Decoy - Softcover

Pope, Dudley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1555472338 ISBN 13: 9781555472337

Publisher: Critics Choice Paperbacks, 1988

Synopsis

Using the Hydra cipher sent through the secret Enigma code machine, Admiral Donitz talked freely with his U-boats as they ranged the Atlantic, seeking and sinking Allied convoys. At Bletchley Park, British cipher experts eavesdropped on Enigma and read almost every Hydra signal to and from the U-boats. Thanks to Bletchley, the Royal Navy had a secret eye in Donitz's headquarters. But suddenly the 'eye' was blinded: in February 1942, the U-boat command changed the Hydra cipher and altered the Enigma machine. The 'Great Blackout' had started: the Admiralty no longer knew where the U-boats were or what they were doing.

About this title

About the Author:

Dudley Bernard Egerton Pope was born in 1925 into an ancient Cornish seafaring family. He joined the Merchant Navy at the age of sixteen and spent much of his early life at sea. He was torpedoed during the Second World War and his resulting spinal injuries plagues him for the rest of his life. Towards the end of the war he turned to jouralism becoming the Naval and Defence Correspondent for the London Evening News. Encouraged by Hornblower creator CS Forester, he began writing fiction using his own experiences in the Navy and his extensive historical reseacrh as a basis. In 1965 he wrote 'Ramage', the first of his highly successful series of novels following the exploits of the heroic Lord Nicholas Ramage during the Napoleonic Wars. He continued to live aboard boats whenever possible and this was where he wrote the majority of his novels. Dudley Pope died in 1997 aged seventy one. 'The first and still favourite rival to Hornblower' - Daily Mirror

From Publishers Weekly:

With a mass of revealing period detail, much action and irreverent humor, Pope here goes above and beyond most World War II thrillers. In the dark winter of 19411942, Lieut. Commander Ned Yorke is ordered, by Churchill no less, to obtain a new Enigma machine and its Hydra cipher from the Germans. The British have the older, Mark II, Enigma, but only a Mark III will enable them to monitor German U-boat wireless messages, a crucial element in the Battle of the Atlantic. Yorke assembles a couple of chums and 20 hands for a daring escapade: as apparent shipwreck survivors they're picked up in the North Atlantic by a U-boat, then overpower its crew and take it over, along with its new Enigma. Their initial success is marred, however, by lack of radio transmission and the real danger, and many adventures, are encountered on their voyage back to Britain. Pope is best known for his swashbuckling Ramage novels but he certainly knows his way around World War II. December 16
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Critics Choice Paperbacks
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 1555472338
• ISBN 13: 9781555472337
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272