Bennett was born on July 18, 1918, in Minneapolis and attended the University of Cincinnati, where he studied the classics, earning bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees, and was a student of the American archaeologist Carl Blegen, who had uncovered a series of tablets inscribed in Linear B during excavations he had conducted at Pylos in 1939.Fox, Margalit. "Emmett L. Bennett Jr., Ancient Script Expert, Dies at 93", The New York Times, December 31, 2011. Accessed January 1, 2011. Bennett worked as a cryptanalyst on the American effort decoding Japanese ciphers during World War II, despite not knowing any Japanese.
