Breaking the code: World War II vet visits cadets, explains enigma of OPSEC

  • Published
  • By Amber Baillie
  • Academy Public Affairs
U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. --  Barbara Saks celebrated her 96th birthday on Sept. 15 and that occasion, she said to cadets here, took her back in time to her 23rd birthday in 1940 -- the day of a historic, monumental battle known as the Battle of Britain.

The World War II code breaker and Colorado Springs resident visited cadets in Fairchild Hall Tuesday to share her experiences as a Women's Auxiliary Air Force intelligence officer.

Serving as a British fighter plane plotter, Saks responded to a countrywide SOS sent out during the attack by scrambling to direct pilots amidst the intense, large-scale air battle between the Germans and the British.

This is just one of many moments Saks played a crucial role in communication and information security during the war.

She described the process of military code breaking during that era to cadets with stories and photos.

World War II began for Britain Sept. 3 1939, after Germany invaded Poland. In April 1940, 22 year-old Saks, from London, joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force.

"It took an act of Parliament after the war to become the Women's Royal Air Force," Saks said. "Women were not allowed to hold flying rank. I became a section officer."

Saks reported to Lincolnshire training station where she worked in the operations room, plotting British fighter aircraft on a map table.

"On Sept. 15, Hitler had a plan called Operation Sea Lion to invade Britain," Saks said.

"He wanted to bomb the fighter stations and get rid of pilots and planes so he could invade. If Germany had invaded Britain there wouldn't have been a D-Day. It's a very important date."

Saks passed the officer selection board but wasn't going to accept a job unless it was in the intelligence field. At the time, intelligence positions weren't available to women. She waited three years until the opportunity came to her.

In 1943, Saks was at officer candidate school when Air Ministry and War Office leaders paid a visit seeking six officers for a special, hush-hush job they couldn't reveal details on.

"I was one of six chosen," she said. "Soon it dwindled down to two of us -- I and another female named Susan. We arrived at Bletchley Park (in Buckinghamshire, England) and had to sign a copy of the official secrets act and swear under oath that we would never reveal what we were doing there. The whole place was top secret."

As soon as leaders at Bletchley Park discovered Susan had a Hungarian fiancé, she was no longer a part of the job, Saks said.

"I never saw her again," she said. "Out of the six people who were originally chosen, I was the only one to actually work in a brick block (buildings inside the estate used to decrypt the German Enigma messages in World War II)."

Saks served in Hut 3, Block D where she translated groups of five numbers into English plain text.

"We were four WAAF officers working around the clock in a small room," Saks said.

"Speed was of the essence, and there was a little wooden hatch that would lift up every now and then with a message. We were on our honor not to stop and to put those letters into words so we could read the message. Someone waited outside our office to snatch the message that went directly to Winston Churchill (British Prime Minister at the time) and other leaders in the war."

Sak's role as a code breaker allowed Britain access to German secrets through Axis radio transmissions.

"Ten- to-12,000 people worked at Bletchley and no one broke the code of silence until 1974, when F. W. Winterbotham wrote "The Ultra Secret" providing details on the operation," Saks said.

At the end of the war operations in Europe, Sak's contingent of WAAF officers was declared redundant and she left Bletchley Park Brussels in October, 1945 to take an assignment helping compensate post-war survivors.

"The British and American governments set up headquarters in France, Belgium and Holland to try to repay them in those countries," she said.

While in Brussels Saks met an American, 1st Lt. Daniel Saks and the two were married on April 23, 1946. In May, she left the service and took a war-bride ship to America, arriving in New York City. During their 58 years of marriage, the couple had two children.

Following Daniel's death, Ms. Saks moved to Colorado in 2006.

Dr. Barry Fagin, a Computer Science Department professor, said one reason he loves teaching here is the opportunity to bring in people such as Saks to speak to cadets.

"How many professors who teach cryptography can bring someone who actually worked at Bletchley Park to their class?" he said. "Her story combines mathematics, computing, history, military studies. A speaker like Ms. Saks really makes things come alive in a way nothing else can."

It's important for cadets to get a sense of history, and to understand the importance of the role of the human element in information security, Fagin said.

"Although technology has changed, the fundamental principles of code making, code breaking, and information security have not, and it's important for cadets to see that," he said. "That way, when they become officers and are placed in positions of responsibility for cyber operations and information security, they won't focus purely on the mathematical and technical side -- they'll also understand the human element and the historical forces at work."

In 2011, Barbara Saks was presented the Defense Medal and the War Medal by the Royal Air Force.