Mary H. Seale
Era: World War II
Military Branch: Navy
Mary H. Seale entered the Navy (WAVE) on March 3, 1943. Home at entry: Duluth, Minnesota.
She served as a Chief Petty Officer with the Sp Q Communication Intelligence Corp She shared the following: "I liked the service, I was in every state except Maine. Everything I did in the service of my country was very important to me but still under oath on many things."
She was honorably discharged on October 21, 1945.
Female Naval volunteers (Mary was a member) working at the National Cash Register Company during WWII didn't attach much notice as they marched from the Sugar Camp (Dayton, Ohio) educational facility to the company's Building 26.
Few would have guessed the WAVES and NCR were involved in a project so important and so secret that details of what went on in Building 26 remained classified until about 1984.
Between 1943 and 1945 the WAVES assembled about 200 sophisticated code breaking machines called bombes. The machines were based on similar machines devised in England, but NCR scientist Joseph R. Desch made significant improvements in the American version. The bombes, which were taken to Washington, D.C., made it possible to decode radio transmissions between German military authorities and U-boats attacking Allied ships in the North Atlantic.
In 1945, General Dwight D. Eisenhower said in a letter to the British military that information from intercepted German messages "saved thousands of British and American lives and, in no small way, contributed to the speed with the enemy was routed and eventually forced to surrender."
All the records from the period at NCR were burned and the participants sworn to secrecy. The role of the WAVES was to assemble the components of the machine, of which 200 were made. They were given soldering irons, and they attached the wires according to a color code. They had to be extremely accurate.
The WAVES didn't know what they were building but still were to keep quiet. "They were told they'd be shot at sunrise if they ever mentioned what they were doing," said Robert Mumma, who was Desch's assistant. "The Navy put the fear of God in those girls."
Source: Hometown Heroes: The Saint Louis County World War II Project, 286.
