WW II Codes and Ciphers
The mission of this site is to tell the story of hundreds of people who worked at the United States Naval Computing Machine Laboratory, a top secret project in Dayton during World War Two. These people kept their secret for over fifty years. They produced machines which were crucial to the war effort and helped to save the lives of tens of thousands of troops, on land and sea, around the world.
Please take a look–there are hundreds of pages of declassified documents, rosters of personnel, photographs and more. (An easy way to check this out is to visit the Sitemap page.) I have added a new bibliography page brought up to date to include burgeoning information about cryptography on the web.
This site originates with and is maintained by Debbie Anderson in Dayton, Ohio. My father was Joseph Desch, Research Director for the NCML. This site is an outgrowth of my own efforts to learn more about the story behind my father’s secret work and a desire to share what I have learned. It also is a resource for the facts behind the documentary Dayton Codebreakers .
WW II Codes and Ciphers