Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park

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Summary: The Secret Weapon That Won The War
Review: After a long period of silence, many books about the accomplishments of Allied forces in breaking the codes and ciphers of German, Italian and Japanese forces in World War II have been published over the last twenty years. Most of these books have been either written by one of the individuals who worked on a few of the specific enemy codes, or an editor who crafted a story by interviewing a number of people who were part of the Allied code breaking effort. Unlike most of other books on the subject, Code Breakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park is a collection of 30 first hand accounts about the daily grind and life at Bletchley Park and its outstations written by different individuals who worked there during WWII.

First, a little background about the subject of the book for those who may not be familiar the British code breaking activities in WWII. Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), the British organization responsible for intercepting and decoding foreign communications, was moved from London to Bletchley Park shortly before the start of WWII to provide a safer location. Bletchley Park (BP) started as a small operation with less than 100 people in 1939. By the end of the war, BP had broken almost all enemy ciphers and codes, including the formidable German mechanical encryption machines Enigma and Fish, and intercepted and decoded thousands of critical enemy messages that changed the course of the war. During this process, the headcount Bletchley Park had grown to more than seven thousand including some of the leading mathematicians in the world like Alan Turing.

Code Breakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park gives as a cross section of the different kinds of people who worked at BP between 1939 to 1945. We learn about how they were recruited, what they worked on, how they attacked the problems, how they felt and what the general atmosphere was like.

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Summary: Somewhat boring, but interesting and comprehensive.
Review: I agree with one of the reviewers that this book is "not what I exactly expected." It is more of a personal account that dramatic reading. However, if you can get through of a lot of the personal stories that you are not interested in, the activity in code breaking is informative. - Not the greatest book of non-fiction, but it could be a 5-star to the Brits involved.

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Summary: Lots of good info; some topics missing
Review: This book is a set of essays by people who actually worked at Bletchley Park during World War II, and describes in some detail what they did. Much of it is dry reading. That's because real cryptology is mostly dry work; months of boredom interrupted by moments of joy or chagrin. For those who care about World War II cryptology this is a "must read," but read either the 1967 or the 1996 edition of David Kahn's "The Codebreakers" first; otherwise, some of this book won't make much sense, for lack of context.

Some of the most interesting work done at Bletchley Park, and some of the most valuable people who worked there, are not mentioned at all in this book; not even a hint. I assume this is because of two problems: the British Official Secrets Act presumably still applies to a good deal of what happened at Bletchley Park, and the topics of inquiry that involved both British and American personnel could hardly be described in detail without the agreement of NSA, which might be hard to come by in some cases. I wish that two friends of mine who worked at Bletchley Park had been able to write memoirs of their work and their interactions with colleagues. But that didn't happen. However, we can hope that the remaining veil of official silence will be lifted some day.

Rating:
Summary: Required Reading
Review: This book was not what I was expecting. It is a dry narrative account of the "Hut" workers at Bletchley Park. I was really interested in how Enigma was broken not in the daily administrative work. It did have really good information on the significance of the contribution of the codebreakers to the Allied victory. But this was just in the introduction

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Summary: Love Cryptography? Read this.
Review: This is a great history of the work that went on at Bletchley Park during WWII. The work that led up to breaking the Enigma machines, the people who made it possible (Turing etc) are all described in detail - great informational book for anyone interested in the history of codebreaking.

Rating:
Summary: Not really what I'd expected
Review: When I purchased this book I expected a coherent study of what Bletchley Park was like during its WWII heyday. I knew that its contents were derived from the collected input of a number of people who were at Bletchley at that time. It is actually a collection of short essays by these people. Each has a slightly different theme and focus. Some of the essay were quite interesting, but over all, I did not come away with any kind of coherent understanding of how Bletchley Park operated, what it was like to work there, etc. I wish there had been an over-arching narrative to tie the pieces together.

Rating:
Summary: Not really what I'd expected
Review: When I purchased this book I expected a coherent study of what Bletchley Park was like during its WWII heyday. I knew that its contents were derived from the collected input of a number of people who were at Bletchley at that time. It is actually a collection of short essays by these people. Each has a slightly different theme and focus. Some of the essay were quite interesting, but over all, I did not come away with any kind of coherent understanding of how Bletchley Park operated, what it was like to work there, etc. I wish there had been an over-arching narrative to tie the pieces together.

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Summary: The Old Vets Gather for a Last Hurrah
Review: When the gag order was finally lifted circa 1970 on the Bletchley Park operations, a lot of scientific, historical, and technical histories appeared. And there was a great hue and cry among military and political historians that the whole history of the British and American war against Hitlerian Germany would have to be rewritten. Well, much of that has been proven to be just hyperbole but it is generally agreed that the war was shortened by about two years. But the closer the Allies got to Germany the less role Bletchley played for the German forces used landlines for most strategic communications from mid 1944 on. Also they had another machine known as FISH which was not as easily read as Enigma. This book is a collection of personal narratives of life at Bletchley and how tedious most of the work there was, no matter how essential. Harry Hinsley, one of the authors, was a "whiz kid" recruited directly from university and after the war became a professor without ever completing his studies. Over the years he has written the monumental multivolume official history of British intelligence operations in WW II and many historical papers. Alan Stripp, was one of the original operatives and served for many years.