Station X: Decoding Nazi Secrets

A former intelligence officer describes the achievements of the codebreakers working at Bletchley Park during World War II.

A bestseller in the U.K., this gripping account of British intelligence's cracking of the Nazi Enigma machine code during WWII is the basis of a PBS Nova documentary. Billed as the first book on the subject to incorporate interviews with the code-breakers since the declassification of official files, the volume is packed with revelations and the voices of these largely unsung heroes. While most histories of Enigma focus on the top brains such as mathematician Alan Turing, Smith (New Cloak, Old Dagger, etc.), a reporter for London's Daily Telegraph, portrays the top-secret code-breaking operation at Bletchley Park ("Station X"), a quaint Victorian mansion outside London, as a vast collaborative effort involving several thousand people, the great majority of them women. An odd mix of Cambridge mathematicians, seasoned and novice code-busters, eccentrics, spies, bureaucrats, German-language students, patriotic volunteers and clerical assistants, they tell their stories with a refreshing modesty that makes their saga all the more inspiring. Without getting bogged down in technical complexities, Smith illuminates how the Bletchley Park cryptanalysts' ingenuity, obsessive persistence and "Alice in Wonderland-type thought processes" enabled them to decipher the Germans' chameleon code. The intelligence obtained from Enigma decrypts shortened the war and saved countless lives by furnishing information vital to the Allies' D-Day invasion, the British sinking of U-boats and campaigns in Italy, North Africa and the Balkans. On one level, this page-turner is a deeply satisfying parable of the power of humane intellect to defeat evil; it's also a stunning re-creation of one of the most important chapters in the war. Photos.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

World War II espionage and codebreaking are popular book subjects these days, and Station X adds to the growing stack of cloak-and-dagger histories published recently. Written by a former intelligence officer, now a senior journalist for the London Daily Telegraph, this book focuses on the history of the famous top-secret British codebreaking organization located in a Victorian mansion just outside London. From 1939 to 1945, the eccentrics of Station X broke the "unbreakable" German Enigma codes and allowed the Allied leadership to read all the secret, encrypted messages of the German army, navy, and Luftwaffe. Smith provides fascinating anecdotes of how codebreaking played an important role during the Battle of Britain, the Battle of the Atlantic, and the North African and Normandy operations and in countering the German invasions of Norway and the Balkans. Best are Smith's tales of how the British prevented the Germans from ever finding out that their secret codes had been compromised. Although a bit technical, this is a useful addition for World War II buffs. Recommended for larger public and academic libraries.
-Col. William D. Bushnell, USMC (ret.), Brunswick, ME
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.