Remember the Women!

[htmagic]

This was a phrase from one of the older forums. It was good advice then and it still is now!
Please refrain from ramblings on this thread but to remember and honor the women who might have been involved in William Stephenson's group, the war effort (WWII), or may have been involved with Thomas Townsend Brown or one of the companies he was involved with.

[htmagic]

OK, here is one woman to start with. She probably was not directly involved with William Stephenson or Dr. Brown but was instrumental during the war (WWII) effort.

First UT Female Graduate in Statistics Shares Manhattan Project Experiences



KNOXVILLE — The first woman to graduate with a statistics degree from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, will be speaking at this year’s Secret City Festival June 19 in Oak Ridge.

Jane Greer Puckett could not get into the UT’s engineering program because of her gender so she enrolled in the College of Business Administration and studied statistics, along with mathematics and physics. She graduated in August 1943 and went on to play an integral role in the advance of nuclear science.

Puckett was what some call a “calutron girl.” Calutron girls were the women involved in the early days of the electromagnetic separation of uranium 235 at Y-12 during the Manhattan Project.

It may be argued that Puckett was the calutron girl. She set up the process and taught the other calutron girls how to take statistical data on the calutrons.

After graduation, Puckett was employed as a statistician by Tennessee Eastman Corp. in Oak Ridge. She was immediately assigned to the Y-12 Electromagnetic Separation Plant’s Building 9731. The building was the “pilot building” and was used for training and testing operations for obtaining Uranium 235 by the electromagnetic process.

Puckett said she counts this period of time working in Y-12’s Building 9731 as among the most important contributions she has made in her lifetime.

Puckett will share her experiences with the public on June 19 as she serves as the hostess for tours of Building 9731. One particular memory she will speak of includes learning the mysterious man watching her take data on the calutrons was Gen. Leslie Groves, the leader in charge of the Manhattan Project.

The Secret City Festival is an event to showcase Oak Ridge’s diversity through cultural events and activities for people of all ages. The festival promotes the history of the city and unites its World War II heritage with the technological advancements that are ongoing within the Oak Ridge.

Tours of Y-12 will last approximately one hour. Shuttle buses to the tour will leave from the American Museum of Science and Energy to the Y-12 New Hope Center. Visitors also can drive to the Y-12 New Hope Center to begin a tour.

The tour was amazing and my wife and I got to meet Dr. Puckett. She is one spunky gal.

[Rose]

Thank you, Magic. I would love to meet her.

I would have to put the one legged SOE/OSS Agent Virginia Hall at the top of my heroines list. It has been said that the Germans called her "the most dangerous of the allied spies" in France. http://www.64-baker-street.org/agents/a ... _hall.html

Virginia shares that front position with the frail and delicate Noor Inayat Kahn, author of children's books, and the first woman wireless operator to be sent to occupied France. Eventually captured by the Germans, interrogated daily (probably under torture) for five weeks, she gave no secrets away.
http://www.64-baker-street.org/agents/a ... _khan.html
On a personal note, in 1974, her younger brother who introduced me to the spiritual tradition that I follow today.

And then we have the quiet heroines whose work was far less exciting, and remains less well known. Of course we know about Josephine and Ruby and their work as couriers running code from D.C. to New York, but almost no one remembers Margaret Priestly, the Oxford Don, who served in the London offices of IIain Fleming's "Red Indians." Her ability to analyze diverse documents and juggle mental maps surely paid off in the tremendous amount of classified materials that Fleming's group was able to recover from German and Italian strongholds before they were overrun by the advancing Allies.

Margaret and Virginia were both modest about their accomplishments and insisted that their post war award services be conducted as quietly as possible.

Virgina, Noor, Margaret, Ruby, Jo....and to the oh-so-many more unnamed women who have served the cause of liberty: May your efforts never be in vain.

rose

[Linda Brown]

I understand that Helen Towt has some sort of Navy Medal at her gravesite but I have not been there yet to visit. Perhaps in the fall. On my list. She is buried in a small town.... no where near other relatives, which I found strange.

Mr. Twigsnapper I am sure had crossed paths with Virginia during the Jedburg operations but during that one long evening that we talked about these things he mentioned a lady I think that he had quite a crush on. I don't remember her name but he said that she could blow the tracks right out from underneath a train and had beautiful legs as a bonus. She was a horsewoman too which of course got his attention and he mentioned that she had married and moved to a station in Austrailia . I don't think that her husband or anyone around her knew what her history was but Twigsnapper said they used to have good times having tea and talking about the " transports" in France..... with no one around them having a clue what they were actually talking about. I think that he cared for her alot actually but would have been a "younger man" to her. The Gestapo was hot after her he said... called her the " White Mouse". I don't know if her story has been told or not. You would hope so.... eventually.

I love that one picture of Mother walking along a sidewalk in Washington DC. Big hat..... a dangerous, dangerous woman. She was supposed to be a " crushed divorced woman" according to the wags in her home town of Zanesville. The lady didn't look " crushed" to me and according to Mr. Twigsnapper she was also secretly meeting Dad by the Potomac.... whenever they could. I found a note in his handwriting once that she apparently had kept for years. It merely said... "midnight, Potomac, come alone. T." I found that touching, both the message and the fact that she had kept that little slip of paper for.....sixty years.....

Now maybe I know where I get that trait. Linda

[Radomir]

Oh yes, if I am correct, that story has been told--or as much as was public:

The White Mouse

Postby Radomir on Tue Feb 13, 2007 9:10 pm


Mr. Twigsnapper wrote:

Was it you Trickfox who asked about "dangerous women" in my life? Something like that. I have to tell you ..... they have ALWAYS been my great joy. During the war I was totally enamored of an attractive woman ( I remember well that she had GREAT legs) but she also could live amongst the Germans like a reef fish amongst the coral. And she could set a charge like no one you have ever seen! I rather appreciated that! Of course very little has ever been said about her. I am pleased to say that she lived out part of her life in happy retirement in Australia, riding fine horses and setting a lovely table for tea. For quite a while no one around her ever suspected the life that she led so it was always nice to visit her and be able to share a smile and an occasional wink when the conversation turned then to planting flowers in the garden. She would never have been that domestic when I knew her! I think that she could see with me the locomotives detaching themselves from the tracks! ( sorry Mikado, I know you love trains .... but it was the times)

I believe this may be the women to which he is referring? Either that or Australia has had an embarrassment of riches if there were two like her living there in retirement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Wake

http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/wake.html
...

R.

[Radomir]

And we do hope Cuthbert will not be troublesome. We wouldn't want to have to eliminate him.

Both absolute stunners, Rose. Few could hold a candle to those two eminent Ladies.