Enigma: The Battle for the Code

by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore

• ISBN13: 9780471437215
• ISBN10: 0471437212
• Format: eBook
• Copyright: 2002-03-01
• Publisher: Wiley

Summary

"cracking stuff . . . vivid and hitherto unknown details."-Sunday Times (London) The complete untold story of the cracking of the infamous Nazi code Most histories of the cracking of the elusive Enigma code focus on the work done by the codebreakers at Bletchley Park, Britain's famous World War II counterintelligence station. In this fascinating account, however, we are told, for the first time, the hair-raising stories of the heroic British and American sailors, spies, and secret agents who put their lives on the line to provide the codebreakers with the materials they needed. Noted British journalist Hugh Sebag-Montefiore tracked down many of the surviving players in the Enigma drama, and these witnesses-some of them speaking on record for the first time-provide unforgettable firsthand accounts of the courageous men and women who faced death in order to capture vital codebooks from sinking ships and snatch them from under the noses of Nazi officials. In addition to these gripping stories, we learn fascinating new details about the genesis of the code and the feverish activities at Bletchley. Enigma is a spellbinding account of the brilliant feat of decryption that turned the tide of World War II.

Author Biography

Hugh Sebag-Montefiore is an attorney and journalist who has written for numerous British newspapers, including the Sunday Times, the Sunday Telegraph, and the Observer

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	v
Acknowledgements	vii
Introduction	1	(8)
Prologue	9	(6)
The Betrayal	15	(6)
Belgium and Germany, 1931
The Leak	21	(10)
Poland, Belgium and Germany, 1929-38
An Inspired Guess	31	(8)
Poland, 1932
A Terrible Mistake	39	(7)
Poland, 1933-9
Flight	46	(13)
Germany, Poland and England, 1939-40
The First Capture	59	(10)
Scotland, 1940
Mission Impossible	69	(10)
Norway and Bletchley Park, 1940
Keeping the Enigma Secret	79	(14)
France and Bletchley Park, May-September 1940
Deadlock	93	(10)
Bletchley Park, August-October, 1940
The Italian Affair	103	(14)
Bletchley Park and the Mediterranean, March 1941
The End of the Beginning	117	(6)
Norway, March 1941
Breakthrough	123	(9)
North of Iceland, May 1941
Operation Primrose	132	(15)
The Atlantic, May 1941
The Knock-Out Blow	147	(9)
North of Iceland, June 1941
Suspicion	156	(12)
Bletchley Park, the Atlantic and Berlin, May-October 1941
A Two-Edged Sword	168	(10)
The Atlantic and the Cape Verde Islands, September 1941
Living Dangerously	178	(10)
The South Atlantic and Norway, November 1941-March 1942
The Hunt for the Bigram Tables	188	(14)
Bletchley Park and Norway, December 1941
Black Out	202	(17)
The Barents Sea, Bletchley Park and the Admiralty, February-July 1942
Breaking the Deadlock	219	(14)
The Mediterranean and Bletchley Park, October-December 1942
The Turning Point	233	(13)
South of France, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, November 1942-September 1943
Trapped	246	(7)
South of France, November 1942-March 1943
The Arrest	253	(5)
Berlin, March-September 1943
Sinking the Scharnhorst	258	(9)
The Barents Sea, December 1943
Operation Covered	267	(19)
Paris, the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic, August 1943-March 1944
The Last Hiccough	286	(18)
Germany, France and the South Atlantic, March-June 1944
Epilogue - Where did they go?	304	(6)
Chronology	310	(11)
Glossary	321	(3)
Appendix 1 Polish Codebreaking Techniques	324	(1)
Appendix 2 The Bombe	324	(17)
Appendix 3 Naval Enigma	341	(13)
Appendix 4 Cillis	354	(3)
Appendix 5 Rodding	357	(11)
Appendix 6 Naval Enigma Offizier	368	(6)
Notes	374	(36)
Bibliography	410	(3)
Index	413