Lastly, Allied cryptanalysis provided the opportunities to frustrate Axis technological developments, delay their progress and keep them from becoming the scourges they might well have been. Nuclear bombs, fearsome new U-boats, jet aircraft, V-ls, particularly V-2s, were prevented from realizing their potential before they could hamstring the Allies' march to triumph.
For such reasons as these, it is not excessive to claim that in World War II the main determinant of Allied ascendancy was not warriors and armor, essential as they were, not U.S. industrial might, overpowering as it became, but codebreaking by brilliant Polish codebreakers in Warsaw, geniuses at Bletchley Park, self-sacrificing informants in the Red Orchestra and superlative cryptanalysts among the Americans.
David Kahn cited U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Walter Anderson as saying of wartime codebreaking, "It won the war!" Kahn added, "Hyperbole, to be sure, but indicative nevertheless." He went on to remark that a summation written by George Marshall, "who was certainly in a position to know, tends to support the hyperbole."
Dwight Eisenhower wrote that "Ultra was decisive." Winston Churchill declared, "We owe to the arm of General Menzies that we won the war."
The premise of this book, then, is not without support from the war's leaders. As intelligence documents that have been locked in secrecy since the war years continue to be declassified, they make the case ever stronger. The more we learn about those times, the more evident it becomes: of the many factors that contributed to the winning of the war, none had so powerful an effect as the advantage that came from the breaking of enemy messages and the guidance those decrypts gave Allied commanders. The evidence that has been assembled here points to one conclusion, whose validity the reader is asked to judge: to reassess World War II fairly is to grant that it was a codebreakers' victory.
Acknowledgments
Work on this book has been a race against time. The idea for it came to me only six years ago—in a reaction, as I've noted, against the previous reading I'd been doing since Fred Winterbotham opened my eyes fully to what, in my wartime duty, I had been a part of, an element in. I could see that the project would be hugely demanding: to assess the effects of secret intelligence in all the major theaters of the war and render defensible judgments in readable prose would be a daunting undertaking for a much younger writer. I was then in my late seventies. In the time I had left, could I possibly conduct the intensive research and manage the vast reading that the writing would entail?
Fortunately, my genes have been kind to me, allowing me these six years, plus the requisite wits and energy, to get the job done. Yes, I would have liked months rather than just days at the Public Record Office, where Britain so efficiently stores its immense detritus of once-secret intelligence from the war. Yes, my stay with John Gallehawk, archivist at Bletchley Park, was all too short. Yes, I would have welcomed more time in the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration files in College Park, Maryland—more time to allow NARA's World War II guru, John Taylor, and his associates to guide me through that labyrinth of information. Yes, I would have appreciated more opportunity to explore what I know are rich resources at the U.S. Army Military History Institute in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the Washington National Records Center and the United States Naval Institute in Maryland, and other such troves as the MacArthur Memorial Bureau of Archives in Norfolk, Virginia. And yes, there are scores of other books, articles and Web sites I would gladly have scanned as well as further interviews with the waning ranks of survivors from the war I could have pursued.
No complaints. I've had the six years to make the most of what I could accomplish. I'm fortunate in having Patricia, my wife of fifty-five years, hang in with me, not as a "golf widow" but certainly as a "writer's widow," and in addition give me great help in getting the manuscript ready for review. I'm grateful that my fellow Ultra Americans and my friends in Britain have rallied round to lend their support. And I'm most fortunate in having Richard Curtis as my ever-encouraging literary agent and Dan Slater as my ever-resourceful editor at Penguin Putnam. I thank all of you for giving me the great adventure of having my first book published as an octogenarian.
Now to notes on sources I have been able to call upon.
For general coverage of the war I've relied, of course, on Winston Churchill's magisterial six-volume history I've made a run-through of Samuel Eliot Morison's equally massive History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Primarily, though, I've concentrated on histories written after the walls of secrecy about World War II intelligence came down, histories that could begin to take into account the contributions of the codebreakers. My copy of John Keegan's The Second World War has fallen apart from overuse. Martin Gilbert's history with the same name has provided a diurnal record of the conflict—and supplied the most compendious and useful index imaginable. Otherwise, I've drawn snippets about the war from dozens of other writers—Accoce to Ziegler.
To my knowledge, there are no books aside from this one that regard the entire war from the perspective of the codebreakers. The five-volume British Intelligence in the Second World War, compiled by Harry Hinsley and three other historians, and nicely condensed by Hinsley into a one-volume abridged edition, focuses almost entirely on the war in Europe. Donald Lewin's Ultra Goes to War also deals with Europe, while his American Magic tries, less successfully, to cover codebreaking in the Pacific theater. The revised edition of David Kahn's great tome The Codebreakers includes an account of Allied successes against the "scrutable orientals" as well as rather cursorily added-on reports on the attacks against Enigma. Otherwise, writers have dealt with specific aspects of the story rather than overall assessments.
Introduction
Churchill's quote about the golden eggs: Oliver Hoare's booklet Enigma. Churchill's lines about "the secret war" are from his own Their Finest Hour.
The first, virtually unnoticed break in the secrecy about conquest of the Enigma came in Wladyslaw Kozaczuk's 1967 book, Struggle for Secrets, followed by Gustave Bertrand's equally unnoticed Enigma in 1973. It was Winterbotham's The Ultra Secret, published in 1974, that first drew world attention to the Ultra program.
Chapter 1. Belligerents: Choose Your Code Machines
The brief history of cryptology borrows from David Kahn's The Code-breakers, Stephen Budiansky's Battle of Wits, James Gannon's Stealing Secrets, Telling Lies and Simon Singh's The Code Book.
The account here of the Battle of Tannenberg is condensed from Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, while the story of the Zimmermann telegram is from her book of that title.
Painvin's success: Simon Singh, The Code Book.
Herbert Yardley's Great War experience: his The American Black. Chamber.
William Friedman's breaking Pletts's machine: Ronald Clark's The Man Who Broke Purple.
As for Scherbius's Enigma, a number of cryptographic specialists, including Kozaczuk, Kahn and Budiansky, have described its inner workings in enthusiastic detail. The account here is a synthesis, drawing particularly from Bletchley Park veteran Peter Calvocoressi's Top Secret Ultra.
Several writers, including Robert Leckie in Delivered from Evil, have mentioned the connection between Elgar's composition and the naming of Scherbius's machine.
Disclosure by Churchill of Britain's breaking of the German naval code in the Great War: Kahn's The Codebreakers.
The inventions by Hebern, Damm and Hagelin, as well as developments by the Russians and the Italians, are described by Kahn in his The Codebreakers. Clark's book tells of the work of Friedman and Rowlett on an American machine. Ralph Erskine is the source of material on Britain's Typex.
Michael Smith in The Emperor's Codes reports Japan's work on code machines.
Chapter 2. Breaking the Enigma: Poles Show the Way
Of the many tellings of the Poles' cracking of the Enigma, I've relied primarily on Rejewski's account in the appendixes of Kozaczuk's Enigma, on Kozaczuk's own version and on Kahn's explanation, the clearest and most readable, in Seiz
ing the Enigma.
The incident of the 1929 arrival of an Enigma-holding crate at the Warsaw customs office is from Kozaczuk.
For a fuller review of the stories of Hans-Thilo Schmidt and Bertrand, Kahn is also a good source.
Details of the Poles' course at Poznan and of their initial breaking of the Enigma are in Kozaczuk's Enigma, which includes Rejewski's description in the appendixes.
Rejewski's reminiscences of his final victory over the Enigma are from a typewritten copy collected by Jozef Garlinski, author of The Enigma War.
Bertrand's quote about "un moment de stupeur" is from his Enigma.
Peter Twinn tells of Dilly Knox happily chanting "Nous avons le QWERTZU" in his contribution to Codebreakers, edited by Harry Hinsley and Alan Stripp.
Chapter 3. Britain Takes Over the Cryptologic War
British Intelligence in the Second World War, by Hinsley et al, is the essential source of information on the Ultra work at Bletchley Park.
Andrew Hodges has written the fine biography Alan Turing: The Enigma, while Gordon Welchman has told of his own days at BP in The Hut Six Story. More on Welchman is reported in Nigel West's The Sigint Secrets.
Details of Alastair Denniston's contributions are from numerous sources, especially Kahn's Seizing the Enigma.
The report on Herivel's tip relies mostly on Michael Smith's Station X, while that on "cillis" is drawn from Welchman.
The Wrens' problems with the bombes: Diana Payne's essay "The Bombes," in Hinsley and Stripp's Codebreakers.
In Ultra Goes to War, Ronald Lewin tells of Welchman's organization plan for BP.
An entire section of Hinsley and Stripp's Codebreakers is devoted to various slants on Fish. Other useful texts: Michael Smith's Station X, Lewin's Ultra Goes to War and Singh's The Code Book.
These sources have been supplemented by personal research in the historical files of Bletchley Park, at Britain's Public Record Office (PRO) and at Hall Place, Bexley, Kent, where the Santa Fe intercept station was operated. Also by interviews with Pat Bing and Molly Brewster of the BP staff, with Anthony Sale, who rebuilt the Colossus as a BP exhibit, and with the late George Vergine, an Ultra American who worked on Fish and who left with me a copy of his own reminiscences of those days.
Chapter 4. BP Begins Exploiting Its "Gold Mine"
To the usual sources of Churchill, Winterbotham, Hinsley, Calvocoressi, Kahn, Lewin, Keegan and Gilbert, I've added Len Deighton and Max Hastings's Battle of Britain, Peter Wescombe's Bletchley Park and the Luftwaffe, R. V. Jones's Most Secret War and Correlli Barnett's The Desert Generals.
The Welchman quote about the gold mine is not from his Hut Six Story but from his later essay "From Polish Bomba to British Bombe: The Birth of Ultra," in Codebreaking and Signals Intelligence, edited by Christopher Andrew.
The commander's quote about the Germans' knowledge of British shipping is from Hinsley et al.
Hinsley tells of his post-Glorious improvement in status with the Admiralty in his essay "Bletchley Park, the Admiralty and Naval Enigma," in Codebreakers.
Frederick Pile's quote about Dowding: Deighton and Hastings.
Hitler's furious response to the bombing of Berlin: Lewin. His quote about the losses from a Channel crossing: Gilbert.
The doggerel about the local scorn BP males had to endure: Irene Young's Enigma Variations.
The Brauchitsch quote is from Liddell Hart's The German Generals Talk, and that of Kesselring from his A Soldier's Record.
Churchill's words about the German leaders' passing the buck to Goring is from his Their Finest Hour.
The debate over Churchill's competence as a wartime leader is covered at length by Christopher Hitchens in his article "The Medals of His Defeats," in The Atlantic Monthly, April 2002.
Much of the section on O'Connor's victory in North Africa follows Barnett, with Ultra details from Hinsley. The section on Matapan is told well by Sebag-Montefiore.
Chapter 5. Battle of the Atlantic: Cryptologic Seesaw
Since Harry Hinsley not only wrote the official history of British intelligence in World War II but also played a major role in winning the fight against the U-boats, his writings were a main source for this chapter.
David Kahn's far more readable account in Seizing the Enigma was especially useful concerning the efforts of Hinsley along with Turing and his associates in Hut 8 to engineer the capture of materials that broke open the tough German naval codes.
As a general history of the U-boat war, Barrie Pitt's Time-Life book, The Battle of the Atlantic, proved a good source.
My report on B-Dienst's successes in breaking British Admiralty codes borrows from The Battle of the Atlantic by Terry Hughes and John Costello, and from Patrick Beesly's Very Special Intelligence.
If my accounts of the methods used by B-Dienst and, conversely, by Turing are understandable, thank Budiansky's Battle of Wits and Sebag-Montefiore's Enigma: The Battle for the Code for their skillful explanations.
Rolf Noskwith's own memoir of breaking the Offizier code is included in Hinsley and Stripp's Codebreakers.
The section on the war against Germany's surface raiders synthesizes material from Hinsley, Kahn, Calvocoressi and Hughes and Costello, as does the section on Shark.
Martin Gilbert recounts the story of the German sailors trapped within the Tirpitz.
Hinsley is the source for the Admiralty's fears of defeat in early 1943.
The report on the Petard's capture of U-559, and on the sacrifice of Fasson and Grazier, condenses Kahn's account in Seizing the Enigma.
The climax of the Atlantic battle reflects the very full treatment in Michael Gannon's Black May.
Again, research at the PRO strengthened my accumulated knowledge of this long and sanguinary struggle.
Chapter 6. When Superior Intelligence Was Not Enough
Among its offerings, the Internet presents a translation in English of the whole of Mein Kampf. My reading left me wondrous of how opposing leaders during the war could have so ignored its import.
The facts about Paul Thummel and other British agents on the continent are from Hinsley et al.
Churchill's quote doubting that Germany would attack the Soviets is from his volume Their Finest Hour, as is his "lightning flash" conversion to believing it would happen. His riposte about Hitler invading hell is cited in Nicholas Bethel's Russia Besieged.
Hinsley details Britain's intelligence heads' resistance to the idea of a German attack on the Soviets and their turnaround to accepting the idea that Hitler might be anticipating "a lightning victory."
Churchill's lines about Hitler's tantrum over the coup in Yugoslavia are from Their Finest Hour.
As noted, the section on William Stephenson and William Donovan draws, rather gingerly, on William Stevenson's overblown biography of Stephenson, A Man Called Intrepid, and, more confidently, on H. Montgomery Hyde's The Quiet Canadian. Nigel West's Counterfeit Spies documents the incredible fictionalizing by Stevenson of his near namesake's story.
The section on Crete owes much to John Keegan's The Second World War for its historical coverage and to Hinsley for the codebreakers' role. Churchill's Their Finest Hour is again the source for his quotes about Crete and about Moscow being saved by the delayed start of Barbarossa.
Chapter 7. The Spies Who Never Were
Any account of the double agents who served Britain while convincing the Nazis they were serving them must begin with J. C. Masterman's The Double-Cross System. Since it was drafted soon after the war's end but not authorized for publication until 1972, it can only hint at the Ultra secret. That aspect is well covered by Hinsley. Other books that proved to be useful sources: Kahn's Hitler's Spies, Cave Brown's Bodyguard of Lies, Jeffrey Richelson's A Century of Spies, Ewen Montagu's Beyond Top Secret Ultra and Ernest Volkman's Spies: The Secret Agents Who Changed the Course of History.
I'm indebted to Nigel West's Operation Garbo for additional information about Garbo-Pujol and the belated recognition given his i
ncredible wartime services.
Tricycle—Dusko Popov—also could not get his memoir, Spy/Counterspy, approved for publication until well after the war. The pro-FBI counterattack against his version of his failed attempt to alert the U.S. to the approach of the Pearl Harbor raid is detailed in Thomas Troy's "The British Assault on J. Edgar Hoover: The Tricycle Case" and in B. Bruce-Briggs's "Another Ride on Tricycle."
Chapter 8. The U.S. Tackles Japan's Codes
This chapter in particular benefits from personal research at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration facility.
Sources for the story of William and Elizebeth Friedman, include Ronald Clark's The Man Who Broke Purple, Kahn's The Codebreakers and Frank Rowlett's The Story of Magic.
My account of Joseph Rochefort and his Hypo operation is also compiled from many sources, led by his own oral history recorded by navy scribes. Others: Edwin Layton's And I Was There, Jasper Holmes's Double-edged Secrets, Lewin''s The American Magic, Winton's Ultra in the Pacific and Kahn's The Codebreakers.
The reference to Admiral Stark's memorandum to FDR is from Joseph Persico's Roosevelt's Secret War.
Among the scurrilous publications claiming that FDR conspired in the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor in order to bring the U.S. into the war, my favorite dart target is Mark Emerson Willey's Pearl Harbor: The Mother of All Conspiracies. Refutations abound, as noted in the text, including books by Prange, Wohlstetter, Keegan and Persico, among others.
Source for the near misses in sounding the alert: Kahn's The Code-breakers. The account of Ralph Briggs's reception of the East Wind message is by Ellsworth Boyd in the November 2000 issue of Primedia's World War II magazine.
John Prados's Combined Fleet Decoded supplies a clear analysis of Japanese thinking behind the raid.
Layton's memoir expresses his indignation at the treatment of Kimmel and Short.
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