CROSSWORDS: 1940s

Highlights | 1941 | 1942 | 1944 | 1945 | 1946 | 1948 | References

Highlights

• Crosswords were banned in Paris during the Second World War,... for fear
  of being misused. In fact, some editors were pulled up by the authorities
  when there happened weird coincidences such as these. Two days prior
  before an escape from the Wormwood Scrubs prison by a famous spy,
  a crossword had included the name of the road outside the prison.
• 1941: "Code Girls" recruitment; NYT proposal
• 1942:Bletchley Park recruitment; 1st NYT crosswords
• 1944: D-Day -- and Crosswords
• 1945: movie: Brief Encounter

1941

• Code Girls: The Untold Story of the Women Cryptographers Who Fought WWII
  at the Intersection of Language and Mathematics interviewer had only two questions to ask her:
  "Did she like crossword puzzles, and was she engaged to be married?"; 12/11/2017
• The Women Who Helped America Crack Axis Codes review of Code Girls;NYT; 11/6/2017
• Cryptography: U.S. Cyber Command Valentines Day 2021 Cryptography Challenge Puzzles; .pdf
• NSA Uses Twitter Puzzle To Recruit Computer Hackers 5/16/2014
• Can You Crack the NSA's Top-Secret Crossword Puzzles?
  the National Security Agency Just Released Archive Editions of its In-House Magazine, Cryptolog; PopSci; 3/28/2013
• NSA's Puzzle Periodical: 2015-; NSA Cryptochallenge: Puzzle of the Week
• The CryptoKids Arrive at NSA.GOV! Codes & Ciphers; Games & Activities
• "We ought to proceed with the puzzle, especially... in view of the fact
  that it is possible that there will now be bleak blackout hours
  -- or if not that, then certainly a need for relaxation of some kind.
  We ought not to try to do anything essentially different from what is now being done --
  except to do it better." ~Lester Markel, NYT ed. (< 2 weeks after Pearl Harbor)

1942

• The Daily Telegraph ran a misleading ad, offering to donate 100 British pounds to the Minesweeping Fund
  if, under controlled conditions, anyone could solve their crossword puzzle in less than 12 minutes.
  In fact, the ad was a ploy to recruit intelligence agents to work on enemy ciphers at Bletchley Park.
• The Cryptic Crossword that Recruited for Bletchley Park 9/18/2016
• Can You Solve a UK Intelligence Agency's Christmas Puzzle? GCHQ ; Giz; 12/10/2015
• Wikipedia: Bletchley Park; cryptanalysis
• Bletchley Park: Home of the CodeBreakers Google Cultural Institute; slideshow
• Turing's Spirit Hovers at a Restored Estate
  Bletchley Park, where the Real 'Imitation Game' Happened; NYT; 11/28/2014
• At Bletchley Park, a Reminder About the History of Cracking Codes NYT; 8/9/2014
• Happy birthday, Crossword: a very efficient aptitude test 12/6/2013
• President Franklin Roosevelt's pragmatic 'green light letter'; 1/15/1942 stated that public recreation
  (specifically baseball) supported the war effort rather than distracting from it, and therefore should be preserved.
  "The inclusion of the puzzle in the Times would therefore not be considered a trivial notion during a time
  of national peril, but instead a way to help relieve tension among the war-minded public"
  ~All the Clues That Are Fit to Solve: The New York Times Crossword Puzzle Popular & American Culture Association; 6/2019

• 
  

  "The Herald Tribune runs the best puzzle page in existence so far,
  but... they have gotten into a bit of a rut.
  Their big puzzle never ventures even one imaginative definition,
  and lacks the quality that I believe can be achieved and maintained.
  We could, I dare to predict, get the edge on them. I don't think
  I have to sell you on the increased demand for this kind of pastime
  in an increasingly worried world. You can't think of your troubles while solving a crossword."
  ~Margaret Petherbridge Farrar (Simon&Schuster crossword editor -- soon, 1st NYT crossword editor)

• Margaret Farrar: 1st NYT crossword editor, 1942-1968; "1st Lady of Crosswords" bio
• Few Gnus: The Woman Behind the Crossword-Puzzle Craze
  Margaret Farrar is probably the most important person in the world of the crossword puzzle; New Yorker; 6/13/1959
• "Under Margaret Farrar's direction,... the crossword 'constructors'
  (freelance puzzle makers) developed a clever and elaborate style.
  Instead of giving clues like 'Stinging insect' (BEE) and 'Bird's home' (NEST),
  they phrased them as 'Nectar inspector' and 'Nutcracker's suite.
  The Times' clever, whimsical style almost single-handedly ushered in a
  crossword renaissance, as newspapers all over the U.S. followed its lead." ~BUJBR
• NYT inaugurates a puzzle page; NYT; 2/15/1942;
  "There will be two puzzles each Sunday [daily not introduced until 1950]
  -- one with a flavor of current events and general information, and one varied in theme, ranging
  from puzzles in a lighter vein, like today's smaller one, to diagramless puzzles of a general nature.
  Readers are invited to contribute their puzzles. Payment will be made for each puzzle accepted.
  The pattern of the larger puzzles should be 23 by 23 squares; the smaller 15 by 15"
• 15 x 15: Riddle Me This .puz;
  23 x 23: Headlines and Footnotes .puz; a few example clues:
  1-Across: Famous one-eyed general (WAVELL) Gen. Sir Archibald Wavell of Britain, whose victory
  against Italy at the Battle of Sidi Barrani in Egypt in 1940 "shattered the illusion of Axis invincibility";
  117-Down: Nazi submarine base in Belgium (OSTEND);
  54-Down: Reluctant allies of Germany (FINNS);
  49-Down: Prime necessity for war production (SPEED)
  43-Down: Strait between Nova Scotia and New Breton (CANSO)
  Cape Breton, an error and the first crossword ever printed in the New York Times
• Birth of the Crossword
  the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor ushered the US into WW II and the NYT Crossword into print; NYT; 12/17/2022
• The legacy of the crossword puzzle in times of crisis NPR; 3/24/2020
• Sunday NYT crossword later becomes popular stereotype of 'most difficult' puzzle
  -- even though NYT Fri & Sat are harder; Sun is like a hard Wed or easy Thu NYT
• The New York Times Crossword Puzzle Still Stumps After 80 Years history; HSW; 12/19/2018
• The Quick 10: The New York Times Crossword Puzzle trivia about NYT crossword; 8/20/2009
• History of the NYT Crossword: Wikipedia; Barry Haldiman
• The New York Times Celebrates 75 Years of Crosswords a brief history;
  1913: The World's First Crossword Puzzle Sparks a Craze; 'The granddaddy of crossword puzzles';
  1924: The New York Times Refuses to Join in the Fun; 'The utterly futile finding of words';
  1941: Bombing of Pearl Harbor Leads to Changed Minds; 'We ought to proceed with the puzzle';
  1942: Margaret Farrar and the First New York Times Crossword; 'Profession and passion';
  1950: The Daily Crossword Begins;
  1969: Will Weng Becomes Second Crossword Editor; 'Good company on lazy Sunday mornings';
  1977: Eugene T. Maleska, the Third Crossword Editor; 'Exactitude with puckishness';
  1978: First American Crossword Puzzle Tournament;
  1993: Will Shortz Becomes Fourth Editor of the Crossword; 'A tradition of culture and quality';
  1996: First New York Times Crossword on the Web; 'Less blood, fewer erasures';
  1998: First (and Only) Marriage Proposal in the Crossword -- Although we still get requests;
  2006: Crossword Documentary 'Wordplay' Opens; 'Crowd-pleasing entertainment and suspense';
  2008: The Wordplay Crossword Blog Begins; 'The Simpsons' Meet the Puzzle Master;
  2016: The Puzzle Mania Section Is Published; the largest New York Times Crossword: 50x50; NYT; 2/14/2017
• "Egotism, n:... Doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with a pen." ~Anonymous, ?
  (incorrectly attributed to Ambrose Bierce -- who died ~1914, also before "crossword" coined in ~1930)
• "Men in their forties are like the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle:...
  tricky, complicated, and you're never really sure you got the right answer."
  ~Carrie Bradshaw in Sex in the City

1944

• Wikipedia: D-Day Daily Telegraph crossword security alarm
  Dieppe; Gold; Sword; Juno; Utah; Omaha; Overlord; Mulberry; Neptune
  Crossword puzzles in World War II
• Physics teacher and crossword constructor Leonard Dawe is questioned by authorities...
  after several words -- Omaha (codename for one of Normandy's beaches),
  Utah (another Normandy beach codename),
  Overlord (the name for the plan to land at Normandy on June 6th),
  mulberry (nickname for a portable harbor built for D-Day), and
  Neptune (name for the naval portion of the invasion)
  -- appeared in London's Daily Telegraph crosswords during the month preceding
  the D-Day landing. This has been attributed to either an incredible coincidence,
  or Dawe somehow overhearing these words (possibly slipped by soldiers involved)
  and incorporating them into puzzles unwittingly.
• The D-Day clues were there, if only Hitler had done the Telegraph crossword
  When short of inspiration Dawe used to ask his pupils for words to be used as solutions.
  The boys, habitually playing games with the American soldiers stationed nearby, had picked up
  some of the strange words used by the loose-lipped troops; Tel; 6/5/2019
• That Time When Winston Churchill Panicked Over a Crossword Puzzle 12/12/2018
• The D-Day Crosswords in which a British newspaper mysteriously spends June 1944
  printing top-secret World War II spoilers; Omnibus: Entry 318.PR2019; 8/7/2018
• The Crossword Puzzles That Jeopardized D-Day 2/5/2018
• Spies, Crosswords, and Secret Messages! 9/16/2021
• Untold Stories of D-Day 6/2002

1945

• Brief Encounter (movie);
  Wikipedia; Top 10 crosswords in fiction, no 10: Brief Encounter; Guardian; 5/10/2012
  Fred Jesson: Come and sit by the fire in the library and relax. You may help me with the Times crossword.
  Laura Jesson: You have the most peculiar ideas of relaxation.
  Fred Jesson: [playing the crossword puzzle] You're a poetry addict. See if you can help me over this.
  It's Keats. 'When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face / Huge cloudy symbols of a high _______.'
  Something that's seven letters.
  Laura Jesson: Romance, I think. I'm almost sure it is. 'Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance.'
  It will be in the Oxford Book of English Verse.
  Fred Jesson: No, it's right I'm sure. It fits in with 'delirium' and 'Baluchistan'.

1946

• What do I think of the Secretary of Commerce? HAW!
  crossword puzzles these days are making subtle editorial comments by having
  the initials of congressmen spell out words describing these individuals.
  For example, the initials of the Senator from Ohio spell the word "rat." (Robert A. Taft); 8/17/1946

1948

• The Crossword Puzzle Mystery (radio show), (April - May 1948) (13 parts); The Adventures of Superman
  e.g., Lois Lane has told cub reporter Jimmy Olsen to look in the Daily Planet from the day before yesterday
  for the crossword puzzle in search of clues in case she hasn't been heard from within twenty-four hours.
  
  Meanwhile, Lois is on an airplane trying to solve a crossword in order to learn where she must go.
  She finds, thanks to the clues, that she must be in a town called Moundville.
  
  Not long afterwards, Clark does the crossword puzzle in which Lois had done.
  Mayor Perry White, who has left Kent in charge of the newspaper, thinks that the mild mannered
  reporter has gone mad. Clark proves him wrong and finds that he must go to Moundville as Superman.
  
  Withers later learns that the head of syndicate in Metropolis that distributes crossword puzzles to
  newspapers like the Daily Planet is also the mastermind behind the gold heists. ~review

References

• Wikipedia: 1940s
• The Decades That Invented the Future: Part 5: 1940s
  Manhattan Project; George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four; Polaroid Camera; Computer Bug;
  First Videogame; Guided Missile; House Committee on Un-American Activities; Materials Rationing;
  Helicopter; Microwave; Jackie Robinson; Start of Silicon Valley; Wired; 11/15/2012
• Paleofuture: 1940s
• 11 Inventions from the 1940s That Still Shape Our World Today 7/23/2019