Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park

A good adjunct to Robert Harris's historical novel Enigma, this collection comprises about twenty first-person reminiscences of work at Bletchley Park. Most of them start with how the person was recruited - these usually involve a secret talk by an old friend or professor, since nothing could be divulged about Bletchley Park until the person actually agreed to join.One of the most interesting features of the collection is the wide range of characters who show up. Some were mathematicians. Some were naval officers. Some were classicists. Some were chess players. Yet all were loyal, all helped protect Britain.A few of the notable passages I can remember follow.Stuart Milner-Barry's is one of the more accessible essays (many of them focus on various technical aspects of cryptanalysis or of translation). His essay begins "When the war broke out in 1939 I was in the Argentine, playing chess for the British team in the Olympiad. My great friend and rival, C.H.O'D. Alexander, was another member, as was Harry Golombek, late chess correspondent of The Time." All these folks wound up being recruited into Bletchley Park, and Milner-Barry focuses on the personalities rather than the technical side.Perhaps the most memorable and the most moving essay in the book was by Walter Eytan, who worked on translating decrypted traffic in Hut 4. Eytan was one of the few Jews at Bletchley Park, and his essay concludes:"I may be the only one who will recall a peculiarly poignant moment when in late 1943 or early 1944 we intercepted a signal from a small German-commissioned vessel in the Aegean, reproting for Piraeus zur Endloesung ('for the final solution'). I had never seen or heard this expression before, but instinctively I knew what it must mean, and I have never forgotten that moment."There is much else worthwhile in the book, and it helps paint a fuller picture of Bletchley Park than some of the narrower accounts I have seen.

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.

This book consists of 30 essays divided into four sections – The Production of Ultra Intelligence, Enigma, Fish (the German Lorenz machine), and Field Ciphers and Tactical Codes. These essays were written by the men and women who worked at Bletchley Park deciphering German, Italian and Japanese codes and ciphers. Their stories range from the human elements of their work (how they were recruited, working and living conditions, etc.) to technical aspects of how they went about their deciphering efforts. Some of the book is technical, but for the most part the book is completely accessible to someone without any deciphering experience or even a desire to delve deeply into the details to this field.I recommend this book to people interested in learning more about what went on at Bletchley Park, as told by the people who worked there.

I chose 3 because the information on code breaking was way above my head. I am sure people who are more technically inclined would give this a higher rating. These are first hand accounts so obviously this is very authentic information. I would have liked a more readable style and although these are personal accounts - there is very little that is 'personal' in here and yet, I do get the secrecy under which these amazing people worked. One is left to grab bits and pieces of writings from the various contributers to try and understand how bleeps and buzzes (or even words) are snatched from a maze of air noise on radio transmitters and then eventually are deciphered to be the game plan of German forces to aid Allied armies in their battle. I think one has to be a mathematician to get the whole story of decoding.For me, the info on decoding was just too staggering to understand.

I'm one of those who believe that BP literally won the war. If you apply the principle of Ockham's Razor it's evident to me that everything hinged on the Battle of the Atlantic, which the Nazis came very close to winning, and would have won if BP hadn't been reading their communications. If Hitler had succeeded in stopping the convoys to Britain and Murmansk, he would have had things "all wrapped up." (with England and Russia no longer in the war). This is by way of saying that I highly recommend "Codebreakers" as an excellent collection of essays about some of the events and personalities of Bletchley Park, about an era that is fading from living memory.

30 first-hand accounts (50+ years later!) of WW2 code-breaking activities carried out by the British in Bletchley Park and beyond.The content is sometimes a bit repetitive as different folks recall the same events, and obviously memories have been dimmed somewhat by the passage of time, but overall a very readable collection fo memories from WW2, including details of some of the codes.

Excellent insight into the workings of Bletchley during the last war.However, as an 81 year old my mathematical brain struggled with the explanations the authors gave as to how they cracked some of the codes.

I have recently been to Bletchley Park itself, the book itself was/is very informative,and interesting,explains exactly how the various codes were decoded, and what really happened at the park, we owe so much to the people who worked there. A good book for any one researching 1940---1945.

A good book, though short. More detail would be more interesting. Generally, not bad. Quite informative on the whole.

Outstanding look into the inner workings of Bletchley Park and the outstanding team of Enigma code breakers.

This Kindle layout is appauling. Large difference in fonts on same page, make it impossible to read. Enlarge one paragraph to read, then have to reduce to carry on & on & on