McKay, Sinclair. The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park. New York: Plume. 2012. Print.
First Sentences:
Description:
Probably everyone knows of the super secret work of English codebreakers trying to crack the German "Enigma" at Bletchley Park 40 miles from London. But since the operation was deemed so secret that its existence was not made public until decades later, little is known of the actual work of these men and women vital to the War effort.
Enter Sinclair McKay and his absolutely fascinating close-up look at the Bletchley Park people and operations in his new book, The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park. Through diaries, military records, historical accounts, and interviews with surviving Bletchley Park workers, McKay gathered insightful details about the entire operation from the formation of the Bletchley Park concept, to recruitment of puzzle-solving experts, to building the first "bombe" computer, and the effect the Park had on the war.
Secret messages from the Germans were easily obtained by the British as wireless transmission to navel vessels was the only means of communication. Unfortunately, the Germans used a coding machine, the Enigma, that was devilishly complex and changed its settings every 24 hours. Piles and piles of messages at the Park were intercepted, typed up, stared at, played with, and usually left unsolved for months.
But little by little, the workers began to see patterns from particular German message-senders, giving Park codebreakers a small key to understanding a few messages. An Enigma recovered from a sinking U-Boat revealed the inner details of the machine. With Turing's bombe computer that could check millions of possible combinations of number codes, translation was be vastly speeded. The decoded information from the Park was used to shorten the War by an estimated two years and saved millions of lives.
Behind the operation, McKay explores the personalities and everyday life of workers, insights that were previously hidden from the world. He paints a clear picture of the debutantes, college professors, factory workers, and others of various talents working in separate huts on individual steps in the decoding process. Every page of Codebreakers reveals some shocking, funny, or intriguing detail, such as:
People: In the face of a challenge like the Enigma keys and without, at least at first, the technology to be able to attack them mechanically, the Park would need as many original, quirky, lateral thinkers as it could get, and then give them as free a rein as possible.
Working conditions: Nothing...seemed less likely to house great matters than the ramshackle wooden building (its atmosphere nauseating at night when the blackout imprisoned the fumes from leaky coke-burning stoves) to which I reported...
Language requirements: One recruit was asked if she could speak Italian. "Only opera Italian," she replied. "Yes, that will do," she was told.
Withholding information: For as soon as Enigma was broken, it became utterly vital that the Germans should never suspect that this was the case. [Thus, the city of Coventry, England, was not evacuated prior to being bombed by Nazis even though Betchley Park has broken a message which reveaedl this upcoming raid].
Operation Ruthless: This was the brainchild of Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond spy novels. This plan was for him to lead a small team dressed as wounded German Air Force military intent on being rescued by a German boat. Once aboard the rescue boat, the team would kill all crew members, capture an Enigma machine, and sail the boat to England. [The plan was not deployed due to weather problems.]
D-Day: Without Betchley, the D-Day landings might well have been a catastrophic failure and the forces could have been thrown back into the sea.
Just one interesting detail and story after another. Social relationships, food, shopping, Wrens (women who tended the bombe computers), quirky personalities (Turing rode his broken-down bicycle while wearing a full gas mask for his allergies), and conflicts between different military organizations and the civilian Park workers all pull you deeper and deeper into understand the importance and uniqueness of Betchley Park and its operations. Highly recommended.
Sarah Baring -- and her good friend Osla Henniker-Major -- received the summons by means of a terse telegram.
She remembers that it read: "You are to report to Station X at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, in four days time. Your postal address is Box 111, c/o The Foreign Office.That is all you need to know."
Description:
Probably everyone knows of the super secret work of English codebreakers trying to crack the German "Enigma" at Bletchley Park 40 miles from London. But since the operation was deemed so secret that its existence was not made public until decades later, little is known of the actual work of these men and women vital to the War effort.
Enter Sinclair McKay and his absolutely fascinating close-up look at the Bletchley Park people and operations in his new book, The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park. Through diaries, military records, historical accounts, and interviews with surviving Bletchley Park workers, McKay gathered insightful details about the entire operation from the formation of the Bletchley Park concept, to recruitment of puzzle-solving experts, to building the first "bombe" computer, and the effect the Park had on the war.
Secret messages from the Germans were easily obtained by the British as wireless transmission to navel vessels was the only means of communication. Unfortunately, the Germans used a coding machine, the Enigma, that was devilishly complex and changed its settings every 24 hours. Piles and piles of messages at the Park were intercepted, typed up, stared at, played with, and usually left unsolved for months.
But little by little, the workers began to see patterns from particular German message-senders, giving Park codebreakers a small key to understanding a few messages. An Enigma recovered from a sinking U-Boat revealed the inner details of the machine. With Turing's bombe computer that could check millions of possible combinations of number codes, translation was be vastly speeded. The decoded information from the Park was used to shorten the War by an estimated two years and saved millions of lives.
Behind the operation, McKay explores the personalities and everyday life of workers, insights that were previously hidden from the world. He paints a clear picture of the debutantes, college professors, factory workers, and others of various talents working in separate huts on individual steps in the decoding process. Every page of Codebreakers reveals some shocking, funny, or intriguing detail, such as:
People: In the face of a challenge like the Enigma keys and without, at least at first, the technology to be able to attack them mechanically, the Park would need as many original, quirky, lateral thinkers as it could get, and then give them as free a rein as possible.
Working conditions: Nothing...seemed less likely to house great matters than the ramshackle wooden building (its atmosphere nauseating at night when the blackout imprisoned the fumes from leaky coke-burning stoves) to which I reported...
Language requirements: One recruit was asked if she could speak Italian. "Only opera Italian," she replied. "Yes, that will do," she was told.
Withholding information: For as soon as Enigma was broken, it became utterly vital that the Germans should never suspect that this was the case. [Thus, the city of Coventry, England, was not evacuated prior to being bombed by Nazis even though Betchley Park has broken a message which reveaedl this upcoming raid].
Operation Ruthless: This was the brainchild of Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond spy novels. This plan was for him to lead a small team dressed as wounded German Air Force military intent on being rescued by a German boat. Once aboard the rescue boat, the team would kill all crew members, capture an Enigma machine, and sail the boat to England. [The plan was not deployed due to weather problems.]
D-Day: Without Betchley, the D-Day landings might well have been a catastrophic failure and the forces could have been thrown back into the sea.
Just one interesting detail and story after another. Social relationships, food, shopping, Wrens (women who tended the bombe computers), quirky personalities (Turing rode his broken-down bicycle while wearing a full gas mask for his allergies), and conflicts between different military organizations and the civilian Park workers all pull you deeper and deeper into understand the importance and uniqueness of Betchley Park and its operations. Highly recommended.
Happy reading.
Fred
Fred
(See more recommended books)
________________________________________
If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
Hodges, Andrew. Alan Turing: The Enigma
________________________________________
If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
Hodges, Andrew. Alan Turing: The Enigma
The book that inspired the Benedict Cumberbatch movie, this thick tome delves deeply into the secret inner workings of Bletchley Park and the codebreakers, particularly focusing on the genius Alan Turing.
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