>> Karen Lloyd: Good afternoon.
I'm Karen Lloyd, retired Army
aviation colonel, and director
of the Veterans History Project
here at the Library of Congress.
Please stand as you are able
as we receive today's honorees,
the Code Girls of World War
II, followed by loved ones
from across the nation, each
of whom is holding a photograph
of his or her beloved Code Girl.
And please remain standing,
and hold your applause
until all are seated.
[ Music ]
And let's give these amazing
people a round of applause.
[ Applause ]
Thank you, and now
please be seated.
[ Applause ]
What an amazing and warm
tribute to some very,
very special trailblazers.
On behalf of the Librarian of
Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden,
welcome to the Library
of Congress.
I'd also like to say welcome
to everyone who chose to tune
in today to witness this
momentous event live
on the Library of
Congress's Facebook page
or YouTube channel, with a
special shout-out to the more
than 20,000 members of Nancy
Tipton's college sorority,
Kappa Kappa Gamma,
from across the nation.
[ Applause ]
And a very, very special
shout-out to Code Girl Dorothy
"Dot" Braden Bruce, who
couldn't be here with us today,
but is watching from
Richmond, Virginia.
We miss you, Dot.
[ Applause ]
If you've been a
friend of the Library
of Congress's Veterans History
Project for more than a year,
then you may recall that we were
in this very same room last
March celebrating Women's
History Month.
At that time, we were
hosting a book talk
with the New York Times
bestselling author, Liza Mundy,
who wrote "Code Girls,
the Untold Story
of American Women
Code-Breakers of World War II."
We are excited to have
Liza back with us today,
as she will provide
historical context
to these women's
remarkable service.
But I want to make it clear
that today's Women History Month
event is the Veteran History
Project's way of showing a
long-overdue public appreciation
on behalf of a grateful nation
to the World War II Code Girls,
including those who
are no longer with us.
As a woman, I understand there
are some things we prefer not
to discuss, but today,
I'll make an exception,
because the Code Girls
who are with us today,
while they may not
care to admit it,
are all in their
mid-90s and older.
Imagine still traveling
after all these years.
I realize it's no small feat for
them to join us today in person,
which makes their presence
all the more special.
I had the privilege of
spending some time with them,
getting to know them
earlier this morning,
and all I can say is wow.
I hope to be as spry
and sharp as they are
when I hit my mid-90s.
If I had known being a math or
linguistics major was the secret
to longevity [laughter],
I would've changed
my college plans.
If there's any students
listening, please take note.
The Veterans History
Project collects, preserves,
and makes accessible the stories
of the United States
military veterans who served
from World War I through
the current conflicts
so that future generations
may directly hear from them,
and better understand
their selfless service.
To date, we have over 110,000
collections in our archives,
and that number grows daily.
Our collections include video,
audio recorded oral history
interviews, photographs,
letters, military documents,
journals, and diaries,
and even two-dimensional
artwork.
We not only highlight existing
collections, but we continue
to solicit volunteers
from across the nation
to gather the stories from
the veterans in their lives
and their communities.
So we hear their
first-person reminisces,
personal philosophies,
and the creativity,
so we can preserve it.
In doing so, we all better
understand our history.
You may be wondering how
a project that focuses
on oral histories and other
materials took on the role
of hosting a reunion
for Code Girls.
Well, very much like what
we do, it all started
with a research question.
As part of the nation's library,
research is at the crux
of everything we do.
We don't just collect materials
and tuck them away on a shelf,
never to be seen again.
We are in constant communication
with researchers, authors,
scholars, filmmakers, family
members, and the general public,
all of whom are looking for
authentic, firsthand accounts
that cannot always
be found in textbooks
or official service records.
So when Liza was conducting
research for her book,
she contacted the Veterans
History Project as one
of her many vital resources.
Once the book was published,
the outpouring of interest
in the Code Girls was
nothing short of amazing.
As the people read their books,
they recognized bits and pieces
of their mothers', their aunts',
their grandmothers' history.
A certain mystique surrounding
her role in the war effort,
unexplained military documents
among her personal belongings,
hidden photographs she
just wouldn't talk about --
soon, an online community
began to take shape,
and many wondered why it seemed
the Code Girls had been all
but written out of history.
The time is now, they said,
to publicly honor these women
for their brilliance
and bravery.
The only thing left to do was
find someone willing and able
to host what is now known as
the first national reunion
for these historic
change-makers.
Fast-forward a few
months, and here we are.
As she comes forward,
I'd like to thank Liza
for allowing her research to be
the spark that lit this fire,
that encouraged the
Veterans History Project
to coordinate this event.
It has been a labor of love.
Liza -- ladies and gentlemen,
I present to you Liza Mundy.
[ Applause ]
>> Liza Mundy: Thank
you so much, Karen.
Good morning, everybody,
or good afternoon,
and happy Women's History Month.
Recently, I was at dinner
with a group of men and women,
and it happened
to be International
Women's Day that day.
And we were chatting about it,
and the women present
thanked the men for, you know,
giving us a day [laughter].
And the men graciously told us
that we were welcome [laughter].
So with regard to
months, I think it's good
to have months devoted to
special groups, but it would,
of course, be nice if every
month were everybody's
history month.
And fortunately, great research
institutions like the Library
of Congress exist to make
sure that that happens,
and I want to thank Karen, and
Lisa Taylor [assumed spelling],
and the staff of the Veterans
History Project for maintaining
such a wonderful
archive of recollections
of our nation's service members.
And through the contributions
that the families are making
today to augment the holdings
of the Veterans History
Project, you're making sure
that the women's experience
is ever-better recorded.
And I can assure you that your
donation is in very good hands.
When I was researching Code
Girls, I was so grateful
for the collection of
military oral histories
and other documents, and the
knowledgeability and helpfulness
of the staff at the Veterans
History Project was incredible.
It's not an exaggeration
to say that it's thrilling
to avail oneself of research
in such a magnificent setting.
It's also daunting and thrilling
to speak in a setting like this,
but if you want to
talk about daunting,
I recently had an experience
that was even more challenging.
I had to talk to a group of
fifth-graders [laughter].
There is a young readers'
edition of Code Girls,
which means that
the inspiring story
of the Code Women is being
imparted to girls and to boys,
to tell the story of
women's contributions
to what was early computer
coding and research,
as well as code-breaking.
I was very nervous, because
12-year-olds are a tough crowd.
They don't necessarily have
to listen or be polite,
and I didn't have any
gimmicks to keep them occupied.
There had been a power
outage that morning,
and the power wasn't working.
So I didn't have my PowerPoint,
and I had to improvise.
So in a bit of a
panic, I asked how many
of them had ever constructed
some sort of secret language
to communicate with a
friend or another person --
something actually
we were just talking
about at lunch today,
before this event.
Every hand in the room shot up,
and when I asked them what sort
of languages they had
used, what sort of codes
and ciphers they had created,
there was an astonishing
variety.
Some of them had developed
their own sign languages.
Some were using fancy
versions of pig Latin.
Some actually knew
specific historical code
and cipher systems,
like the pigpen cipher,
which involves a table that I
don't personally understand.
One girl said that she would
put a Greek-language template
over her computer keyboard,
and send a message to a friend,
and the friend would
use Google translate
to decipher the message.
And when I asked them if
they ever used their phones
to communicate with
each other, they said,
"We aren't allowed
to have cell phones.
We're fifth-graders [laughter]."
And when I asked them what
they were communicating,
they were trying to
conspire with friends
to get their parents to do
things like set up playdates.
So I mentioned this because it
got me thinking what I thought
so many times during the
course of writing this book --
about the fundamental
human urge to communicate.
And since the origins of
language, since the origins
of our ability to write and
speak, it has been our impulse
to communicate urgently with
someone who's important to us,
often with the hope that
the enemy won't be able
to understand.
This happens in wars,
and military settings,
and diplomacy, and the
conduct of government,
where there is a real enemy
often, but for children,
the enemy, of course, is us,
right, the adults and parents.
But the topic of
communication is
so fundamental to
why we are here.
It is, indeed, a
fundamental human urge.
It's a necessity.
It's of essence in wartime,
as well as diplomacy.
It's something that we
have to do, both as people
and as countries and
government leaders.
But what struck me also,
interviewing the women
for my book, is that they were
unable, for so many years,
to communicate to
anyone the importance
of what they had contributed
during World War II
at this crucial moment
for the world.
To give you a sense of what that
was like for them emotionally,
the central character in
my book, Dot Braden-Bruce,
who Karen mentioned --
she worked during all of
World War II on the --
what was called 2-4-6-8,
the water transport code,
which was being used by
the Japanese supply ships
who were supplying
the Japanese army.
It was one of the three
most-important code-breaking
operations of World War II.
So after the war, she
had two younger brothers
who were both in
military service.
They both, fortunately,
survived the war,
and when they came back,
they both had jobs involving
top-secret security clearances.
And I learned after the book
came out from one of her nephews
that at family reunions, the
brothers would get together
and brag about their
top-secret security clearances,
and Dot could never tell them
that she had had a
top-secret security clearance
as well during the war.
And that's the kind of thing
that the women had to put
up with, and live with, and I
think many of them accepted it
as what happens when you
do intelligence work during
wartime, or at any other time.
But the thing is that even after
the story was declassified,
most of them never
realized this.
Some of the women were told that
it was okay to finally talk,
but most of the women weren't.
Many of them, you know, never
told anybody what they had did,
never got credit for
their work, and so,
when I was interviewing
women, you know,
often I had to convince them
-- like, we had to convince Dot
that it was finally
okay to tell her story.
And it took us about a half
an hour, and she finally said,
"You know, well, what are they
going to do, put me in prison
if I [laughter]" -- and I
said, "Well, at your age,
it'll probably be a
nice prison [laughter]."
And she has a good sense of
humor, so she liked that.
But I did sense that the women
were powerfully motivated
to tell their stories,
and to finally get some
credit for what they did.
And I'll never forget
when Janice Benario
[assumed spelling],
a graduate of Gowtzer College
[assumed spelling] who served
in the U.S. Navy --
I was interviewing her
in an emergency room,
because she had broken her
wrist the night before.
And she said, "You know,
I hope I live long enough
to see your book published,"
and I'm very happy to say
that she did, and that it was
very meaningful for the women,
I think, to have their
achievements known
and recognized.
And it was very meaningful
for me to be trusted
with their story, to know
that -- that they had --
that they were communicating
this secret to me,
and that it was my
responsibility to try
to communicate their
story accurately and well.
I want to particularly thank
Jim Bruce [assumed spelling],
who sat with me to
persuade his mother to talk.
That was the first interview
that I conducted for my book,
and it did signal to me
that it would be possible --
that it might be
possible to find the women
and persuade them to talk.
I'd also like to thank Debbie
Anderson [assumed spelling],
who, unfortunately,
is not here today,
but she has amassed a really
impressive archive of women
who worked in Dayton, Ohio,
helping to build the machines
that we would use to break
the German enigma ciphers.
She conducted some reunions of
those women who were in Dayton
for a number of years,
and I benefitted
enormously from her archives.
And I also want to thank --
there's so many family
members here.
I've e-mailed with you.
I've talked to you on the phone.
You've made your family
records available to me.
You've made oral
histories available,
memorabilia, scrapbooks.
The women -- they -- you know,
they saved their
restaurant menus.
They saved their concert
tickets in Washington.
Every scrap of information
that the women saved was useful
for me in trying to convey what
wartime Washington was like,
where women, you know, were
living in the nation's capitol,
and often living unchaperoned
for the first time
in their life.
They all remember, you know,
when the liquor stores closed
in D.C. versus Virginia
[laughter].
But I want to thank the family
members who rightly recognized
that your mothers and your
grandmothers are national
treasures, and who had
kept this memorabilia,
and made it available
to me for --
for this attempt to communicate
what the women contributed.
All of this is a form
of communication.
It enables authors to
communicate the tale,
and to tell it in a way,
hopefully, that's vivid enough
that people will
want to read it.
I worry sometimes that readers
might disbelieve this story,
given its magnitude.
This is the story of
more than 10,000 women
who answered the nation's call
to service as their brothers
and boyfriends were getting on
aircraft carriers and convoys
out in the Pacific
and Atlantic Ocean.
These women left small towns.
They were recruited
as college seniors.
They were called in, and they
were asked questions like,
"Do you like crossword puzzles,"
and "Are you engaged
to be married?"
Many of them were
schoolteachers who recruited --
who signed up for
the War Department,
not knowing even what
the secret work was
that they were going
to be doing.
They came to Washington,
and generally, their welcome
to Washington was being
told that they would be shot
if they talked about the work
that they were doing
during the war.
So that was their -- you know,
that was their greeting
upon arriving
in the nation's capitol.
And I worried sometimes --
this was an untold story,
and I thought, you know,
are people really
going to believe this?
And if I can find women who
will tell me their story,
and what they remember
of it, I worried --
you know, how will
I document this,
and how will I substantiate it?
So once again, I'm so grateful
to the Library of Congress
for providing the records
to help document this story,
and to all of the families who
had saved all of these letters.
And, you know -- and as Karen
mentioned, just snippets
of things that they sometimes
didn't even know what had
happened, what had gone on.
Most of these women would not
tell their families what they
had been doing in Washington,
but the families knew
that their records
were important.
And they saved them,
and made them available,
and I guarantee you,
I read every word.
And it all -- it all was
grist for the mill of trying
to communicate this story.
As I imagine most of you know,
World War II was
the tipping point
for women joining the military.
It was a big deal.
When the WAVES were created --
the U.S. Navy Women Accepted
for Volunteer Emergency Service,
the WACs were created --
women joining the U.S. Army.
There were women Marines.
There were women
flying transport planes.
This was a tipping point.
It was a big deal, right,
because this was total war.
This was global war.
The men had shipped out,
and the nation was willing
to be what we would today call
inclusive, to tap the women,
to send out emissaries to
recruit women from colleges,
and from teachers' colleges.
So women flew transport planes.
They worked in air
traffic towers.
They received Morse
code communications.
They encoded our own
U.S. military messages.
They followed the men onto
the beaches of Normandy
after the D-Day landings,
and would run communications
for the Allied forces as
we were chasing the Germans
through France and Belgium.
And of course, they broke codes,
and the military victories
as a result of code-breaking
during World War II are too
numerous to mention here.
They include the great victory
in the Battle of Midway,
which is one of the most
famous sea battles of all time.
It was a turning point in the
Pacific War, where we had been
so terribly surprised at Pearl
Harbor six months earlier.
They include the breaking of the
German enigma cipher being used
by the U-boats in the
Atlantic, and the breaking
of the water transport
code being used
by the ships supplying
the Japanese army,
as well as reading
diplomatic communications
that Japanese diplomats
were sending
from Europe back to Tokyo.
We read every one of
those messages thanks
to a woman named Genevieve
Grochen [assumed spelling],
who had had the key insight in
September 1940 that allowed us
to break that machine cipher.
The kind of intelligence that we
got from those communications --
to give you one example, the
Japanese diplomats were invited
to tour the coast of France,
Hitler's Atlantic Wall,
which was his fortifications
to repel an Allied invasion.
They dutifully reported back
to Tokyo on where the coast
of France was well-fortified,
and where it wasn't,
so we knew when we were
planning the D-Day landings
that Normandy would be
a better place to land
than a spot like Calais.
So that's the kind
of intelligence,
and that's the kind of service
that the women provided.
After the war, there was
no going back in terms
of women's military
services, and so, again,
on behalf of all
researchers, I want to thank you
for your donations today.
Because you're ensuring
that researchers
and authors will continue to be
able to communicate this story
to the American public, to
fill out our understanding
of our nation's history,
and the extent
to which women have served
in the military for more
than half a century now.
And, you know, it's important
to fill out our understanding
of American history, and
the many groups of people
who have served the cause
of freedom, and contributed
to the progress of our country.
I just keep coming back to
this theme of communications
as so essential for
the individual, right?
We all have a need
to communicate our own
personal thoughts and stories,
but for our understanding
of ourselves.
And I also want to say how
inspired I was personally
by the stories that these
women communicated to me.
There were many days when I
felt overwhelmed by the task
of understanding and writing
the story of their service,
and whenever I felt overwhelmed,
I thought about the job they had
to do during wartime --
so emotionally stressful,
and so intellectually
challenging.
And the fact that lives were at
stake, and that they had to work
as quickly as possible.
And I felt so inspired
by this, and I know now
that readers feel the same way.
And as a nation, it's
helpful and heartening
to read true stories of
inspiring achievement,
and the women in this
audience, as well as those
who couldn't be here, are
a stirring example of that,
to remind us of who we are, and
to recall us to our best selves.
The thing that surprised me
most was how many families
of Code Girls I heard from
after the book was published.
Many of you are in
the audience today.
Many are serving
in the diplomatic
intelligence communities.
It's no exaggeration to
say that the Code Girls,
through your military service,
not only helped in the war.
You also established a
tradition of military
and public service
in your own families.
And so, I just wanted to
read from the afterword
of the paperback some of
the testimonials that I got
from readers talking about
their mothers and grandmothers,
and what they learned that they
had never been told when --
by women who just were not
going to talk about it.
"'My mother would never tell
me what she did during the war,
wrote Karen Scott
Johnson [assumed spelling],
daughter of Anna Mae
Barrett [assumed spelling].
Karen did know that her mother
enlisted in the U.S. Navy
as a member of the WAVES, was a
math whiz, and attended very --
and attained very high
security clearances in her work.
Code Girls, she wrote,
'offered her a window
into what her mother's
life entailed."
Here's another one.
"'I feel as though my life
has been turned upside-down,
wrote Gail Simmons
[assumed spelling],
provost of Hostra
University [assumed spelling].
Simmons knew that her mother,
Barbara June Witt
[assumed spelling],
was in some fashion a Code Girl.
'She served in the WAVES, went
to boot camp at Hunter College,
and would, if pressed, say
that she did work with codes,
but like the women you
describe, she would not crack,
and give anyone in the
family any details.
It was clear that something
about the experience
had affected her deeply,
but she opened up to no one.
Reading the book,' Gail wrote,
'it all suddenly makes
the snippets I knew
about my mother add up, and
it has taken my breath away.
It has brought a feeling
of closeness with my mother
that I almost never had
while she was living.'
Jenny Landis [assumed spelling]
wrote to me about her mother,
Mary, who had graduated
from Montana State College
with a degree in math
and science before
joining the WAVES.
'Mom never mentioned her service
until at least 50 years
had passed,' Jenny wrote.
'She died in 1992, and
we had not asked her any
detailed questions.
It is difficult to realize
that our mother, a brilliant
and incredible woman,
was resigned to a life
of housewifery post-World
War II.'
Other memories were
uplifting, and sometimes funny.
Norman Turkelson [assumed
spelling] wrote to me
about his mother, Jean Teresa
Pew [assumed spelling].
He recall that once, he was
sitting in his parents' den
with his parents and siblings
watching a '60 Minutes' segment
about World War II.
The show mentioned the Battle of
Coral Sea, and the code-breaking
that preceded that engagement.
'I guess I can now tell you what
I did during the war [laughter],
his mother abruptly said.
Turkelson's father
began explaining
that their mom had
been a secretary,
when she interrupted him.
'No, Harold [laughter], I
broke codes for the Navy,
and my girls worked on
and broke that code.'
She stood up and
high-fived everybody
in the room [laughter].
[ Applause ]
Dad was speechless
[laughter], Norman remembers."
So I'll just end
with my favorite one.
This is one of my --
they're all my favorites.
So this was at a book talk.
A man came up to me
afterwards, and he recalled
that both his parents served
with the Navy during the war.
His mother was in Washington.
His father was in the Pacific.
He knew they were
both in code-breaking,
but they would not say more than
that, not even to each other.
One day, he took them to
the Cryptologic Museum
in Fort Meade, where there is
a version of the Purple Machine
that was used by the
Japanese diplomats.
They were using a machine
that was called Purple.
His mother was startled
to see it.
She had not realized even now
that it's okay to acknowledge
that existed, and
that we broke it.
"I worked on that machine,"
she told them proudly,
to which her husband replied,
"You worked on Purple?
I worked on Purple [laughter]!"
They belonged to the
same code-breaking chain
and did not even know it.
And so, finally, this
experience also made me think
that we should all ask the
people in our families,
especially the service
members, about their lives
and their pasts, to
understand what has come before.
I am very grateful that
we are living in a time
when the stories of
women, people of color,
and other once-marginalized
groups are more
and more becoming a known and
recognized part of our history.
I think of the Code Girls
as the hidden figures
of the greatest generation,
and on behalf of all of us
who are still benefitting from
their tenacity and dedication,
I would like to thank them all,
and thank you for
being here today.
[ Applause ]
>> Karen Lloyd: Thank you,
Liza, for providing us
that thorough historical
overview
of the Code Girls' service.
I absolutely loved it.
Thank you.
Many didn't realize
it back then,
but we now know these
women were change-makers
in every sense of the word.
The United States, not
to mention the world,
would be very -- would be a very
different place today if not
for these secret
code-breakers of World War II.
Now I'd like to invite
Mrs. Nancy Thompson Tipton
up to share a few
words about her service
in the Civilian Army
Signal Corps.
At 96, she's traveled here
with her family all the way
from Centennial, Colorado.
Mrs. Tipton shared with us that
it is -- after her service,
she went on to lead quite
an adventurous life,
even by today's standards.
She worked in advertising,
wrote a shopping column
for a local newspaper, and
proudly earned more money
than her husband [laughter].
Please welcome Mrs.
Nancy Thompson Tipton.
[ Applause ]
>> Nancy Tipton: Now everybody
can see, so please bear with me.
I'm delighted to be here
with my fellow Code Girls,
and with you all.
I'm also pleased to
have my three children
and my daughter-in-law, my son,
Scott, and his wife, Martha,
from Fort Collins, and my
daughter, Anne, from Olympia,
Washington, and my daughter,
Susan [assumed spellings],
from Lakewood, Colorado with me.
And I also want to
pay special attention
to Cammie [assumed spelling].
Where are you, Cammie?
Back there.
Her mother was a dear
friend of mine at Vassar,
and was a code-breaker.
She was in the Navy, so we're
honoring her today, too.
I don't speak often
in public like this,
but anyway [laughter]
-- I wanted --
especially I wanted to thank
Liza Mundy for being here,
because it's such a special
treat to have her here.
[ Applause ]
Now, you all know that
our work was top-secret,
and I have a couple
of stories to tell you
about how top-secret they were.
About five years
ago, my college --
I mean, my roommate
from Washington,
who still lives here, and
whom I will see on Sunday,
came to see me, visit me in
Colorado with her husband.
And I got out my scrapbook, of
course, and it was full of --
as Liza said, it was
full of restaurant menus,
and football games, and bar --
and cigarette covers [laughter],
and she -- but in the middle of
it, she saw this certificate.
And I had gotten a
raise from 2300 to 3400,
and the certificate said
"cryptanalyst" on it.
And she said, "What is that?"
And I said, "Well, that's what
we did during World War II."
And she said, "Oh, no.
I worked in the library," and
I didn't know we had a library.
And yet, she and I took
the bus, lived together,
slept in the same bed together,
and we never talked about it.
And the other one I have
to say is about my brother.
A year ago, he got the
Congressional Medal of Honor,
because he'd been in the OSS,
and he went to the crypto --
cryptology museums here.
And he was really excited
about all the machines,
and so he told me -- he
said, "Oh, we saw, you know,
all these different
names, and numbers,
and everything of machines."
And I said, "I never
saw a machine.
I didn't know we had machines."
You really just knew
exactly what you were doing,
and nobody -- you
weren't supposed
to know what anybody else did.
So anyway -- but I do want
to thank Lisa Taylor, too,
for hosting this
wonderful event.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> Karen Lloyd: Thank
you, Mrs. Tipton.
You are an inspiration
to us all.
Next, I'd like to invite
Mrs. Suzanne Embree
up to share a little bit
about her days as a member
of the U.S. Navy WAVES.
Mrs. Embree is 97, and lives
in Mitchellville, Maryland.
She spent two years during the
war breaking Japanese secret
codes, all the while
worrying about her brother,
who was serving in the Pacific.
Please welcome Mrs.
Suzanne Embree.
[ Applause ]
>> Suzanne Embree:
I'm very pleased
that we are all able
to come here today.
I think one of the
wonderful things
about the Second World
War was it helped --
it helped not only us
speak with each other,
communicate with each other,
but it also brought people
from around the world together.
And that's one of the things I'd
like to mention particularly,
because when the Japanese
War was the only part
of the war still being
worked on, after VE Day,
the people at Bletchley Park,
who were in the Japanese hut,
were sent over here
to work with us.
And the person that
I worked with --
I don't remember if
I told this to Liza.
He was known as the --
Jesus Christ [laughter].
He looked very much like
the pictures of Jesus
that one remembers, seeing
Jesus knocking at the door.
He had the same lean,
bearded look, very serious,
and he was very serious.
I was amazed later, when I
went to Bletchley Park itself,
and saw that one of the --
and learned that one of the
reasons he'd been sent to us was
that he was having a good
time at Bletchley Park.
He and his wife were
teaching everybody Scottish
dancing [laughter].
He didn't teach us that.
We were very sober.
I worked primarily with Fredson
Bowers [assumed spelling].
Those of you who
went to University
of Virginia are probably
familiar with Fredson,
who in turn had a wife who was
also an interesting character.
I never met her, but
she wrote a book called
"The Prodigal Women."
And we read that book,
and we were astounded
that he would do this.
Well, this was part of the whole
thing about being at the Annex.
It was the people
who were there,
the people working together,
and I want to say what
impressed me the most
from the very first day I
went to work were the people
who were the warrant officers
and petty officers
who helped me.
And it was through them that I
understood what being part of --
what the esprit de
corps really meant.
They were wonderful, and so
I'm glad to have a chance
to thank the yeomen efforts
of all my colleagues.
It was a wonderful opportunity
to meet these wonderful people,
and to feel we were part
of a greater human
family around the world.
Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
>> Karen Lloyd: Thank
you, Mrs. Embree,
for sharing with us what
life was like for you
in the military, and for
giving us a firsthand peek
into wartime Washington.
Because so many of the Code
Girls are no longer with us,
we thought it would be fitting
to have someone to speak
from the perspective of
a Code Girls' loved one.
I am thrilled to have,
filling that role for us,
none other than William Nye,
also known as Bill
Nye the Science Guy.
[ Applause ]
Bill Nye is an American science
educator, engineer, comedian,
TV presenter, author, and
inventor, with a mission
to help people foster a
scientifically-literate society,
and to help people
everywhere understand
and appreciate the science
that makes our world work.
Making science entertaining
and accessible is something Bill
has a passion -- has had a --
has been passionate
about his entire life.
His mother, Jacqueline
Jenkins Nye, was a Code Girl,
and a member of the
U.S. Navy WAVES.
She undoubtedly left a
huge impression and thirst
for knowledge on Bill
and his siblings.
Join me in welcoming to the
podium Bill Nye the Science Guy.
[ Applause ]
>> Bill Nye: Thank you.
Thank you, indeed.
Ladies and gentlemen,
service members,
and especially Code Girls --
-- I'm sorry, guys.
I know I'm among
friends, I think.
Are there any enemies
here [laughter]?
I'll be honest, you guys.
I'm not objective about it.
Women's History Month is
a wonderful celebration.
My great-grandmother marched
in the Suffragette Parade
on the 3rd of March, 1913,
right here in Washington,
D.C. Sixty-five years
later, my mother marched
in the Equal Rights
Amendment Parade.
My many friends and my
beloved sister-in-law marched
in the Women's Parade two
years ago, and I cannot help
but feel honored to
address you today.
Jackie Jenkins -- boy,
I'm sorry, you guys.
I'm not that sorry, doggone it.
Okay. She was a heck of a lady.
Jackie Jenkins, later known as
my mother, was a naval officer.
Her many contributions
to winning the war are
very well-known, of course.
Actually, I'm kidding.
Nobody knows what
she did [laughter].
Nobody has any idea, perhaps
least of all people like me,
or members of my family.
People of my mother's
age socialized
by talking during
cocktail parties,
and talking between their
dances during big band shows.
And through my whole life, from
when I was a little kid crawling
over people's shoes at one
of those cocktail parties,
or as an adult observing other,
older adults who were sitting
for a change around a dinner
table, whenever someone asked,
"Hey, what did you do
during the war, Jackie?"
She would laugh, and say, "I
can't talk about it [laughter].
Can't talk about it."
A few of you here may remember
the reunion party the Navy threw
at Fort Myer in 1992, 50 years
-- 50 freaking years after she
and her fellow officers
were recruited.
And that morning and
afternoon, once again,
these women were asked -- people
-- my nephew asked them, 'Hey,
what did you do during the war?
What did you do from
0800 to 1600, to 0000
and round again during the war
years, working those first,
middle, forenoon,
and dog watches?"
Can't talk about it.
They still absolutely
would not talk about.
There are certain regular
English words they would not use
because somehow the word
"overlap" is some --
did I say the wrong thing?
It's somehow used
in code-breaking.
It's generally agreed
that decrypted the Nazi
enigma code shortened the war
in Europe by a year and a half.
It may have shortened the war
in the Pacific theater twice
that long, and they accomplished
their mission in large part
because they took their duty
and their oath so seriously.
And we owe the Code
Girls so much.
Thank you all very much indeed.
It's not long.
I'll get through it [laughter].
While my mother and her
colleagues were breaking codes,
my father had the misfortune
to become a prisoner of war,
captured from the tiny
atoll called Wake Island
in the Pacific Ocean.
If you get a chance to be a
prisoner of war, I just --
I wouldn't do it [laughter].
I'd let it go.
He managed to survive, though,
all the hardships and captivity,
and he returned, and married
my mom in December of 1945.
They raised three of us,
and then my mom went back
to work full-time
at the beginning
of the modern Women's
Rights Movement.
This is before the disco era.
I remember very clearly a
phone conversation she had
with some account executive from
the American Express company.
She slammed the phone down,
and she used the D-word.
"Damn" was a risky usage
for a woman in those days.
She was furious,
because she was told
that she would not be allowed
to have her own credit card,
because she was Mrs.
Nye, after all,
and not worthy of
credit on her own.
And this, even though she
had earned a master's degree
by then.
Mom went on to get
a doctorate here
at George Washington University,
and she kept winning
ballroom dance competitions.
See, the irony is,
ballroom dancing's fun.
So here I am getting choked up.
I apologize.
But she was a very accomplished
ballroom dancer, and she danced
until almost the day she
died several years ago.
And she and my father
are both --
their ashes are both at
Arlington National Cemetery.
I hope we all celebrate the
service of these women as part
of our nation's effort to
form a more perfect union.
As a consequence
of the war effort,
women of this greatest
generation were empowered
like no generation before them.
With their dedication, and
especially their intellect,
the Allies were able to
resolve a global crisis.
We really cannot thank them
enough, and today, I can't help
but feel that the
Code Girls were part
of the larger story
of the United States.
They faced a worldwide
crisis, and they resolved it.
And as the son of
Lieutenant Jenkins, and later,
Dr. Jenkins-Nye -- she
hyphenated her name --
I believe strongly in using
our intellect and treasure
to resolve our global
challenges facing us today.
The framers of the Constitution
of the United States,
which has become a model
for constitutional government
everywhere, includes --
included, and still includes
Article 1, section eight,
clause H -- eight, which refers
to promoting the progress
of science and useful arts.
It's in the Constitution,
people.
Its intent is to
motivate innovators,
and drive the economy
by means of just laws.
They knew that, without
the progress of science
and the useful arts
of engineering,
our economy would falter, and
this was in the 18th century.
Without scientifically literate
citizens, the United States --
any country, in fact,
cannot compete
in the world stage economically,
let alone compete
during a time of war.
We must all take a few moments
today to thank the women,
the Code Girls, for
their service,
and think about their legacy.
This is a feature.
Excuse me.
I wonder how many of
those documents --
we must all take a few moments
today to thank the women,
the Code Girls, for
their service,
and to think about their legacy.
If they could resolve
a global war --
a global war in just five years,
we certainly can provide clean
water, renewable electricity,
and access to global
electronic information
to people everywhere.
To address the violence, extreme
poverty, and climate change,
we can and we must raise the
standard of living of women
and girls around the world.
In the spirit of our code
breakers, we can do it.
I know we can, because we
can see what these women did.
Their legacy inspires us all.
Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
>> Karen Lloyd: I hope
you'll agree with me
that Bill Nye did an
amazing job representing all
of the Code Girls'
loved ones here today.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
And thank you also for
sharing the memories
of your mom with us.
>> Bill Nye: She was something
else, people [laughter].
>> Karen Lloyd: And so are you.
[ Applause ]
>> Bill Nye: This
is her picture.
She was three-dimensional
[laughter].
>> Karen Lloyd: Like all the
Code Girls here and represented,
your mom was a brilliant
change-maker,
and we are so grateful
for her service.
Now I'd like to ask
my team to come up
and help distribute
certificates.
Please note that we
have done our best job
to prepare a certificate
for every Code Girl
that we were told would
be represented here today.
If you are here, and your Code
Girl's name is not called,
please step by the --
stop by the check-in table
after the event, and provide
our staff your Code Girl's name,
as well as your name and mailing
address, and we will make sure
that we get a certificate
to you as soon as possible.
Please follow the instructions
of the ushers that are here
to help, so that we can do this
in a reasonably orderly way.
>> Is this mike on?
Okay. Yes.
So Karen Lloyd is going to
present the certificates
to you as I call your names.
So, Karen, you can step a
little closer to the center.
No, they're not going
to walk on the stage.
We're fine.
Okay, so we're going to have
one row at a time to stand.
That may be a little
harder, but -- okay.
So, Nancy Thompson Tipton
-- she'll go to her.
[ Applause ]
Susan Embree, or
Suzanne Embree, yes.
[ Applause ]
Marjorie Fader [assumed
spelling].
[ Applause ]
Katherine Fleming
[assumed spelling].
[ Applause ]
Betty Robarts [assumed
spelling].
[ Applause ]
Mr. David Conkie, on behalf
of Harriet Wilcox Conkie
[assumed spellings].
[ Applause ]
Joseph Barrie, on behalf
of Carrie Barrie
[assumed spellings].
[ Applause ]
James -- James Bruce, on behalf
of our beloved Dorothy
"Dot" Braden Bruce.
[ Applause ]
Sarah Cassiday, on behalf
of Evelyn Boyett White
[assumed spellings].
[ Applause ]
Merritt Chesley, on behalf
of Carolyn Johnson Canard
[assumed spellings].
[ Applause ]
Charles Clark, on behalf
of Cynthia Hyde Landry
Clark [assumed spellings].
[ Applause ]
Anne Downey -- Anne Dowling,
on behalf of Kathleen Braley --
Bradley Delaney [assumed
spellings].
[ Applause ]
Agnes Fortune, on behalf
of Francine Elizabeth
Fortune [assumed spellings].
[ Applause ]
Jane Gleeson, on behalf
of Marian Aida Kaiser
[assumed spellings].
[ Applause ]
Mary Harrison, on behalf
of Gloria Templeman
[assumed spellings].
[ Applause ]
William James Harton, on
behalf of Lila Aileen Howell.
Karen Johnson, on behalf
of Anne Mae Barrett.
Carolyn Kearns on
behalf of Ruby Rowland.
Ester Clasian, on behalf
of Martha Kvorkian
[assumed spellings].
[ Applause ]
Jillian Longley, on behalf
of Helen Kent Longley
[assumed spellings].
[ Applause ]
Stephanie Lowenhup
[assumed spelling],
on behalf of Jean Martin.
[ Applause ]
Janice McKelvey [assumed
spelling],
on behalf of Sarah
Virginia Dalton.
[ Applause ]
Carolyn Montague
[assumed spelling],
on behalf of Louise Allen.
[ Applause ]
William Bill Nye, on behalf
of Jacqueline Jenkins-Nye.
[ Applause ]
Ashley Paige [assumed spelling],
on behalf of Mary
Virginia Turner.
[ Applause ]
Paul Rockwell [assumed
spelling],
on behalf of Bertha Huber Lees.
[ Applause ]
Mary Spiridopolis, on behalf
of Jean Anne Gordon
[assumed spelling].
[ Applause ]
Tom Stitcher, on behalf of
Margaret Vivian Ranum Stiticher.
[ Applause ]
Sally Sims-Stokes
[assumed spelling] --
what a wonderful guest
blog post this week --
on behalf of Jean Ashby Sims.
[ Applause ]
Karen Veverka, on behalf
of Ruth Tonry Veverka.
[ Applause ]
Elizabeth Cam Stewart-Webber
[assumed spelling],
on behalf of Elizabeth
Bigelow Stewart.
[ Applause ]
Judy Weinstein [assumed
spelling],
on behalf of Jane Schwitzer.
[ Applause ]
Carolyn Wells [assumed
spelling],
on behalf of Anne
Maxwell Painter.
[ Applause ]
Thomas Woodrow Wilson
[assumed spelling],
on behalf of Mary
Jane Bellore Wilson.
[ Applause ]
Kathleen Zilinski [assumed
spelling] on behalf
of Betty Ruth Stine Coyne.
[ Applause ]
And finally, Carol Milton-Zmuda
[assumed spelling] on behalf
of Dorothy May Milton.
[ Applause ]
And we have one round
of applause for all
of our Code Girls
represented today.
[ Applause ]
>> Karen Lloyd: This is
where the Veterans History
Project gets just a little
bit greedy.
And if there are any family
representatives here who would
like to -- whose Code Girl was a
uniformed member of the military
and would like -- have brought
any collections with them
of original materials, we
would like to have a bit
of a donation ceremony,
if you have any.
I understood there
might be some -- Bill?
[ Inaudible Speakers ]
>> Well, we can just
-- this mike here.
So if the family members
who brought the materials
would please stand
and come forward now, so that
you can formally present them
to the Veterans History Project.
So we'll place them in here,
once they make the donation.
>> Karen Lloyd: On behalf
of a grateful nation,
I cannot thank you enough.
>> Bill Nye: Well,
thank my mom [laughter].
That's her obituary.
I used to deliver "The
Washington Post," you guys.
I was a Senators fan, and
look, I'm fine [laughter].
So here's her admission papers.
I think she got a --
here's some letters.
I don't think you're allowed
to look at those [laughter].
And memorandum of information,
and all sorts of things.
>> Karen Lloyd: Thank you, Bill.
And this way --
>> Thank you.
>> Karen Lloyd: --
I need your hand.
I need your hand, the other one.
>> Okay.
>> Karen Lloyd: Yes, I was
in the military [laughter].
On behalf of a grateful
nation, thank you so much --
>> Thank you very much.
>> Karen Lloyd: -- for
choosing to donate.
[ Applause ]
Oh, nice. On behalf
of a grateful nation,
thank you so much for
choosing to donate.
>> Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> Karen Lloyd: I want to
thank those families so much.
I understand how hard
it is sometimes to give
up those original documents,
but as you heard from Liza,
it really does pay forward.
So I want to thank each of you.
[ Applause ]
If you're here or
watching online
and have U.S. military
veteran --
a U.S. military veteran in
your life, living or deceased,
no matter what the
gender, branch of service,
or military assignment, consider
donating your collection
to the Veterans History Project.
For those of you who
are here, you could stop
by the check-in desk
and get a field kit.
It tells you everything
you need to know,
to include all those
government papers
that you have to fill out.
But those -- for those of
you that are watching online,
you can download it from
our website, loc.gov/vets.
This way, you can ensure
that your loved one's
story will preserve --
will be preserved safely
at the nation's library,
never to be lost or forgotten.
As we -- you have to
have a commercial,
right, folks [laughter]?
As we bring this
reunion to a close,
I'd again like to thank each
of you for joining us today
as we honored some amazing
change-makers who led the way
for women, and I'm one of them.
The Code Girls of
World War II --
let's give them a great
round of applause.
[ Applause ]
To our guest speakers,
Liza Mundy, Nancy Tipton,
Suzanne Embree, and Bill Nye,
thank you for giving
us an even deeper sense
of awareness surrounding the
important work of Code Girls,
and the major contributions they
made to the course of the war,
technology, code-breaking,
and what is now known
as cyber security.
We pledge to make sure their
stories are never again at risk
at being lost to history.
I need to thank the
Library's staff,
especially Kimberly Crawford,
Cheryl Canady, Yamil Forbes,
Laura Turner, and Ken
Wyatt [assumed spellings]
for making all their extra
efforts they did to make this go
as smoothly as it has.
Last, but certainly not least,
a big thank-you to the VHP team,
led by Lisa Taylor, who proved
to me today she is qualified
to herd cats [laughter].
[ Applause ]
I want to thank Lisa for taking
an idea and making it a reality.
For those of you who
made reservations
to take the guided tour
of the Jefferson Building,
please get your ticket from
your family representative,
and meet your docent near
the check-in desk at 2:30.
And for everyone else, please
have a wonderful afternoon
and safe travels home.
And again, thank you.
[ Applause ]