The Neglected Giant: Agnes Meyer Driscoll

The links in this entry are correct as of September 2020 

She helped save thousands upon thousands of American lives, but you've probably never heard of her.  A remarkable woman who lived a remarkable life, she was never famous and has become almost forgotten.  History has neglected her.

Codebreakers don't tend to gain fame in the first place, although Alan Turing is a welcome exception.  But even among those who pay attention to such a specialized field, Agnes Driscoll (nee Meyer) gets name recognition, but is rarely mentioned in the same breath, or even the next breath, as a William Friedman.

But she should be.  Hired as a stenographer, which was typical for women almost a century ago, she turned herself into a codebreakder, and became one of the best.  She is given credit for breaking two Japanese codes virtually single-handedly.  She was almost the only codebreaker for the Navy for a couple of decades.  You would think that would be enough.

But she also did more individually than all but one other person to break JN-25, the code Japan's navy used at Midway.  (The organizational credit for breaking it correctly goes to the Navy's Station Hypo.)  Midway was the turning point in the Pacific war, putting Japan irretrievably on the defensive, and breaking JN-25 helped save many thousands of American lives.

She raised herself up to become a premier codebreaker.  Anecdotal evidence abounds that she was a warm woman, encouraging others' growth.  She soldiered on, standing tall, doing so at an age long after virtually all of her peers had moved on to other duties or retired.  Yet she never rose through the ranks as high as they did, and their names are typically mentioned above hers even today.

Why?

One of the last things I was able to do before retiring from government service was to tell her story.  It's a free federal publication, and a free hardcopy can be ordered using this request form, or the softcopy viewed here (links updated September 2020).  Go read it.  You can skip through the technical parts; you don't have to learn old codes and codebreaking.  But do learn about a great codebreaker.  Better yet, about a great American.

Help undo decades of neglect.