In addition to the OSS, America’s World War II intelligence network eventually included the State Department, the Army-Navy Communications Intelligence Board, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  Men and women with specialties in languages, mathematics, and cryptology were recruited and placed behind desks and attached to earphones, monitoring thousands of messages.  The intelligence extracted from these intercepts was supplied to agencies and departments throughout the government and military. Women played a vital role in this critical effort.

Genevieve Feinstein

  • Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) cryptanalyst
  • Decrypted and read Japanese diplomatic messages.
  • In September 1940, pioneered a breakthrough involving Japanese messaging techniques; enabled the SIS to build an analog machine that successfully decrypted Japanese diplomatic messages known as “Purple.”

genevieve feinstein
Genevieve Feinstein
Photo Credit: NSA

Mary Louise Prather

  • Chief of the Stenographic Section of the SIS.
  • Logged cipher messages and prepared the office’s decrypted messages for distribution.
  • Discovered an important relationship between two Japanese messages; enabled the decryption of a new Japanese code.



Mary Louise Prather
Mary Louise Prather
Photo Credit: NSA

Juliana Mickwitz

      • Escaped to the US after Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939.
      • Became a translator for the War Department’s Military Intelligence Directorate.
      • Translated Polish, Russian, and German documents.
      • Hired by Army Security Agency to translate plaintext voice.
    juliana mickwitz
    Juliana Mickwitz
    Photo Credit :    NSA

 

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