Contact information

Questions? Suggestions? Praise or Complaints? Report a broken link or a misspelling?

Updated August 2021:

The coordinator of this web site is Deborah (Debbie) Anderson, daughter of Joseph Desch,  Research Director for the U.S.N.C.M.L. I am in Dayton, Ohio, and work on this site as a way to share the information I’ve amassed with the public. I can be reached by email at this link. Please add a specific subject line, to make it distinguishable from spam.

The sources of the material on this site are varied, as you’d expect in a site this large:
1) Introductions to each section, and sometimes to individual pages, are written by me. Use by permission.
2) Most documents are from the National Archives (NARA2, College Park, Maryland) and are in public domain (no permission needed).
3) Articles from the NSA are also in the public domain.
4) Specific items, such as the WAVES ID badges, are used by permission of Dayton History. You should always write to ask before using.
5) Some few items, such as the page “Build a Bombe” are from published sources and are acknowledged as such.

I am not accepting speaking engagements as I have for more than 30 years. This web site and the documentary Dayton Codebreakers contain most of the material I use.

For information about Dayton Codebreakers, the documentary produced by Aileen LeBlanc and Debbie Anderson, contact Aileen Leblanc at aileenleblanc@hotmail.com.

Much of the information and many of the photos used in this web site are from the Archive Center at Dayton History. Information about Dayton History can be found by visiting their web site of www.daytonhistory.org/.

The repository of the best primary source information about the USNCML remains the National Archives and Record Administration 2 in College Park, Maryland.

In April, 2004 The Secret in Building 26 written by Colin Burke and Jim DeBrosse was published. This book was the product of years of research by Burke, and material gathered by DeBrosse when writing the Dayton Daily News series. That book remains the sole and best narrative of the cryptographic work in Dayton in WW2.

Comments are closed.

  • You Are Here

    Contact information > And more … > Home

  • Sources

    This site has material from many sources. Some are use by permission. Before using, ASK. More specific information here.

  • Inside You’ll Find…

    WHO worked during the war? Find the Personnel section. Also, Joseph R. Desch
    WHAT were their goals? By the Numbers. Also, The US Bombe
    WHY? History of the Bombe Project A contemporary account of the reasons and the plans for their project for the Director of Naval Communications, 1944.
    WHERE was the project: In Dayton, it was in Building 26. In Washington, it was housed at the Naval Communications Annex

    • Stray Thoughts in the Information Age

      General George S. Patton, the legendary commander of World War II, became an astute consumer of communications intelligence (COMINT); he learned its worth in the drive across Western Europe after D-Day and used it well. For example, in mid-August 1944, while Patton’s Third Army was located near the French city of Le Mans, the general and about 40 of his officers attended daily intelligence briefings. Here they would hear regular briefings by the G-2 (Intelligence) and G-3 (Operations), situation reports, and a news report from radio broadcasts. Following each meeting, all but seven officers were dismissed, and the rest stayed for a briefing on the enemy situation as seen in COMINT. This source proved valuable for the Third Army: ULTRA (the codeword assigned to COMINT derived from decryption of high-level German ciphers) material alone predicted a drive by five German Panzer divisions against the Third Army at Avaranches. In another instance, when Third Army headquarters moved near Chalons, an ULTRA message arrived at 0100 hours showing the German order for an attack at 0300. Patton had described the U.S. troops in the attack areas as spread out as “thin as the skin on an egg.” He found means to alert the defending divisions without jeopardizing the security of ULTRA, and the German attack was repulsed.

      One member of Patton’s staff wrote about the value of ULTRA to Patton’s army stating that, “An army has never moved as fast and as far as the Third Army in its drive across France, and ULTRA was invaluable every mile of the way.”

      NSA, Center for Cryptologic History, from 50th Anniversary Brochure, p. 10. URL frequently change but currently this can be found at nsa.gov > History > Cryptologic History > Publications > NSA/CSS. /p>

    This page last updated Last updated: October 9, 2021 at 9:37 am

    © Deborah Anderson. Use of materials by permission. Materials other than those clearly marked as National Archives materials are not in the public domain. More information here. Simple Privacy Policy is here

    HIT A DEAD END?

    I ask that visitors be patient when links or pages disappear or become mangled in the vagaries of PHP and generated code. Frequent additions and updates make for human error — please report any broken links or other problems to Debbie Anderson, site manager–your help is appreciated.

    E-mails are still appreciated, and I will try to respond promptly. Your messages are what make this job worthwhile.