But the Atlantic battle, agreed at Casablanca to remain the top priority, had taken a turn.
卡萨布兰卡会议认为，大西洋战场仍然是最重要的。
For the first time, new Allied ship construction was exceeding losses.
那里的局势现在已经有了转变，同盟国的造船速度，首度超过了损失的速度。
Alan went to Saunderstown, Rhode Island, to visit Jack and Mary Crawford again, as he had done from Princeton.
与上次离开普林斯顿时一样，艾伦顺便去罗得岛拜访杰克和玛丽·克劳福德。
But Jack had died on 6 January, a few days before Alan arrived.
可惜就在他到达之前，1月6日，杰克去世了。
His widow asked him to stay on a few days nonetheless.
他的遗孀请艾伦留住了几天。
He went down to New York City, arriving at the Bell Laboratories building on West Street, by the piers, on the afternoon of 19 January 1943.
接着艾伦前往纽约，1943年1月19日下午，他来到西街的贝尔实验室大楼，
And for two months he soaked himself in the electronic technology of speech encipherment.
开始研究电子语音加密技术，为期2个月。
Like most organisations devoted to secret work, Bell Labs operated in a cellular fashion so that people never knew what was happening outside their own department.
正如大多数从事机密工作的机构一样，贝尔实验室采用蜂窝式的构造，隔间里面的人，从不知道外面发生了什么。
Alan, however, was free to move into any 'cell' he wished, although he had to be careful not to transfer information himself.
但是，艾伦可以随心所欲地出入任何隔间，只是不能发送消息。
It came through to the Bell engineers with whom he worked that his 'clearance' had come not from the Army or the Navy, but from the White House itself.
他的特权不是来自军方，而是来自白宫。