Draft:Julia Parsons (WWII codebreaker)

Julia Parsons (née Potter, 1921–2025) was an American codebreaker during World War II, known for her critical role in deciphering German U-boat messages encoded with the Enigma machine. As a member of the U.S. Navy's top-secret Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) program, Parsons was one of the last survivors of the team that helped shorten and secure victory for the Allies. She died on April 18, 2025, at the age of 104, in Aspinwall, Pennsylvania, in a Veterans Affairs hospice facility.

Early Life and Education

Julia Mary Potter was born on March 2, 1921, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her father, Howard G. Potter, was a professor at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now [Carnegie Mellon University]), and her mother, Margaret (Filbert) Potter, was a kindergarten teacher. Growing up during the Great Depression, Parsons developed a lifelong love of puzzles and crosswords, skills that would later serve her in her cryptographic work.

Parsons graduated from Carnegie Tech in 1942 with a degree in arts and sciences. Shortly thereafter, she took a job at an army ordnance factory before enlisting in the WAVES program, which aimed to support the Navy’s wartime efforts by recruiting women for various non-combat roles.

WWII Codebreaking

In 1942, after reading about the WAVES program, Parsons enlisted and underwent officer training at Smith College in Massachusetts, where she studied cryptology, physics, and naval history. Upon completion, she was assigned to the Naval Communications Annex in Washington, D.C., where she joined a top-secret operation to decode messages from German U-boats.

Parsons’ team used the Bombe, a machine developed by British mathematician Alan Turing, which had been refined from earlier Polish efforts to crack the Enigma code. The Enigma machine, used by the Germans to encrypt military communications, was believed to be unbreakable. However, thanks to the efforts of Parsons and others at the Naval Communications Annex, the Allies were able to intercept and decode vital messages that provided intelligence on German submarine locations and movements.

"Every day, we tried to figure out what the message was saying," Parsons recalled in later interviews. "We fed what we thought were the correct settings into the Bombe, and it would then generate all possible wheel orders. The machine’s settings changed frequently, so our work was relentless."

Personal Reflections and Moral Quandaries

While she was proud of her contributions to the war effort, Parsons later reflected on the moral complexities of her work. She often had to reconcile the life-saving intelligence her decoding provided with the lives lost as a result of her efforts. One poignant memory was decoding a congratulatory message to a German sailor on the birth of his son, only for the submarine carrying him to be sunk days later. "It did not sit well with me," she said. "That baby would never see his father."

Despite such emotional conflicts, she remained deeply committed to her work, seeing it as part of a larger patriotic effort during a time when the United States was united in its fight against fascism.

Later Life and Legacy

After the war, Parsons kept her cryptographic work a secret, even from her husband, Donald C. Parsons, whom she married in 1944. The nature of her wartime work remained classified for decades, and it was not until 1970s declassification that she learned her efforts had been made public.

In 1997, while visiting the National Cryptologic Museum in Maryland, Parsons was astonished to learn that her work had been declassified. She later took on a role as an ambassador for the cryptography community, sharing her story with classrooms and through interviews. "It’s been good to break the silence," she said. "Good for me, and for history."

Parsons passed away at the age of 104, leaving behind a legacy as one of the unsung heroes of World War II. She is survived by her daughter Margaret Breines, her daughter Barbara Skelton, her son Bruce, eight grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren. Her husband passed away in 2006.