A Veterans Day Salute to Radio Eavesdroppers & Code Breakers

At age 97, Marjorie Stetson has never told anyone her secret code number — until now.

That's the identity code — 225 — that she typed on every page of her highly classified work for the Canadian Armed Forces during the Second World War.

The retired sergeant's wartime work was so covert, she said, she had to sign 15 separate copies of Canada's Official Secrets Act...

"She was on the front line of the radio war," said military historian David O'Keefe, who studies Second World War code breaking and signals intelligence...

Stetson used a radio receiver to intercept Japanese army and air force communications. She used a special typewriter to transcribe the Japanese codes she heard. Those number-filled documents were sent to code breakers in the U.S. and sometimes England, said O'Keefe — giving the Allies an intelligence edge in the Pacific region. more