Born in Manhattan in 1907, Evelyn Akeley excelled at mathematics, music, and sports at Smith College. She earned a master’s from Columbia, then joined the mathematics faculty at Skidmore College. In 1942, Akeley learned of an opportunity to join the Signal Corps, the parent of the army’s codebreaking effort, the Signal Intelligence Service (SIS). She was given a series of textbooks authored by William Friedman, and told to conduct a two-month training course for new civilian and military recruits who began arriving days later.
With a strong background in mathematics but no experience in cryptology, she taught her course in temporary spaces at George Washington University. One of her first students, future NSA Deputy Director Ann Caracristi, later remarked that Akeley somehow managed to stay one lesson ahead of her students.
By August, Akeley and students moved to Arlington Hall Station. Named the SIS Director of Training, Akeley was soon coping with an even greater influx of students. By early 1943, hundreds of recruits began arriving at Arlington Hall every week. Akeley and her fellow instructors were offering a curriculum to an average of 750 pupils per month. Those that graduated became part of an effort that, in the words of Solomon Kullback, “ultimately broke every Japanese Army code that they encountered during the war.”
Succeeded by Frank Rowlett as Director of Training in late 1943, Akeley concluded her wartime service as a working cryptanalyst and the deputy chief of Arlington Hall’s research effort on new Japanese code systems. She remained with the army’s codebreaking effort after the war, as a cryptanalyst for the Army Security Agency (ASA), Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA), and the National Security Agency. When she retired in 1958, she was the sixth most senior woman at NSA, outranked only by a group that included future Hall of Honor members Polly Budenbach, Ann Caracristi, Juanita Moody, and Julia Ward.
Evelyn Niemann Akeley’s impressive record of successful improvisation in a fast-paced, high-stress environment reflects one of the finest traditions of the past century of American signals intelligence. Her accomplishments were only exceeded by those of her students, who went on to attain a series of codebreaking triumphs over the Japanese codes that contributed tangibly to the Allied victory in World War II. Ms. Akeley passed away in 1998.
Evelyn Akeley was inducted into NSA's Cryptologic Hall of Honor in 2023. The Cryptologic Hall of Honor was created in 1999 to pay special tribute to the pioneers and heroes who rendered distinguished service to American cryptology.