives while simultaneously ending others, presenting her with a moral quandary as she parsed the day's messages. She recalled decoding a congratulatory note transmitted to a German sailor following the birth of his son. His submarine was sunk a few days later. 'To think that we all had a hand in killing somebody did not sit well with me,' Mrs. Parsons told The Washington Post. 'I felt really bad. That baby would never see his father.' Still, she was proud to serve. 'This was a very patriotic time in the country,' she told HistoryNet in 2021. 'Everybody did something. Everybody was patriotic. It was a beautiful time for that kind of thing.' Julia Mary Potter was born on March 2, 1921, in Pittsburgh. Her father, Howard G. Potter, was a professor at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, now known as Carnegie Mellon University. Her mother, Margaret (Filbert) Potter, was a kindergarten teacher. 'Her family was always a puzzle family,' Mrs. Parsons's daughter Barbara Skelton said in a 2013 interview with WESA, a public radio station in Pittsburgh. 'It's always crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, so the fact that she was involved in decoding certainly makes perfect sense — and she's very good at it.' After graduating from Carnegie Tech in 1942, Julia worked at an Army ordnance factory. 'We were checking gauges,' she told WESA. 'The steel mills were making shells and all that kind of ordnance equipment, and they were hiring all the Rosie the Riveters to work there, which was the first time women had been in the steel mills. It was considered very bad luck to have women in, so they did not accept Rosie gracefully.' The WAVES program provided an escape — a clandestine one. She told people she was doing office work for the government. She married in 1944, but didn't spill the secret even to her husband, Donald C. Parsons. She didn't tell their children, either. In 1997, Mrs. Parsons visited the National Cryptologic Museum near Washington, just another tourist interested in American history. 'The exhibits there astounded me,' she said in the Veterans Breakfast Club interview. 'Here was every sort of Enigma machine — early models, late models — on display for all to see, with detailed explanations of how they worked.' She asked a tour guide why the machines were on display. The guide replied that the Enigma work had been declassified in the 1970s. Mrs. Parsons hadn't known. She spent rest of her life visiting classrooms and giving interviews, eager to tell her story. 'It's been good to break the silence,' she said. 'Good for me, and for history.' In addition to Ms. Breines and Ms. Skelton, Mrs. Parsons is survived by a son, Bruce; eight grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren. Her husband died in 2006. Mrs. Parsons was one of the last surviving code breakers, but she may have had another distinction — as perhaps the oldest Wordle player in the world. She played The New York Times puzzle every morning on her iPad and then texted the result to her children. It was a sort of code. 'That's how we knew she was up and about,' Ms. Breines said in an interview. 'And if we didn't hear from her, we'd call and say, 'Where's your Worldle?''
Telegraph
30-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
VE Day is ‘last big chance to thank Second World War heroes'
Amongst the polite mingling, finger sandwiches and Union flag-themed slices of cake was the serious feeling that this would be one of the last gatherings of Second World War veterans to ever take place. Six decorated attendees, aged 96 to 100 years old, convened at London's glamorous Ritz hotel on Friday, marking almost 80 years since the famous VE Day outing of Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret in the same hotel. The tea party, organised by the Royal British Legion (RBL), was the official launch of the charity's commemorations to mark the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day. It brought together Bletchley Park Enigma machine operator Ruth Bourne, 98, First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) transmitter hut attendant Joyce Wilding, 100, Private Joe Mines, 100, codebreaker Bernard Morgan, 100, RAF soldier Gilbert Clarke, 99, and former child evacuee Doreen Mills, 96. The high tea was billed as 'one of the last opportunities to come together and say thank you' to those who served the country from 1939 to 1945, ahead of the RBL's formal VE Day celebrations on May 8. 'This is one of the last major opportunities for the whole nation to pay tribute, to say thank you, to those that served, and to pay tribute to their courage and fortitude,' Mark Atkinson, director general of the RBL, told The Telegraph ahead of the poignant anniversary. 'There's not so many of us that are with it [any more] in a way,' Ms Wilding, who enlisted as a FANY aged 18 in Surrey, said over bites of The Ritz's Victoria sponge cake. The centenarian, whose role as a transmitter hut attendant involved tuning powerful radios to receive messages from agents in occupied Europe, added that they formed a 'wonderful camaraderie' at the time. 'I must say it was a wonderful time of my life, [even] with all the tragedies and the terrible things that went on, but VE Day was just joyous, it was unbelievable,' she said. 'We danced the hokey cokey all the way down Piccadilly and ended up in front of the Palace.' Ms Wilding was one of two veterans at the high tea event – and among an estimated 100,000 people in 1945 – who decided to celebrate the historic moment outside Buckingham Palace. 'There was an electric feeling going through the crowd,' said Ms Bourne, who was a Bombe machine operator and checker at Bletchley Park during the war. She was awarded the Legion d'honneur in recognition of her service in 2018. Ms Bourne, who was only 17 when she joined the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS) in 1944, added: 'In the end, we all broke out. We started shouting: 'We want the King, we want the King!' 'And believe it or not, they came out, the King and the Queen, Princess Elizabeth in her khaki uniform and Princess Margaret. Of course, we went wild. 'People were climbing up lamp posts, there wasn't an empty lamp post to be seen. We had a scarf, hat, whatever we had, we waved. I think that was the most exciting moment of my WRNS career, seeing the Royal family.' Similarly to Ms Wilding, she spent the evening dancing down Piccadilly Circus, while a few miles down the road the two princesses were famously given permission by their father, King George VI, to go incognito among the revellers and to celebrate at the Ritz. 'The story is they did a dance through the Ritz Hotel,' Ms Wilding said of the now infamous tale, which has been immortalised in the 2015 film A Royal Night Out and in Netflix's popular dramatised series about the Royal family, The Crown. Ms Bourne said 'no one knew it at the time,' and that the crowds outside the Palace were too busy 'doing the conga'. She said: 'That's the old fashioned dance we were doing, complete strangers, holding on to one another. It was like we were all one great big family.' As part of their national programme of celebrations to mark VE Day, the RBL is launching a range of downloadable resources available to all schools across the UK to help teachers plan related activities in classrooms. At Friday's tea, three schoolchildren were invited to meet the veterans to ask them about their experience of the war and were able to observe Mr Morgan's original telex, which he received two days before VE Day to tell him the Germans are surrendering, and which he has since refused to give to any museums. Mr Atkinson explained: 'You want to make sure that children are learning and talking about the Second World War… it's very important. 'It was great to have children here today to meet directly with people who were there 80 years ago, to hear their stories. That's a core part of what the legion has a responsibility for, it's making sure that the service and sacrifice is never forgotten.' After speaking with the children, Ms Wilding remarked: 'I think it's lovely to know that they know about it, because so often I find that the younger ones are not really very knowledgeable, because they've never lived through an air raid or anything like it.' 'One didn't realise how near, you know, with Hitler, we were,' she added. 'We could have been in trouble really.'
