Ultra Goes to War: The First Account of World War II's Greatest Secret Based on Official Documents

This review was based on the out-of-print hard-cover version. It is nice to see that it has been reissued as a paperback. This book was originally published thirty years ago, just a few years after the information concerning the breaking of the German Enigma cipher machine was made public. It was one of the first books to look at the impact of this breakthrough on the Western European aspects of WWII. It does not describe any of the actual code breaking per se, only the important influence that this had on the war. Given that the book is thirty years old and that newer books covering the Enigma cipher and the Ultra secret have been published, one can reasonably ask why they should invest time on this book. I think that this book is useful because: 1. It is the classic source that many other books reference 2. Being written 25 years after the end of the war, the author had a very important perspective and was allowed to interview many of the participants. Twenty five to forty years is, in my opinion, the best time frame to write a history of any event. Twenty-five years gives some time for emotions to cool and allow for a more dispassionate look at events (a little longer is even better). Unfortunately, after 40 years many of the senior participants are dead, making interviews impossible. Thus, this book was written at the beginning of this critical period. Books written today must rely on previously published books (like this one) and on dairies, manuscripts and archives. 3. I have read a number of the more recent books concerning the Ultra secret but I have still learned new things from this book. For instance, I learned that the Colossus computer was developed not to break the Enigma code, but to break a sophisticated radio-teletype code. The book makes it clear the B-Dienst (a German code breaking group) broke the British convoy code but not the British Naval cipher (some books make it seem as if B-Dienst broke all of the British codes). There is a very nice chapter on the Special Liaison Units and the process by which Enigma decrypts were disseminated, while still keeping secret he fact that the Enigma code was broken. I recommend this book for those interested in the history of WWII, but this is not the book for you if you are primarily interested in how the Enigma cipher was broken. If that is you primary interest, I recommend Budiansky's "Battle of Wits" and "Enigma" by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore (which focuses on the capture of code machines and code books, but also has information about the code breaking process, but not quite as much as Budiansky's book). I give the book 4 stars instead of five because it is a bit dated and because of the lack of this code breaking information.

There is no doubt that the person most responsible for the Allied victory in World War II was Winston Churchill. His leadership when Great Britain stood alone against the German war machine kept the fires of opposition burning until other nations joined the fight. However, even the incredible will and talent of Churchill most likely could not have prevailed had it not been for the amazing assortment of talent assembled at Bletchley Park. This group, responsible for the interception and decryption of German messages, was known by the code name Ultra. It was the knowledge supplied by Ultra that gave a great assist to the Allied ships battling the German U-boats in the Atlantic. Ultra also provided critical information to the British air command as their fighters were slugging it out with the German Luftwaffe for control of the air over England. Had either of these battles had a different conclusion, Britain would have had to have yielded to the Axis. Ultra also provided valuable information to those planning the battles in other sectors, from the campaign in North Africa to the northern tip of Norway. Even though they were intercepts of German messages, some of them had value in the Pacific war as the Germans and Japanese had some level of coordination. One thing lost in the scale of the Allied victory is how close they came to being defeated. Although they were successful, the landings on Normandy could have been a catastrophe. Had the Germans learned of the true intention of the Allies, they could have rushed ready reserves to the beaches and destroyed the Allied beachheads. All of this is documented in this book, demonstrating that while rifles, bombs, planes tanks and all of the other physical paraphernalia of war are necessary, fundamentally it is brainpower that wins wars. If the situation had been reversed, where the Germans had an Ultra equivalent and the allies did not, then it is difficult to conceive of an Allied victory at any time. This is a book that should be read by all people interested in the history of the Second World War.