"Battle of Wits: The Complete Story of Codebreaking in World War II" by Stephen Budiansky

UK Edition

"A million pages of new World War II codebreaking records have been released by the U.S. Army and Navy and the British government over the last five years. Now, Battle of Wits presents the history of the war that these documents reveal. From the battle of Midway until the last German code was broken in January 1945, this is an astonishing epic of a war that was won not simply by brute strength but also by reading the enemy's intentions. The revelations of Stephen Budiansky's dramatic history include how Britain tried to manipulate the American codebreakers and monopolize German Enigma code communications; the first detailed published explanations of how the Japanese codes were broken; and how the American codebreaking machines worked to crack the Japanese, the German, and even the Russian diplomatic codes."

"The Emperor's Codes: The Breaking of Japan's Secret Ciphers"
by Michael Smith

UK Edition

"In this gripping, previously untold story from World War II, Michael Smith examines how a group of eccentric codebreakers cracked Japan's secret codes and turned the tide of the war in the Pacific. Drawing upon recently declassified British files, privileged access to Australian secret official histories, and interviews with many of the men involved, The Emperor's Codes takes the reader step-by-step through the codebreaking process, explaining exactly how the codebreakers went about their daunting task-made even more difficult by the vast linguistic differences between Japanese and English. It details the grueling work and almost unfathomable dedication demonstrated by these relatively unsung heroes, without whose extraordinary exploits the outcome of World War II might have been very different."

"Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park"
by F. H. Hinsley (Editor) & Alan Stripp (Editor)

UK Edition

"Bletchley Park was arguably the most successful intelligence agency in world history, the top secret workplace of the remarkable people who cracked Germany's vaunted Enigma Code. Almost to the end of the war, the Germans had firm faith in the Enigma ciphering machine, but in fact the codebreakers were deciphering nearly 4,000 German transmissions daily by 1942. Indeed, Winston Churchill hailed the work of Bletchley Park as the `secret weapon' that won the war. With anecdotes and descriptions, this is an account of daily life at Government Communications Headquarters, Bletchley Park, the most successful intelligence agency in history. Described by Churchill as the "secret weapon" that "won the war", the men and women of Bletchley Park here combine to write their story in full. This book gives insights into recruitment and training, together with a full and accurate account of codes and ciphers and how they are broken."

"Enigma: The Battle for the Code" by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore

"Most histories of the cracking of the Enigma code focus on the work done by the codebreakers at Bletchley Park, Britain's famous counterintelligence station. In addition to providing new details about the genesis of the code and the activities at Bletchley, Enigma tells, for the first time, the hair-raising stories of those who put their lives on the line to give the codebreakers the materials they needed. While researching the book, noted British journalist Hugh Sebag-Montefiore tracked down many of the surviving players in the Enigma drama. These witnesses-some of them speaking on the record for the first time-provide unforgettable firsthand accounts, including gripping stories of the secret agents, naval officers, and ordinary seamen who faced death in order to snatch vital codebooks from under the noses of Nazi officials and from sinking ships."

"Combined Fleet Decoded: The Secret History of American Intelligence and the Japanese Navy in World War II" by John Prados

"Written in the style of a thriller but solidly based on an array of sources, this study reinterprets the entire sea campaign in the Pacific, using intelligence as the missing key to the Allied success. It examines every aspect of the secret war of intelligence--from radio dispatches and espionage to vital information from prisoners and document translation--showing how U.S. intelligence outsmarted Japan nearly every step of the way. The resulting assessment is a virtual rewriting of history that challenges previous conceptions about the Pacific conflict. John Prados relates the growing intelligence knowledge on both sides to the progress and outcome of naval actions. Along the way he offers a wealth of revelations that include data on how the United States caught the superbattleship Yamato and the impact of intelligence on the initial campaigns in the Philippines and Netherlands East Indies and the escape of American codebreakers from Corregidor."

"The Secret in Building 26: The Untold Story of America's Ultra War Against the U-boat Enigma Codes" by Jim DeBrosse & Colin Burke

"The Ultra secret (Allied decryption of German messages during World War II) has produced a growing body of literature since it was revealed 30 years ago, indicative not only of steady interest in the topic but also of the fact that it still retains its own secrets. DeBrosse and Burke benefit from the former, and make fascinating disclosures of the latter, in their account of the machines, called "bombes," that broke the German encryption tool, Enigma. Due to wartime exigencies, the construction of bombes, first built by the British, shifted to the NCR Company in Dayton, Ohio. On the technical side, the authors detail problems in building them and the ensuing strain placed on NCR's man in charge. On the intelligence side, DeBrosse and Burke dramatically recount a crisis generated by a complication added to Enigma in 1942 that, for the moment, thwarted Ultra and gained U-boats the upper hand."

"The Codebreakers : The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet" by David Kahn (Editor)

"Man has created codes to keep secrets and has broken codes to learn those secrets since the time of the Pharaohs. For 4,000 years, fierce battles have been waged between codemakers and codebreakers, and the story of these battles is civilization's secret history, the hidden account of how wars were won and lost, diplomatic intrigues foiled, business secrets stolen, governments ruined, computers hacked. From the XYZ Affair to the Dreyfus Affair, from the Gallic War to the Persian Gulf, from Druidic runes and the kaballah to outer space, from the Zimmermann telegram to Enigma to the Manhattan Project, codebreaking has shaped the course of human events to an extent beyond any easy reckoning. Once a government monopoly, cryptology today touches everybody. It secures the Internet, keeps e-mail private, maintains the integrity of cash machine transactions, and scrambles TV signals on unpaid-for channels."

"The Hut Six Story : Breaking the Enigma Codes" by Gordon Welchman

"The men and women of Bletchley Park, who repeatedly broke German military cyphers throughout the Second World War, made an incalculable contribution to the allied success. This book, written by one of the code-breakers provides a fascinating insight into the process. Despite the core subject, this is not really a book about cryptography, but about how to manage people and technology to solve complex, important problems. Welchman was the "glue" between the pure ideas men like Alan Turing, and the code-breaking production line. His talents were clearly in building the organisation, and liaising between the different parties so that interception, decoding, understanding and using the intelligence became a repeatable success."

"Alan Turing: The Enigma" by Andrew Hodges & Douglas Hofstadter (Preface)

"Alan Turing (1912 - 1954) was a British mathematician who made history: His breaking of the German U-boat Enigma cipher in World War II ensured Allied-American control of the Atlantic. But Turing's vision went far beyond the desperate wartime struggle. Already in the 1930s he had defined the concept of the universal machine, which underpins the computer revolution. In 1945 he was a pioneer of electronic computer design. But Turing's true goal was the scientific understanding of the mind, brought out in the drama and wit of the famous "Turing test" for machine intelligence, and his prophecy for the twenty-first century. Drawn into the cockpit of world events and the forefront of technological innovation, Alan Turing was also an innocent and unpretentious gay man trying to live in a society that criminalized him. In 1952, he revealed his homosexuality and was forced to participate in a humiliating treatment program, and was ever after regarded as a security risk. His suicide in 1954 remains one of the many enigmas in an astonishing life story."

"Most Secret War" by R. V. Jones

"This text is Jones's account of his part in British Scientific Intelligence between 1939 and 1949. It was his responsibility to anticipate German applications of science to warfare, so that their new weapons could be countered before they were used. Much of his work had to do with radio navigation, as in the Battle of the Beams, with radar, as in the Allied Bomber Offensive and in the preparations for D-Day and in the war at sea. He was also in charge of intelligence against the V-1 (flying bomb) and the V-2 (rocket) retaliation weapons and, although the Germans were some distance behind from success, against their nuclear developments."