Code to Victory : Coming of Age in World War II

Arnold Franco, a cryptanalyst during World War II, took a pledge of secrecy along with the other members of 3rd Radio Mobile Squadron (G), assigned to the 9th Air Force. Now, more than 50 years later, the government has declassified the documents pertaining to their work. The men of 3rd RSM acted as a "roving ear," listening to both the wireless and oral German radio transmissions. This "wireless" Intelligence, Diane Putney of the Office of Air Force History states, "has to this day remained hidden in the shadow of ULTRA high-grade signals Intelligence. . . ." Now the story is being told. Franco describes the war as a resolution of a giant drama: Layer upon layer of scenes unfold -- stories that fit together as strategies were planned, maneuvers executed, and alliances formed. Lives are changed because of brilliance, stupidity, absurdity, and luck. . . . I was experiencing all of it. Franco experienced "the smell of the grease, the roar of the bomb." Three weeks after D-Day, his Detachment landed at Normandy. I had my first view of the Daliesque beachhead in full sun. I was aghast. . . . Fear gnawed at our guts. We wondered what catastrophe had taken place, and into what we were heading. Life, for Franco, at this time "seemed to divide itself into two worlds -- war and wonder." My connection was inescapable. . . . As the war progressed, persecution of the Jews moved from theory to reality in my world. . . . What Franco saw was that Hitler was real. The Holocaust was real. His "coming of age" in World War II was complete. "Each day," he states, "I can more fully appreciate how fortunate I was to have not only survived the war, but survived intact."