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Have you ever heard of the Bletchley Park codebreakers?

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The strain of secrecy puts a lot of pressure on the workers at Bletchley Park. What is the impact of lying to friends and loved ones about work, keeping quiet? As military personnel as well as spouses, we also know of this impact at times. How do you handle this strain?

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One of the major themes in this book is the price we must pay in order to keep secrets. How did the characters’ commitment to their secrets damage their relationships during the war? Think about Osla and Philip, Mab and family, Beth and her parents, and ultimately, the relationship the women share.

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The Road to Station X: From Debutante Ball to Fighter-P…

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Read 136 reviews from the world’s largest community for readers. In 1938, Sarah Baring was enjoying life as a young debutante. Only a few years later, at t…

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Read 7 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. The Man Who Broke Enigmas

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How do you think you would function under such pressure? Do you think you could keep such a secret, not just during the war but for the rest of your life?

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Goodreads

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Goodreads

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Discuss how WWII, despite being an awful and traumatic event, provided opportunities for women like Osla, Mab, and Beth. What do you think their lives would have been like if they hadn’t been at Bletchley?

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Goodreads

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What did you think of Mab’s relationship with Francis? How was he affected by the Great War (aka WWI)? How did his experiences affect their marriage? How has our understanding of PTSD evolved since then?

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The Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS)

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The Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS)

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Goodreads

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Osla, Mab,Beth…to which of the three main characters do you relate the most and why?

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Bletchley Park takes a closer look at how it works

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The Enigma Machine - Bletchley Park takes a closer look at how it works

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Goodreads

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Fun-loving Osla struggles continually to do something important with her life and skills, but is dismissed over and over again as just a silly girl. How have such stereotypes changed for modern women? How have they remained the same?

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Real life stories from the Veterans of Bletchley Park

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Codebreakers | Recruitment - Real life stories from the Veterans of Bletchley Park

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Self-made Mab sees a gentlemanly husband as her ticket out of East End poverty—not just for herself, but for Lucy. How do her goals shift over time, and why?

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Bletchley Park activities revealed in unique footage 

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WW2 Codebreakers: Bletchley Park activities revealed in unique footage - The Hidden Film

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Shy Beth flowers from a bullied spinster to a star cryptanalyst. How did your opinion of her change throughout the book?

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Breaking the German Enigma Code | WW2: I Was There

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Breaking the German Enigma Code | WW2: I Was There

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Breaking the German Enigma Code | WW2: I Was There

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Discuss Beth’s relationship with Harry, and their eventual unconventional romance. What did you think of the sacrifices they made to be together?

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Alan Turing - Celebrating the life of a genius

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Alan Turing - Celebrating the life of a genius

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Alan Turing - Celebrating the life of a genius

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Osla’s romance with Prince Philip is doomed to failure, given his ultimate fate as consort to the future Queen Elizabeth II. Did you root for them anyway? What about the other couples—Mab and Francis, Beth and Harry?

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#BornOnThisDay in 1884 Dilly Knox one of the Room 40 Codebreakers. 

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#BornOnThisDay in 1884 Dilly Knox one of the Room 40 Codebreakers. 

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#BornOnThisDay in 1884 Dilly Knox one of the Room 40 Codebreakers. View him on our Roll of Honour here:  https://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/roll-of-honour/5284 | By Bletchley Park | Facebook

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#BornOnThisDay in 1884 Dilly Knox one of the Room 40 Codebreakers. View him on our Roll of Honour here:  https://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/roll-of-honour/5284

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Bletchley Park Code Breaker Novel ‘The Rose Code’ By Kate Quinn Being Adapted For TV By Black Bear Pictures

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EXCLUSIVE: Black Bear Pictures, the team behind Benedict Cumberbatch feature film The Imitation Game, is heading back to Bletchley Park – this time for the small screen. The company’s television di…

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Goodreads

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Books and literary discussions provide a welcome distraction for Mab, Osla, Beth, and the rest of the Mad Hatters throughout the war. How do book clubs and a love for reading remain important in troubled times? Think about our own book club!

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'Men Were The Bosses In Those Days'.. But 80% Of Britain's WWII Codebreakers Were Female

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Bletchley Park: Meet 'Dilly's Girls', The WWII Women Codebreakers Who Cracked Enigma"

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Bletchley Park: Meet 'Dilly's Girls', The WWII Women Codebreakers Who Cracked Enigma"

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As crowds filled Britain's streets to celebrate the end of the Second World War, there was one part of the victory story that couldn't yet be told.

The efforts of thousands of codebreakers, working in secrecy in basic huts at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, are thought to have shortened the war by at least two years, saving millions of lives.

Bletchley's most famous figures such as Alan Turing - played by Benedict Cumberbatch in the Oscar-nominated film The Imitation Game - were male, but in reality Bletchley was a woman's world: eighty per cent of the 9,000 staff were female.

Bletchley's top secret operation was mainly staffed by women

Bletchley was the headquarters of the Government Code and Cypher School, where cryptanalysts mined data and unlocked enemy communications - most importantly those encrypted with the Enigma cypher, which were vital to tricking the Germans about the location of the D-Day landings.

Many women were pivotal to the operation, but few were formally recognised as codebreakers working at the same level as their male peers.

Leading male codebreaker Dillwyn "Dilly" Knox was an eccentric classics scholar - an expert in ancient Papyrus. He specifically requested an all-female team to work with, who were nicknamed "Dilly's fillies" or "Dilly's girls".

Jean Pitt-Lewis, a 90-year-old who became part of Dilly's team as a teenager, believes being an all-women troop was key to their success.

"You don't get the same sort of distractions if you don't have men, I think," she tells me at the launch of 'The Debs Of Bletchley Park', a book by Michael Smith about the female codebreakers. "I say this because when my husband set up a business, much later in life, he always insisted that he only employed girls, because he said there were too many distractions [with men]."

The fact that men were in charge of the overwhelmingly female staff at Bletchley didn't bother her. "It was natural in those days that the men were the bosses," she says, "much more so than today."

Jean Pitt-Lewis at an 'unprecedented' reunion of women at Bletchley Park this week

Jean Pitt-Lewis (right) in 1945

Like the other young women, Pitt Lewis arrived at Bletchley with little knowledge of what she would be doing. At the site - a Victorian mansion surrounded by plainer buildings - she was immediately made to sign the Official Secrets Act, swearing not tell a soul about about what happened at Bletchley for 30 years.

This included family, boyfriends and even the other girls - many didn't know what women yards away from them were doing.

Secrecy dictated their lives. One girl revealed the truth to an American GI at a dance. He dutifully informed her superiors of her indiscretion, and the other women never saw her again.

Many were reassigned from the military or civil service, had secretarial training, or came straight from school - few went to university in those days.

Pitt-Lewis had an interview with Knox to become one of his "girls" at just 17. "It was a bit of a farce", she recalls. She had just finished school but had been rejected the Women's Royal Naval Service, the Wrens, because she was too young.

"I always thought that if I had joined the Wrens, I would have ended up at Bletchley anyway, doing something far less interesting than I was," she smiles.

"In the interview, Dilly asked me if I knew any German. I said no. That was about it." She was in. Knox did warn her that some of the Bletchley girls were fairly radical. One was "a very nice person, but a bit odd," he cautioned. "She wears trousers and a bow tie, and she smokes a pipe".

The Mansion building, where some women worked - mainly in the former servants quarters

Women were expected to look 'like women' in those days, Pitt-Lewis explains: "I had a tremendous argument with my father while I was working at Bletchley. I was planning to go to nearby Aylesbury to buy myself a pair of trousers. He said, 'You're not going to do anything of the sort.' He was absolutely horrified at the idea."

The teenage Pitt-Lewis claimed she needed trousers because it got chilly on night shifts at Bletchley ("I didn't actually do night shifts that often but it was a good story," she admits mischievously).

"I said 'It's my money and I'm going to buy them.' I was being thoroughly bolshy. He'd be horrified if he thought I wore trousers practically all the time these days. But it was a different age then."

On shifts as a codebreaker, Pitt-Lewis tried to decode messages as they came in, using Dilly's system of "rodding": turning rods marked with letters to try and work out the rules used to scramble the messages.

"We had this little pile of what we called sticks," Pitt-Lewis says. "They were sort of rods with the alphabet on them. We worked in three colours because there were three wheels that we moved. Everybody just grabbed a pile, either red, blue or green. It was a certain amount of chance as to whether we actually managed to decipher it.

"I think we were pretty good - there weren't many days when we missed out. Dilly had worked out this amazing system but initially it was very much trial and error."

The bombe, a machine that used rotors to help decipher Enigma-encrypted messages

Work was never discussed when the women were off duty. "We didn't even chat about it amongst ourselves," says Pitt-Lewis. "We just never thought about it. We'd signed the Official Secrets Act and that was that. It meant a great deal in those days I think, a bit more than it does these days. People seem to not care quite so much about keeping secrets.

"I think the security was absolutely complete, which is amazing when you consider the number of people who were here."

Bletchley women were billeted among local families, or slept in double bunks in the huts in the park's grounds.

Bletchley veteran Betty Webb, now 92, recalls the "primeval" conditions. "There should have been about 18 people to a hut, but there were often a great many more. The camp was literally thrown up and it was jolly cold in the winter and jolly hot in the summer."

Betty Webb joined Bletchley as a young woman from the Auxiliary Territorial Service

Betty Webb this week at Bletchley

"The heating was from these awful stoves, half the time we didn't bother to light them because they belched smoke in every direction. They were really quite dangerous. We did have baths but you had to queue and sit on the floor, and we only had four inches of water."

Webb agrees that it became second nature to never speak about their work: "We knew that we just didn't talk about anything. Sometimes, when I was billeted, my landlady would ask what I had been doing that day, and I'd just say 'Oh, a rather boring secretarial job, end of story,' and talk about something else."

When I meet Webb and Pitt-Lewis, gathered other veterans, each woman proudly wears a gold and blue broach - not a medal - which they were awarded for their work only in 2009.

Webb thinks women's contribution to the crucial intelligence operation still hasn't been properly recognised. "I don't think people realise it at all. It's difficult to tell why.

"I suppose - in some theatres of life - women are thought to be incapable, which is rubbish. I mean, you can have a woman dentist and a doctor and whatever now. But I think women are still a little bit diffident about coming forward. They are different animals."

Jean Pitt-Lewis and Betty Webb (second and third from left) with fellow Bletchley veterans Marion Body, Marigold Freeman-Attwood, Margaret Mortimer and Jean Tocher

Webb is grateful for the profile of women such as Mavis Batey, a star Bletchley codebreaker who was so adept at reading messages that she worked out that two Germans shared one girlfriend called Rosa.

"She had the guts, if you like, to say I'm going to have a go at this, and she made it. But she was very unusual."

Their clandestine existence gave the women a sense of camaraderie, she adds, "because we were all here, because there was a war on and we were all fighting to one end."

Working at Bletchley was a well-paid job: and the staff didn't need to pay for food, accommodation or uniforms. "We were quite well off," says Webb.

Some enjoyed choirs, plays and other clubs in their time off, and others made the short trip to London to see boyfriends.

They were also promoted often. Webb says: "I think it was meant to keep our pay in line with the civil servants. I was promoted up to staff sergeant by the time I left, so I was paid accordingly."

Webb was seconded to Bletchley as a member of the Auxiliary Territorial Service. She was not a codebreaker, but her job was crucial.

She worked to register messages as they were received from the German police forces - some of the first intelligence that revealed the massacres of Jews on the Eastern front, which we now understand as the Holocaust.

Working on Colossus, the world's first digital computer that was programmable

But she had no idea that she handled that information until 30 years later, when the Bletchley story could be made public. "I wasn't aware of it at the time. The only people who would have done would be a handful of very senior people such as Dilly Knox, and Turing of course. To me, the messages would have looked like any others. There would be no indication at that stage as to the content."

When I ask her what it means to know she helped the Allies discover the historic atrocities, she looks embarrassed: "Well... obviously it's very gratifying."

Webb was one of few women who continued working long after the Bletchley Park days. She was unusual.

"Most women just wanted to marry and have children. Nowadays far more women put it off for much longer, and then they try and balance a job with a baby which must be very difficult."

She went into the army, serving until 1969. "In the main I was a permanent staff officer to the territorial army units, but I finished up being the recruiting officer for the whole of the West Midlands - it was a big job, that was, I had twelve sergeants to help me."

Why did she feel the pull to keep working? "I don't know, I didn't find the right man I suppose." She did later marry, although her husband sadly died eight years later.

Betty continued working until 1969 - unlike many other Bletchley girls

Like many others, Pitt-Lewis stopped working four years after the war, in 1949, to become a mother and wife. "The husband was supposed to support the wife a little bit in those days," she laughs, "but, my husband set up a small printing business and I did join him in that eventually."

Didn't she miss the excitement of the war? "I don't think so. I mean, I'd had a very fascinating life. After the war I went out to Ceylon [now Sri Lanka] and India, and met my husband out there. I've had a very lucky life."

After 1975, the veil finally lifted and the women were finally allowed to speak about the experience and their contribution to the war.

"My mother rang me in an ecstatic phone call the next day," says Pitt-Lewis. "[Journalist] Ludevic Kennedy was interviewing [F.W.] Winterbottom who wrote the first book about us.

"My mother said she didn't normally listen to the programme on the television, but she was too lazy to get up and turn it off. 'At last I know what you were doing!' she cried. It must have nearly killed her not knowing I think, because she did like to know what was going on."

Now the secret is out, Webb is one of the most vocal of Bletchley's surviving women, speaking often to events and media. It's important, she thinks.

"I've done over 100 talks about Bletchley," she smiles proudly. "Because we need to keep this atmosphere alive, and so I speak to as many people as I can and impress upon them the importance in coming to Bletchley. I'm not sure how many do, but I know that when they do, it's partially the result of me giving them a little push".

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'Men Were The Bosses In Those Days'.. But 80% Of Britain's WWII Codebreakers Were Female

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'Men Were The Bosses In Those Days'.. But 80% Of Britain's WWII Codebreakers Were Female

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The Duchess of Cambridge visits Bletchley Park (2014)

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The Duchess of Cambridge visits Bletchley Park (2014)

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The Duchess of Cambridge visits Bletchley Park

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Goodreads

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Dilly Knox, Alan Turing, Margaret Rock, Valerie Glassborow—Bletchley Park was stocked with many eccentric and interesting real-life figures from history. Which was your favorite and why?

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The Women's Royal Naval Service Benevolent Trust celebrated its 70th Anniversary in 2012 and marked this milestone by publishing a commemorative book "70 Years of Trust".

The book was launched at the Trust's Annual General Meeting in the presence of its Patron, HRH The Princess Royal at the Mansion House in London.

"70 Years of Trust" looks back at the charity's history and its work over the last 7 decades. It contains dozens of rare photographs of former Wrens at work and at play donated by its 50,000 current members.

HRH The Princess Royal has written the foreword to the book writing about the success and achievements of the Trust.

Money raised by the book will enable the Trust to continue helping those in need, promote awareness of the charity to the many former Wrens who don't know that there is assistance available and be a fitting record of its work over the past 70 years.

The Trust received over 2,000 photographs, documents, poems and other contributions from members to support this project. They have all been passed onto the National Museum of the Royal Navy for the WRNS archive. 460 former Wrens kindly agreed to help with the printing costs by offering to be sponsors in return for having their name and service details entered in a special section of the book. The Trust is most grateful for their support.

We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking "Accept All", you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.

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The Women's Royal Naval Service Benevolent Trust celebrated its 70th Anniversary in 2012 and marked this milestone by publishing a commemorative book "70 Years of Trust". The book was launched at the Trust's Annual General Meeting in the presence of its Patron, HRH The Princess Royal at the Mansion House in London.

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Goodreads

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Goodreads

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Goodreads

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USO Indo-Pacific and USO Europe | Middle East | Africa will host our monthly Overseas Virtual Book Club! discussing "The Rose Code," by Kate Quinn on September 14th at 2000 JST on Zoom.

Stay up to date with the Overseas Virtual Book Club by joining our Facebook Group: USO Overseas Virtual Book Club

Register here: https://register.uso.org/en/4111BMB7/virtual-book-club-the-rose-code-by-kate-quinn-september-14-2023-5a3I8X33UXd/overview

#usoovbc #usoreading #bookclub

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Since we're spread out across the world, please share your location (without sharing your exact address) on the padlet map! ** Feel free to share a quick bio in the thread, and/or directly on the padlet map (link below). -- What's your name? How do you identify (pronouns)? Where do you live?

USO OVBC Intros

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Beth makes the decision not to warn Mab and Osla about the coming air raid on Coventry. Was she right to uphold her oath, or should she have found a way to warn her friends? Could you have forgiven her if you experienced what Mab and Osla did?

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Hitler’s war against Boy Scouts fueled the Third Reich’s ideology—and its military might.

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How the Hitler Youth Turned a Generation of Kids Into Nazis

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How the Hitler Youth Turned a Generation of Kids Into Nazis

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https://www.history.com/news/how-the-hitler-youth-turned-a-generation-of-kids-into-nazis

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Enigma (2001): Official Trailer (Dougray Scott, Kate Winslet)

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Enigma (2001): Official Trailer (Dougray Scott, Kate Winslet)

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Enigma OFFICAL TRAILER (Dougray Scott, Kate Winslet)

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The Imitation Game (2014): Official Trailer (Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley)

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The Imitation Game (2014): Official Trailer (Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley)

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The Imitation Game Official Trailer #1 (2014) - Benedict Cumberbatch Movie HD

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https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/the-forgotten-lobotomies-on-world-war-ii-vets

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The traitor argues that giving information to the Russians was an act of patriotism, not treachery, because the Russians were Britain’s allies during World War II, the prime minister wasn’t sharing enough information with them, and passing intelligence saved Allied lives and ultimately helped defeat Hitler. Do you agree or disagree?

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Tif Marcelo believes and writes about the strength of families, the endurance of friendship, heartfelt romances, and is inspired daily by her own military hero husband and four children. She hosts The Stories to Love Podcast, and a USA Today bestselling author fiction for adults and young adults.

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Tif Marcelo believes and writes about the strength of families, the endurance of friendship, heartfelt romances, and is inspired daily by her own military hero husband and four children. She hosts The Stories to Love Podcast, and a USA Today bestselling author fiction for adults and young adults.

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I wasn't able to put this book down and read it within a day. With a flare for storytelling in a way that takes you right back to the time, Acasia Olson truthfully and eloquently tackles matters like racism, inter-generational trauma and assault; both within and outside the family. This book is full of emotion, and Jo's story leaves you knowing that it is never too late to take back your power.

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Read 3 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Acasia Olson's The Book of Jo is the story of transgenerational trauma and the journey towar...

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https://www.katequinnauthor.com/books/the-rose-code/

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https://www.katequinnauthor.com/about/

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Book Trailer for THE ROSE CODE by Kate Quinn

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The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco (2018)

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The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco (2018)

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A World War II Nurse's VA Lobotomy Takes Toll on Family She Raised

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A World War II Nurse's VA Lobotomy Takes Toll on Family She Raised

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SUNLAND, Calif.-When Paul Ludden visits his mother in the nursing home, he sits on her bed and sings with her. Dorothy, 94 years old, remembers words to 1940s ditties. But she struggles to find memories of her days as a Navy nurse during World War II.

When she grows quiet, Paul strokes her gray head, passing fingers over divots in her skull-tangible reminders that the war left his mother with profound mental illness and that government doctors treated her by cutting into her brain and giving her a lobotomy.

This is the woman who raised Paul and his two brothers, patching their scrapes, cooking their dinners and seeing them through to adulthood. But she is also a mother who could be childlike and emotionally distant, prone to humiliating public displays of hostility, and who once chased a friend out of the house with a butter knife.

Dorothy is one of the last survivors among roughly 2,000 psychiatrically ill veterans the Veterans Administration lobotomized in the 1940s and 1950s. The Wall Street Journal in 2013 first detailed the VA lobotomy program and profiled the troubled life of World War II pilot Roman Tritz, 91, the only living lobotomized veteran the newspaper could locate at the time.

Lawmakers then asked the VA to find other surviving lobotomized veterans. VA headquarters, which says its files on such old cases are archived and difficult to access, hadn't found any other survivors when Dorothy's family contacted the Journal.

Following the war's end in 1945, hundreds of thousands of veterans swamped VA hospitals with psychological wounds ranging from what is now called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to schizophrenia. VA mental wards were crowded with veterans, sometimes violent and out of touch with reality. But psychiatrists had few tools to treat them. Lobotomies, in which doctors sliced brain fibers thought to transmit excessive emotions, seemed a promising surgical solution to the VA.

Doctors knew and relatives discovered, however, that lobotomies often erased personalities and left patients unable to care for themselves. Some like Dorothy were able go through the motions of normal life, but their marred minds exacted a painful toll on them and their families for decades.

After the Journal's first article ran in 2013, Mr. Tritz emerged somewhat from decades of self-isolation. Readers contributed hundreds of dollars to pay his meal tab at the restaurant where he has eaten twice daily for decades.

Once worried about FBI taps, he agreed to get a telephone. He received Christmas cards from strangers who now knew of his 34 combat missions and the lobotomy that followed. He also recently allowed a government surgeon to perform a needed gastrointestinal procedure, despite his lingering mistrust of VA doctors.

Dorothy Dieffenwierth, as she was known before marrying, grew up in Florida, enrolled in nursing school and enlisted in 1943 at age 22. Men wounded in the Pacific filled beds in hospitals where she worked in the Northwest. She told her family how she tucked sheets into perfect corners and prepared gauze packets for the doctors.

Early on, commanders reported she was an "average nurse" with a "pleasant personality," her military records show. Later reports hinted at a descending darkness. "Somewhat emotional and has a variable temperament," her commander at the Naval hospital in Astoria, Ore., wrote in 1945.

Dorothy told doctors she suffered a nervous breakdown at a Naval hospital near Seattle, her recent VA records show. Her family says it isn't known whether her wartime experience sparked mental illness, aggravated it or coincided with its onset. "Oh, those poor boys," was about all she would say of the war, says Paul, 58, the first of her three sons.

Dorothy was released from active duty in 1946. The next year, she was sent for three months of treatment at the Madison Rural Sanitarium, a Seventh-day Adventist facility in Tennessee, where staff stressed fresh foods, particularly soybeans. A few weeks after she was released, her family committed her to the VA hospital in Tuscaloosa, Ala. The VA says it can't locate Dorothy's medical records from those days.

VA doctors there variously diagnosed her with psychosis and schizophrenia, ruling her illness connected to her military service, her current VA record shows. A doctor sent a form letter to her father, Rev. Daniell Dieffenwierth, seeking permission to treat her with electroconvulsive therapy. "This treatment is not entirely without risk," the letter warned.

Shock therapy was one of the few treatments psychiatrists had available in the late 1940s. Antipsychotic drugs weren't on the market until the mid-1950s. VA doctors were instructed to exhaust other options before resorting to lobotomies, agency documents show.

Rev. Dieffenwierth grew worried as his daughter's stay lengthened into years. He peppered the hospital chaplain with letters; the responses were only somewhat reassuring.

"Dear Brother Dieffenwierth," the chaplain, Harvey C. Porter, began his letters. "Dorothy was in my Sunday School Class yesterday and I am pleased to tell you she looked especially well," Chaplain Porter wrote soon after her arrival at the hospital. "She has a splendid voice and everyone enjoys hearing her sing."

Within months she appeared more fragile. "She always agrees to sing for us when we ask her, but she does not always feel like doing it," Chaplain Porter wrote.

Judging from Dorothy's current record, doctors lobotomized her in the late 1940s, the heyday of the lobotomy program at Tuscaloosa and some 50 other veterans hospitals around the country.

In the operation, a surgeon cut holes on both sides of her head and inserted an edged or rotating tool to sever neural fibers connecting the frontal lobe to the rest of the brain. The doctor then repositioned bone in the openings.

The VA's lobotomy use is best viewed in the context of postwar psychiatry's limits, says an agency spokeswoman. "The procedure became available to severely ill patients who had not improved with other treatments," she says. "Within a few years, as safer and more effective treatments were developed, the procedure disappeared within VA and across the United States." She says privacy concerns and missing records limit her ability to discuss Dorothy's case.

In 1950, a social worker reported to Dorothy's father that she "has continued to improve." The bar was low: "We are very happy that she is able to begin writing letters at this stage of her adjustment period," the social worker wrote. "She has cooperated with the ward personnel, has been obedient, easily directed."

In 1951, doctors released her from the hospital. Tuscaloosa VA social workers had written a guide for lobotomized veterans' relatives. It would have warned that Dorothy was coming home more child than adult. "We cannot say he will be completely well," the guide said. "Only time can tell you that."

The Navy Reserve declared Dorothy unfit for duty and, three weeks after her release from the veterans' hospital, gave her an honorable discharge. She studied vocal music at a junior college and tried, but failed, to complete an undergraduate music degree. She spent the summer of 1955 in New York City, singing in a chorus.

There, she met Bob Ludden. Bob grew up in Minnesota, where he once was a psychiatric-ward attendant. Among his jobs was strapping down patients before electroconvulsive therapy. He remembers being fascinated by the procedure and upset by how the electricity sent the patients into spasms.

A music student, he was shy around women. He was struck by Dorothy's beauty-her face was framed in dark curls-and admired her lyric soprano. He was surprised one so lovely would date him.

When Dorothy mentioned her lobotomy, he tried not to think about the implications, although "I knew she'd been in and out of mental institutions," says Bob, 85. "I so wanted the relationship to work out that I buried it in my mind."

With summer's end in sight, Bob felt pressured to move. Less than a month after they met, they married. They spent their honeymoon at Niagara Falls, accompanied by Dorothy's father, who died two years later, and her stepmother.

Dorothy's father and brothers told him she had had a rough time during the war. He got the impression the lobotomy was the doctors' way of helping her forget.

"You could go a long way with beauty, charm and a lovely voice," says Paul. "And that was my mother."

The couple lived most of their adult lives in Dixon, Ill., Bob repairing pipe organs and Dorothy keeping house. Adept at the mechanics of motherhood, she was also childlike and volatile, her family says. The boys never knew if she was going to blow up in public. She once doused Bob with a glass of water during a spat at a restaurant, he says, and occasionally threatened to kill him.

"Since I had nothing to compare it to growing up, I just thought this was the norm for everybody," says Bruce Ludden, 56, their second son. "I didn't realize I was the kid with the sick mom, and everyone else has a normal mom."

As Bruce grew older, his friends noted his mother's odd behavior. She chased one friend from the house while brandishing a butter knife. Dorothy sometimes seemed to believe she was an aristocrat with a maid named Hephzibah-a figure in the Bible-whom she would ask to fetch tea and perform other chores.

Bruce and Paul don't recall when they learned of the lobotomy. Terms like "schizophrenia" and "lobotomy" crept into family conversations, they say, as their embarrassment grew over her behavior. Bob says he retreated from his family to avoid chaos she created.

But Dorothy also patched scraped knees and cooked. "Fixing booboos and making dinner-that's pretty monumental considering what they did to her," Bruce says. "I didn't have a sane mom, but I had one who was adequate to get me through life, and for that I'm grateful."

At no point, according to the family and medical records, did Dorothy seek further psychiatric treatment. "She was sweet and tender, but there wasn't depth," says Paul. "It's like there's an emotional disconnect."

When the youngest Ludden brother committed suicide in 1996 at age 35, Bruce was struck by her seeming detachment. She quickly resumed her household routines, he says. Her displays of grief appeared veneer-thin, "not something coming out of the very, very, very deepest part of her heart."

The couple moved to Southern California five years ago to be closer to Paul, who lives in Chatsworth and has put aside his musical teaching and conducting career to care for his parents.

In October, a vessel burst in Dorothy's brain, flooding her skull with blood. Such subdural hematomas are common when brain matter atrophies, as often happens with the elderly. Scientists haven't done enough research on the long-term effects of a lobotomy to know whether it can provoke such bleeding. "My hunch is it's possible that the fact that she had a lobotomy may have slightly increased her risk for subdural hematoma," says Dr. David Sultzer, a VA psychiatrist who has examined Dorothy's records. "How much it increased her risk is unknown."

She has moved from the house she shared with Bob to a nursing home in Sunland. Gangrene, linked to deep-vein thrombosis, is attacking one leg. Bob is now her legal guardian.

Her memories are mostly gone, as are her words to describe those that remain. She can't remember the wounded men she treated, although she recalls her smart white nurse's uniform.

She has one memory of Tuscaloosa: "They put me under and doctors gave me an operation." She can't recall why, and the missing thought frustrates her. Her face screws up as she tries to grasp it. "Dear, dear, dear, dear," she says.

Paul visits her frequently. He stands by her wheelchair, and she leans her head against him. "Lord Jesus," he says, "bless my mom. Give her peace in her life and in her mind."

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A World War II Nurse's VA Lobotomy Takes Toll on Family She Raised

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Navy nurse Dorothy Ludden, one of the last survivors among roughly 2,000 psychiatrically ill veterans the Veterans Administration lobotomized in the 1940s and 1950s, raised a family despite her marred mind. The Wall Street Journal in 2013 first detailed the VA lobotomy program.

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The codebreaking process had many stages, from cryptanalysis (Beth’s job) to machine decoding (Mab’s job), to translation (Osla’s job), not to mention registration, filing, and analysis. Do you think you could have been a codebreaker? What job do you think you would have been given, if recruited to Bletchley Park?

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The lake in the middle of Bletchley park. It is mentioned in the book quite a bit.

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Building 3