Soaring to Glory

Handleman, Philip. Soaring to Glory: A Tuskegee Airman's Firsthand Account of World War II. Washington DC: Regnery History 2019. Print.

First Sentences:

Harry Stewart was five thousand feet over the Luftwaffe base at Wels, Germany. His flight's element had been reduced to seven planes when the eighth was disabled by mechanical problems. Still, they would be more than a match for the four German fighters they called out below. 

Description:

I knew virtually nothing about the Tuskegee Airmen except that they were a reknown all-Black division of the Air Force fighting in World War II. Then, I somehow stumbled upon Philip Handleman's Soaring to Glory: A Tuskegee Airman's Firsthand Account of World War II. and I was hooked on their story of bravery, perseverance, flying skills, and especially dealing with racism in the air and on the ground.

 

Lt. Col. Harry T. Stewart Jr, is the subject of this biography, one of the last surviving airman from this squadron. Author Handleman, through interviews, articles, research, and personal contact with Stewart, ably tells this rich history from the first Black aviators, through the formation of the Tuskegee squadron, (the 332nd Red Tails), and post-war lives of these men up to the present day. 

 

It's such a rich, obstacle-laden history as Black men look to the skies and flying for the thrill as well as the escape from the prejudice they faced on the ground.

[They] saw the sky as a medium inherently devoid of the artificial barriers erected by one class of men to block another. The law of the air, their thinking held, is fair and equitable; it applies uniformly without exception to all people regardless of race, color, creed, gender, ethnicity, ancestry, and national origin -- for it is not man's law but nature's law.

Notable Black fliers included aerial display barnstormer Bessie Coleman who went to France in 1921 for training as no US programs would accept a Black woman; James Banning and Thomas Allen who flew transcontinental in 1932; Chauncey Spencer and Dale White flew a two-seater biplane in 1939 from Chicago to Washington DC to publicize the cause of Black aviation.

 

Young Harry Stewart grew up in 1930s New York watching the airship balloons, biplanes, and test airplanes from the nearby base, as well as working on model airplane kits and watching films featuring WWI dogfights. Told by a school counselor that  "Colored people aren't accepted as airline pilots," he later found an article in 1941 (as the War clouds hovering) that said "the Army would start to train an all-Negro flying unit: the 99th Pursuit Squadron. He dropped out of school when he was accepted into the program, only a few days before he was to report for his draft induction.

 

Soaring to Glory carefully follows Stewart through his pilot training and eventual World War II missions. Hardly any military personnel or brass welcomed them:

Major General Edwin J. House of the 12th Air Support Command...claimed that the consensus among his fellow officers and medical professionals was 'that the negro type has not the proper reflexes to make a first-class fighter pilot.'

Handleman also noted that:

An earlier 1925 Army War College memorandum asserted that blacks are 'by nature subservient' and 'mentally inferior.'

The Tuskegee Airmen and Stewart were motivated to prove these bigots wrong. During one of his 42 combat flights, Stewart shot down three German planes. The Squadron later handily won a national military aerial competition that highlighted flying, shooting, and bombing skills. 

Returning to the US was a return to the same world of prejudice and closed doors. His 332nd Fighter Group Squadron was stationed in Lockbourne Air Force Base outside of Columbus, Ohio, the first air base not under the supervision of white officers. During that period, Stewart wa forced tobail out of his plane, landing in the backwoods of Appalachia (Butcher Hollow, to be exact, home of Loretta Lynn). There he found kind mountain people who cleaned his wounds, gave him moonshine to ease the pain, and helped get him to a doctor. Fifty-seven years later he returned to see his new friends there and to serve as Grand Marshall of the Van Lear Town Celebration parade.

 

After leaving the military, Stewart found commercial airlines such as Pan Am and TWA, while advertising for former military airmen, told him there were no openings him as a pilot. At Pan Am, he was told by their personnel manager:

"Mr Stewart, I'm sure you can understand our position. Just imagine what passengers would think if during a flight they saw a Negro step out of the cockpit and walk down the aisle in a pilot's uniform."

But the book is about Stewart's dreams, his striving, surviving, and triumphing in the face of incredible odds. From US segregation and bigoted people to German fighter pilots to closed-off jobs, Stewart kept working, going to night school for an engineering degree, and achieving success in major corporations in his undying efforts to carve a life for himself and his family. He was even presented, along with the other Tuskegee Airmen, with the Congressional Gold Medal, even shaking the congratulatory hand of Senator Robert Byrd, a former KKK member.

 

It is a book full of history, both shameful and glorious, through the life of one man and his race. Terrifically written, with interesting stories and information about our country and its pilots on every page. The joy and skills involved in military flying, the danger of the missions, and the camaraderie of these Black pilots reveal what an vital role these men played during the War.

 

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:] 

  

Dahl, Roald. Going Solo.   

Early diary entries and commentary from the author Roald Dahl on his World War I. aviation career when flying a plane was as dangerous as facing an enemy pilot. Brilliantly written. (Previously reviewed here.)

Happy reading.

Fred

 

Click here to browse over 450 more book recommendations by subject or title

(and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader).

 

The Navajo Code Talkers

Paul, Doris A. The Navajo Code Talkers. Pittsburgh: Dorrance 19739. Print.

First Sentences:

Every syllable of my message came through. Sometimes we had to crawl, had to run, had to lie partly submerged in a swamp or in a lagoon, or in the dead heat, pinned under fire. But there was no problem. We transmitted out messages under any and all conditions.

Description:

I've always been fascinated (but not good at solving) codes. Over the years, however, dedicated amateurs and professional code-breakers have broken all codes. All, that is, except one: the Navajo code utilized by America during World War II.

Doris A. Paul's The Navajo Code Talkers is the definitive history of this code and the men who created and successfully employed it. Extensive interviews with the Navajo Code Talkers gives the narrative a deeply personal account of each man's commitment to the program. reflecting the intense, maybe desperate need for the code to work.

The Navajo nation, in an edict from their Tribal Council at Window Rock in June, 1940, expressed their commitment to "aid and defend our Government and its institutions against all subversive and armed conflict." After the official call to arms went out, 

Navajo men appeared at their agencies, carrying old muskets and hunting rifles, asking where they could fight the enemy. Many were turned away, heartbroken and humiliated that they could not fight because they could not speak English.

But those who spoke English were recruited to counteract the Japanese proclivity to break any English code. During close fighting, messages containing vital information about positions of troops, coordination of attack times, and battle news had to be delivered quickly, with no time for transcription of complex codes. A simple, unbreakable, easily transported code was needed.

Previously, Choctaws had been employed briefly during World War I to simply relay messages via telephone to stymie German interception. Later, Comanches, Creek, Choctaw, Menominee, Chippewa, and Hopi were used as communicators, but in the limited capacity of speaking only their own language. What was needed was an untranslatable Native American language, but updated by creating new terms for military items like "tank," "machine gun," "barrage," etc.

The Navajo language was suggested as the perfect platform:

The Navajo tongue is an extremely difficult language to master, and should a non-Navajo (particularly German or Japanese) learn to speak it, counterfeiting its sounds would be almost impossible.

Twenty-nine Navajo men were recruited from reservation schools and trained by the Marines for a pilot program. For some, this was the first time off the reservation. Firsthand accounts from interviews with the original Navajo Code Talkers revealed the challenges, expectations, and actual dangers to their jobs:

We wrung our minds dry trying to figure out words that would be usable, that would not be too long, and that could be easily memorized. After all, in the heat of battle, the code talker would have no time to take out a chart and look up vocabulary for an urgent message.

A sample alphabet and terms are reproduced in the book, containing examples like:

"Gini" (literally "Chicken Hawk") is the Navajo word created for "Dive Bomber" 

"Be-al-doh-cid-da-hi (sitting gun) = Mortar" 

"Joy-sho" (buzzard) = Bomber  

"Lo-tso" (whale) = Battleship

"Toh-yil-kal" (Much Water) = River 

"Tsisi-be-wol-doni" (bird shooter) = Anti-Aircraft 

The Code Talkers worked eight hours a day with walkie-talkies under field conditions. They had to remember this new vocabulary, speak into the 80-pound radio sets, and quickly, accurately translate incoming messages. After training, code talkers were utilized to request medical supplies, coordinate troop movements, and relay operational orders.

I found the recollections of surviving code talkers incredibly interesting for painting a picture of life in war in which they contributed a vital part. There was real pride in accomplishment, as well as humor in their voices. They were at Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal, New Guinea, Okinawa, the Solomon Islands, and many more places, bringing a tense aspect of the war alive for me. 

I recommend this for readers interested in the lives and contributions to our country by Native Americans, the development of a unique code, and World War II as told by those men who were there.

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:] 

McKay, Sinclair. The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park. 

For the first time, the an in-depth look people behind the super-secret operation that broke the Enigma code and shortened the war by two years, saving millions of lived. (previously reviewed here.) 

Hodges, Andrew. Alan Turing: The Enigma.   

The man and his team who cracked the German Enigma code in World War II to change the course of the War.

Happy reading.

Fred

 

Click here to browse over 435 more book recommendations by subject or title

(and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader).

We Die Alone

 Howarth, David. We Die Alone. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press 1955. Print.

First Sentences:

Even at the end of March, on the Arctic coast of northern Norway, there is no sign of spring. 

 

By then, the polar winter night is over....There is nothing green at all: no flowers or grass, and no buds on the stunted trees.


Description:

As we drift into the fall months of cooler temperatures, of warmer jackets, and maybe a few snowflakes, it's a bit shocking to read a true story revolving around really, and I mean REALLY COLD weather. David Howarth's We Die Alone: A WW II Epic of Escape and Endurance

is exacly such a gripping, historical adventure set in the frigid temperatures of northern Norway. But be warned. When you read this book, it's best to have on warm clothes and a hot drink nearby, preferably sitting in front of a roaring fire with a cozy blanket wrapped around you.

During World War II in 1943, twelve Norwegian resistance fighters embarked on a mission of sabatoge in the northernmost part of Norway, an isolated outpost controlled by the Nazis and vital to their control of sea routes. The saboteurs' goal was to blow up key Nazi munitions depots and organize Norwegian resistance in that area. 

Unfortunately, the men were betrayed and eleven of the Norwegians were killed upon reaching their target.

But one man escaped, Jan Baalsrud, by running across frozen fields that night partially barefoot (he'd lost a shoe when jumping from their boat into the sub-freezing water). On top of that, he was hobbled by a bleeding foot where one of his toes had been shot off. 

To avoid capture, he had to swim (again in the sub-freezing water) from their target on an island to the mainland of Norway, then set out on foot (deep snow, no shoe, bleeding toe, remember?) for dry clothing, shelter, food, and help to reach safety in a bordering neutral country. 

And so begins his journey of months filled with isolated countryside, high mountains, deep snow, German patrols, an avalanche, and, of course, the unrelenting, freezing temperatures.

In the valley bottom were frozen lakes where the going was hard and smooth; but between them the snow lay very deep, and it covered a mass of boulders, and there he could not tell as he took each step whether his foot would fall upon rock or ice, or a snow crust which would support him, or whether it would plunge down hip deep into the crevices below.

For the escaping Baalsrudven, finding any form of help was difficult and dangerous for all involved. Anyone he contacted could be a Nazi supporter or at least an informer. The few local Norwegians in the area had to protect their families and lives, since assisting a Nazi fugitive was punishable by death to the entire family, slaughter of all livestock, and destruction of the farmland. 

 

Yet many gladly helped him. Word had slowly spread through the desolate countryside that one man had escaped the Nazi sabeteur killings. Through this grapevine, Baalsrud became a secret hero to the quiet Norwegian farmers, a symbol of their national pride, strength, and resistance to the occupying Nazis. And so they helped in small, but vitally important ways, especially when several times Baalsrud was on the verge of death.

As one Norwegian farmer reflected:

At last it was something which he and only he could possibly do. If he could never do anything else to help in the war, he would have this to look back on now; and he meant to look back on it with satisfaction, and not with shame. He thanked God for sending him this chance to prove his courage....[He told Baalsrud] "If I live, you will live, and if they kill you I will have died to protect you."

Challenge after challenge presented itself to Baalsrud. Wearing only grimy rags of frozen clothes, starving, and suffereing from painful injuries and frostbite, Baalsrud continually astonishes us readers with his perserverence. Example after example of his courage, will, and seemingly endless supply of optimism drives this adventure tale forward, forcing readers to bundle up and continue following Baalsrud to his ultimate journey's end. Absolutely highly recommended.

[P.S. There is also a film called, The Twelfth Man (available on DVD and Amazon Prime) that is a breathtaking representative of the book, especially in portraying myriad of challenges and undying perserverence of Baalsrud ... and the unbearable, unrelenting cold.]

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Rawicz, Slavomir. The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom.   

Incredible true story detailing the author's 1941 capture, prison life and eventual escape from a Soviet labor camp in Siberia. His route took him through China, Tibet, the Gobi Desert, and India, all while experiencing desperate cold, hunger, thirst, and fear of recapture. 

The Volunteer

Fairweather, Jack. The Volunteer: One Man', An Underground Army, and the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitz. New York: HarperCollins 2019. Print

First Sentences:

Witold Pilecki volunteered to be imprisoned in Auschwitz. 

Description:

Can there be a more chilling, compelling first sentence than this opening to Jack Fairweather's true history recounted in The Volunteer: One Man', An Underground Army, and the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitz?

This first sentence  is the ultimate baited hook to keep any reader reading. Who was this man, Witold Pilecki? What possessed him to voluntarily enter Auschwitz during World War II? What did he hope to accomplish? What happened to him? Did his plans succeed? All are important questions that pull readers deeper and deeper into this true account from history.

A few answers here. Witold Pilecki was a Polish farmer, a member of the Polish reserves who fought the Nazis after the invasion of their homeland in 1939. After the Polish army and people had been subdued and the country occupied, Pilecki joined a small underground resistance force. He and his team watched as the Nazis began to enforce Hitler's  emergency decree for the "indefinite detention or protective custody" of "real or imagined" enemies, including Catholics, Jews, and ethnic Germans.

The resistance noticed that neighbors were taken to a mysterious "labor camp" and rarely returned. That camp was Auschwitz, built in 1940 to hold these Polish "dissidents." Little information about this new camp was known at that time, and certainly no details were allowed to trickle to the outside world. So Pilecki's resistance group agreed it was vital to publicize what was going on inside Auschwitz to the Allied nations, hoping those troops would be shocked enough to bomb it as the heart of the Nazi cleansing movement, freeing the Polish people imprisoned there. Pilecki volunteered to enter Auschwitz to secure the information needed.

Once inside Auschwitz (it proved easy for Pilecki, a Polish man, to be captured), his plan was to recruit a resistance force inside the concentration camp, gather information, disrupt activities, and write accounts that could be smuggled to his fellow resistance fighters outside to be carried to embassies in the Allied countries.

And, of course, to somehow survive, and, if possible, escape to rejoin his Polish fighters.

The harrowing details Fairweather reveals of life in Auschwitz were taken from the recently recovered reports from Pilecki. Starvation, random selection of prisoners to be casually shot, gassings, mass burials, and other brutalities have probably never been more shockingly presented. I won't enumerate them here, but trust me much of the book is incredibly shocking as seen through Pilecki's eyes. It was incredibly depressing to read again and again of man's callous inhumanity to man.

Let none of you imagine that he will ever leave this place alive....The rations have been calculated so that you will only survive six weeks. Anyone who lives longer must be stealing, and anyone stealing will be sent to the penal company, where you won't live very long. -- [opening greeting from the camp commandant, SS-Obersturmfuhrer Fritz Seidler]

Pilecki's reports were painstakingly written and then somehow smuggled out of the camp and on to England to be read by Churchill, Roosevelt and others. These reports detailed the hourly atrocities, the evolution of Auschwitz from a labor camp to a highly-systematic mass killing site, and the potential value of an Allied bombing raid. But Pilecki's accounts were ignored and shelved for various political reasons, leaving Pilecki inside hell to wait for the Allied bombers that were not coming.

This is an important, historic book full of bravery as well as atrocities from the reality that was Auschwitz. Witold Pilecki is about the most courageous, fearless, patient man imaginable. His untiring devotion to the Polish cause and to destroy Auschwitz, his cleverness and leadership that inspire hope and pride among fellow prisoners is incredibly heartening. Despite all the Nazi horror depicted, the ignorance, the brutality, this is Pilecki's story and that of the people of Poland trying to survive and keep their country alive.

After all this sadness and loss of faith in man's nature, I felt the need to read Maya Angelou's poem of hope, "A Brave and Startling Truth." I needed to restore my faith that humans are not completely cruel and heartless, that there is good in us that will survive even the most atrocious of people and events. The poem is attached below in hopes that it will counterbalance the shock of the events of this powerful book and reinforce the reality that good people like Witold Pilecki will triumph over evil.

A Brave and Startling Truth - by Maya Angelou

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Hillenbrand, Laura. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption.   

True story of track star Louis Zamperini as he is shot down during World War II, drifted for weeks in a life raft, only to be "rescues" by enemy  Japanese who place him in a brutal prisoner-of-war camp. Shocking and inspiring in Zamperini's stoic resolve to survive whatever the world throws at him. Brilliantly written.

The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted

Hillman, Robert. The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted. New York: Putnam 2018. Print

First Sentences:

She didn't stay long as far as marriages go, just a year and ten months. Her note was brief, too:

       I'm leaving. Don't know what to say.    

                Love, Trudy. 

Description:

Here's an extremely well-written novel centering around a bookstore but has very little to do with books or the store itself. I just picked up Robert Hillman's The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted thinking I would be reading about the goings-on in a small shop with quirky characters, descriptions of books, and the evolution of like among readers.

But I was wrong ... and it turned out so much better for me.

Here we meet Tom Hope, recently-abandoned husband who farms in rural Australia, and Hannah, newly-arrived from Hungary who hires Tom to set up bookshelves in her new shop, the first bookshop ever in this sleepy town. No problem that Tom hasn't read a book in years. He and Hannah strike up a friendship as he works to make her bookshop habitable.

So many books. It was like looking at the blocks of the pyramids sitting on the sand on a daunting day one of construction.

But there is something about Hannah that is mysterious. Although she won't talk about her past, we eventually learn she is a Holocaust survivor who lost her family. Both she and Tom have broken hearts that slowly are somewhat eased through their friendship. But then Tom's wife returns, pregnant by another man. She throws everyone's life into uncertainty when after the birth of the baby she leaves again to join a religious cult, leaving Tom to raise the newborn baby Peter.

Will Trudy return ever? Will Tom and Hannah be able to console and mend together? And what about the boy Peter, torn between his mother and father?

Maybe this sounds like just another weepy romance novel, but au contraire. It is a lovely story, truly a high-quality read in all the important ways: writing, plot, character, and setting, with a very satisfying ending. Suffice to say the book is full of heartache, strength, thoughtfulness, unexpected passion, joy, and in the end even some satisfaction for characters and readers alike. 

I've been recommending this book to many people recently, so hope others will pick it up for a try. You won't be disappointed, and probably will find yourself fully engrossed in the lives of these gentle, sympathetic characters trying to deal with real sadness and get on with their lives in rural Australia.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Haruf, Kent. Plainsong.   

Two elderly bachelor farmers living on the outskirts of a small town in Colorado take in a pregnant teenager, completely changing their lives and routines forever. Wonderfully written. Highest recommendation.

Every Man a Hero

Lambert, Ray. Every Man a Hero: A Memoir of D-Day, the First Wave at Omaha Beach, and a World at War. New York: HarperCollins 2019. Print

First Sentences:

Colleville-sur-Mer is a picturesque village in northern France, blessed with a lovely beach on the English Channel....

I've seen it that way myself. But for me, a far different scene is never far from my mind. 

Description:

Ninety-eight-year-old Ray Lambert may be one of the last surviving American soldiers who landed at Normandy Beach on June 6, 1944. While normally not outgoing about his wartime experiences, he finally decided that the history of that day should be told from a first-hand account. Thus he wrote, along with co-author Jim DeFelice, the brilliant Every Man a Hero: A Memoir of D-Day, the First Wave at Omaha Beach, and a World at War.

For many years, I kept the story of that day to myself. Largely, this was because I chose to move on...I also felt my story was not worth telling. I landed at Omaha, but thousands did...I did what I was called to do...I was always an ordinary man...

In this compelling autobiography, U.S. Army Staff Sargent Ray Lambert takes us from his early days growing up on a farm in rural Alabama through his enlistment and training as a medic to his front-line landings at North Africa, Sicily, and finally Normandy, France. 

One hundred sixty thousand men, five thousand ships, and thirteen thousand airplanes took part in an assault that ultimately decided the war. It was one of the bloodiest days in one of the bloodiest conflicts mankind has ever fought.

His job at these sites was to be among the first to land on the beach, establish some sort of shelter (like a large rock) to act as a triage location, then plunge back into the water to drag injured soldiers to shore and the shelter. Back and forth he slogged, bullets whizzing around him or actually hitting him as he continued to aide incapacitated men.

Lambert gives some back story about army life, commanding officers, strategies, and the mindsets of an "ordinary" soldier. Lambert describes, in the terse sentences below, his feelings when facing the experienced, war-tested Germans for the first time, an enemy who "knew how to kill" and "weren't reluctant to do it."

One of the biggest factors, in my opinion, was our inexperience. Not only did we not really know war yet, we didn't know how to kill....It's knowledge you need to get into your bones, into your heart. It's a harsh thing, but without it, you and your friends are dead, your battle is lost, and what you came to fight for is forfeit.

Lambert was definitely a hero and leader in these historic events, winning a Silver Star and multiple Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts. At Normandy on D-Day, he admitted to saving over a dozen men, and almost died from wounds and having a landing craft ramp drop onto his head. Yet throughout the book he defers praise for his actions and repeatedly refers to "every man was a hero."

A lot of things can be forgiven in war; letting the guy next to you down isn't one of them.

We learn from Lambert about Bangalore torpedoes, ("long, slim pipes that contained explosives and were slipped in or under barbed wire, then exploded to clear a path"). We learn that GIs carried Browning Automatic Rifles, the first ever light-weight machine guns. 

And we watch through Lambert's eyes the actual events leading up to, during, and after the landing at Omaha Beach.. We feel his surprise when he and his thirty seasick fellow soldiers in the landing craft realize that the early parties sent to clear land and ocean mines as well as barbed wire had all been killed before they could do their job. They now understood they would be landing in heavily defended, explosive-ridden beaches. But they also found out that the dreaded major German artillery weapons were away from the beach that day being serviced and, once located by American troops, quickly destroyed.

It is a riveting account of a dreadful day fought by ordinary men trying to turn the course of the War. Your heart is definitely in your throat as the seconds tick away until the landing craft's ramp drop and everyone piles out into the freezing water under a hail of gunfire. You are almost there with Lambert as he describes the scenes through every sense. You can feel the pounding of explosions

...more physical than something thumping against your chest. It pounds your bones, rumbling through your organs, counter-beating your heart. Your skull vibrates. You feel the noise as if it's inside you.

It is a harrowing, thrilling, and gut-wrenching account. A must-read for anyone even remotely interested in the turning point of the War and the men who planned and carried out the fighting.

Every man on that beach was a hero. Each one braved incredible gunfire, artillery, mortar shells, obstructions, mines. Each man had his own story. This books tells mine.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Hochschild, Adam. To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918.   

Incredibly detailed, fascinating, horrifying, and inspiring history of World War I, the events and personalities that led the world into war, the battles and armies themselves, and the aftermath. Unforgettable. (previously reviewed here)

The Secret Life of Codebreakers

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:

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

(See more recommended books)
________________________________________

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.