Navy WAVE, WWII Code Breaker Will Celebrate 100th Birthday with Her Own Parade

A World War II code breaker who helped hunt down Nazi U-boats turns 100 on Tuesday and will be honored with a parade past her house in Pittsburgh.

Julia Parsons, who served in the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, or Navy WAVES, said her work was aided enormously by the sheer arrogance of the German High Command in believing that the allies couldn't possibly break their vaunted "Enigma" code despite warnings from their own U-Boat commanders.

She told Military.com of deciphering messages from a U-boat commander who surfaced his submarine to contact his controllers. The gist of his message was, "Every time I surface, within a half hour there's an airplane overhead. I think they're reading our code," Parsons said.