The Secrets of Station X: How the Bletchley Park codebreakers helped win the war (Dialogue Espionage Classics)

Michael Smith

ISBN 10: 1849540950 / ISBN 13: 9781849540957

Published by Biteback Publishing, United Kingdom, London, 2011

When Captain Ridley's shooting partyA" arrived at Bletchley Park in 1939 no-one would have guessed that by 1945 the guests would number nearly 10,000 and that collectively they would have contributed decisively to the Allied war effort. Their role? To decode the Enigma cypher used by the Germans for high-level communications. It is an astonishing story. A melting pot of Oxbridge dons maverick oddballs and more regular citizens worked night and day at Station X, as Bletchley Park was known, to derive intelligence information from German coded messages. Bear in mind that an Enigma machine had a possible 159 million million million different settings and the magnitude of the challenge becomes apparent. That they succeeded, despite military scepticism, supplying information that led to the sinking of the Bismarck, Montgomery's victory in North Africa and the D-Day landings, is testament to an indomitable spirit that wrenched British intelligence into the modern age, as the Second World War segued into the Cold War. Michael Smith constructs his absorbing narrative around the reminiscences of those who worked and played at Bletchley Park, and their stories add a very human colour to their cerebral activity. The code breakers of Station X did not win the war but they undoubtedly shortened it, and the lives saved on both sides stand as their greatest achievement. Seller Inventory # GOR008436805

Synopsis:

The astonishing story of how the British codebreakers of Bletchley Park cracked the Nazi Enigma cyphers, cutting an estimated two years off the Second World War, never ceases to amaze.

No one is better placed to tell that story than Michael Smith, whose number one bestseller Station X was one of the earliest accounts. Using recently released secret files, along with personal interviews with many of the codebreakers themselves, Smith now provides the definitive account of everything that happened at Bletchley Park during the war, from breaking the German, Italian and Japanese codes to creating the world's first electronic computer. The familiar picture of Bletchley Park is of eccentric elderly professors breaking German codes, but in fact the vast majority of people who worked at Bletchley Park were young women. For them and for the young graduates plucked from Britain's best universities who did the bulk of the day-to-day codebreaking, this was truly the time of their lives. The Secrets of Station X tells their story in full, providing an enthralling account of one of the most remarkable British success stories of all time.

About the Author:

Michael Smith is the bestselling author The Secrets of Station X, The Spying Game and Foley among others. He is an award-winning journalist who has worked for the BBC, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Times. He lives in Oxfordshire.

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Secrets of Station X: How the Bletchley ...
Publisher: Biteback Publishing, United Kingdom, London
Publication Date: 2011
Binding: Paperback
Condition: Fine