Arlington Hall and the "Code Girls"
Staffed almost exclusively by women, Arlington Hall concentrated on deciphering Japanese communications
Arlington Hall was founded in 1927 as a private post-secondary women's educational institution.
Arlington Hall was founded in 1927 as a private post-secondary women's educational institution. On June 10, 1942, the United States Army took possession of the Arlington Hall Girls School under the War Powers Act. It became the Signals intelligence Service By World War II is occupied a 100-acre campus and had become the Arlington Hall Junior College for Women. The school suffered financial problems in the 1930s.
When the U.S. Army took possession of the facility under the War Powers Act for use by its Signals Intelligence Service. It became one of two cryptography operations sites in the Washington D.C. area.
Staffed almost exclusively by women, Arlington Hall concentrated on deciphering Japanese communications. Ultimately monitoring these communications provided information on strategy, troop movements, shipping itineraries, political alliances, battlefield casualties, pending attacks, and supply needs. The code breakers advanced what is known as signals intelligence—reading coded transmissions. They laid the groundwork for the field of cybersecurity, which entails protecting one’s data, networks, and communications against enemy attack. They pioneered work that would lead to the modern computing industry.
The women at Arlington Hall, including a unit of African American women, and those at the Navy facility in Northwest DC played a central role in shortening the war. Code breaking was crucial to Allied success in defeating Japan.
After World War II, Arlington Hall came under the aegis of the National Security Agency after this agency was created in 1952. From 1945 to 1977, Arlington Hall served as the headquarters of the United States Army Security Agency and, for a brief period in late 1948, the newly formed United States Air Force Security Service. A host of US military security services until 1989.
In 1989, the U.S. Department of Defense transferred the eastern portion of Arlington Hall to the Department of State. In October 1993, this portion of the site became the National Foreign Affairs Training Center when the State Department's Foreign Service Institute moved there. It is also home to the Army National Guard headquarters.
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