A Game of Birds and Wolves: The Secret Game that Revolutionised the War

1942. Liverpool. The war isn't going to plan. Distinguished Admiral Sir Max Horton is in the game room on his knees commanding a fleet of toy German U-boats. Behind a curtain his unknown opponent is manoeuvring the toy British battleships. Five times the pair have played the game and five times Horton's U-boats have suffered defeat. Exasperated, he demands to know his enemy. And from behind the curtain steps a fresh-faced seventeen-year-old woman.

This is the story of a game of battleships that won the Second World War, and the unlikely heroes of the Western Approaches Tactical Unit - a retired naval captain and eight young Wrens - whose eureka moment cracked the battle of the Atlantic. It features cameos from a war-ravaged Churchill and an exceptional Nazi mastermind submariner, and takes us from the sweaty fug of German U-boat as it torpedoes a British evacuee ship, to the tense atmosphere of the wartime strategy room.

The story of Operation Raspberry and its unsung heroines has never been told before. Investigative journalist Simon Parkin brings these hidden figures into the light in this gripping tale of war at sea.