Top Secret Rosies: The Female 'Computers' of WWII (2010) User Reviews

A forgotten part of WWII finally getting its due.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 24 January 2012]

I love historical films and documentaries--which isn't surprising as I am a retired history teacher. And, of these films, the ones that are often my favorites are ones that introduce the viewer to little-known aspects of history--people or events that have been overlooked over the years. So, when I noticed "Top Secret Rosies" on Netflix, I was sure to give it a viewing.

The film is about a group of women who were vitally important to the war effort during WWII--though I've never heard of their work discussed. Apparently, to make bomb sites and artillery effective, they needed to create long and very complex mathematical tables--huge books which helped them calculate the trajectories of weapons. So, people manned adding machines and VERY simple computers and worked multiple shifts--all to get this work done as soon as possible. This story is about these folks--in particular, the women who worked these primitive computational machines.

In addition to discussing their work, there is some discussion of the moral implications of this as well. In other words, these calculations were made to kill people--and not just with conventional bombs or projectiles but ultimately, the atomic bomb. There also was a segment that talked about how these women, unlike 'Rosie the Riveter' and WACs and the like, were never acknowledged--even though they made a huge contribution to the war effort.

All in all, an interesting documentary that's pretty well made, though I doubt if it's something that will appeal to the casual viewer.

"They learned something about themselves that was really important."

[classicsoncall · 8/10 · 7 March 2020]

Sometimes the unheralded achievements of the past are even more fascinating than the better know accomplishments. This documentary style picture reveals how women helped shape the Allied victory in World War II via the recruitment of female mathematicians out of colleges and universities. With many of the country's men marching off to war, it was women who came forward to fulfill a mission as 'human computers', often working night and day to supplement the war effort. The primary focus of the story is how these women, some of whom were personally interviewed on camera, used their knowledge of differential equations to project the trajectory of bullets and bombs so that they would hit their targets. In due time, some of these women found themselves working on the development of the ENIAC - the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer - the first electronic general-purpose digital computer, capable of solving a large class of numerical problems through reprogramming. Unfortunately, the accomplishments of these women were never recognized at the time, as they returned to their post war lives to get married and raise families. It's a fascinating story of these 'Top Secret Rosies', who never gained the notoriety of their equally named counterparts in the industrial sector who went by the nickname of Rosie the Riveter.

An enlightening and moving account of a heretofore little-known women's non traditional job during WWII.

[lflandreau · 10/10 · 15 October 2010]

I highly recommend this documentary for anyone interested in WWII, women's labor issues, women's education, and mathematics in particular, and/or the intersection of history and sociology. The film skillfully weaves individual stories with the seeping tide of WWII, and specifically the engineering required to implement state-of-the-art armaments. What emerges is how startling, not to mention infuriating it is, that this vitally successful work was ignored until now. Like so many of their generation, the women who performed this herculean task returned to their regular lives after the war, never revealing what they had done. I'm so glad on their behalf that Ms Erickson has told their story in this eloquent film. Beautifully shot and edited, it hits all the right notes.