8NEWS, AMELIA HEYMANN

The U.S. Post Office on Sycamore Square was renamed in honor of Dorothy Braden Bruce, a World War II code-breaker and former Midlothian resident Friday morning.

Rep. Abigail Spanberger’s office said Bruce served in the U.S. military during WWII as part of a top-secret group of code-breaking women. Her unit worked to find the locations of Japanese ships in the Pacific, intercept enemy supply movements and protect the lives of American soldiers.

Jim Bruce, her son, said she kept every secret she learned for decades.

“My mother only learned that she could talk about what she did during the war when she was 97 years old,” he said. “I mean she barely lived long enough to tell the story. Her memory was remarkable enough that the author of the book ‘Code Girls’ could validate in the official archives that had been declassified, what my mother was saying.”

In 2019, Bruce passed away at 99-years-old.

Former President Donald Trump signed Rep. Spanberger’s legislature to rename the Post Office into law in December 2020.