- Paperback: 468 pages
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster; Reprint edition (1 April 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0743217349
- ISBN-13: 978-0743217347
- Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 15.4 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,166,741 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
R. A. Ratcliff 1998-99 National Security Agency Historian-in-Residence
For years I have sought an introduction to this exciting field of World War II cryptology that was both readable and reliable. Stephen Budiansky has done excellent research for both theatres and produced a masterful condensation of a wide-ranging, highly complex topic. His comprehensive account not only weaves together a lucid and eloquent narrative, but also deals deftly with the varied nuances of how the Allies tackled an emerging technology under the pressures of wartime. In short, "Battle of Wits" should be on every WWII buff's shelf as the thoroughly researched and highly entertaining introduction to the fascinating world of cryptology's Golden Age. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
A million pages of new World War II codebreaking records have been released by the U.S. Army and Navy and the British government over the last five years. Now, Battle of Wits presents the history of the war that these documents reveal. From the battle of Midway until the last German code was broken in January 1945, this is an astonishing epic of a war that was won not simply by brute strength but also by reading the enemy's intentions. The revelations of Stephen Budiansky's dramatic history include how Britain tried to manipulate the American codebreakers and monopolize German Enigma code communications; the first detailed published explanations of how the Japanese codes were broken; and how the American codebreaking machines worked to crack the Japanese, the German, and even the Russian diplomatic codes. The compelling narrative shows the crucial effect codebreaking had on the battlefields by explaining the urgency of stopping the wolf pack U-boat attacks in the North Atlantic, the importance of halting Rommel's tanks in North Africa, and the necessity of ensuring that the Germans believed the Allies' audacious deception and cover plans for D-Day. Unveiled for the first time, the complete story of codebreaking in World War II has now been told.
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First Sentence
HERBERT Osborn Yardley was a boastful drinker, a boastful womanizer, and boastful cryptanalyst. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
HERBERT Osborn Yardley was a boastful drinker, a boastful womanizer, and boastful cryptanalyst. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book deserves more than five stars, and the massive British and American government information releases that made it possible also deserve credit for making the book possible.
This book pays the reader the compliment of assuming both intelligence and sincere interest in the subject. Although much of the book is a repeat of what has been written before, the book also contains much new information (especially about breaking the Japanese codes) and important insights. As the most complete examination of the code side of World War II, the book is essential reading for anyone who is interested in that conflict.
Although this book is about World War II, it contains much interesting material about earlier code-breaking, especially during World War I and the disarmament conference in the 1920s.
Basically, codes and codebreaking were in a transition period during the 1930s and 1940s between the primitive historical codes and the modern encryption techniques. The weakness of this transition period was that computer-like devices could use brute force calculations to spot patterns that the code designers were unaware of.
Clues came from many places. For example, "eins" showed up very frequently in German communications, so by looking for four word groups of great frequency, you could guess that they meant "eins" and work from there. This could unmask the daily code key much faster. Luftwaffe code operators were sloppy about the codes they used, and those bad habits provided clues as well. The British were brilliant in targeting German naval and weather vessels, and sinking them in ways so that codes and code machine parts could be saved. In some cases, Japanese embassies were broken into and codes directly stolen.
The most fascinating parts of the book come from the descriptions of how raw brain power solved problems. Many new code-solving techniques were developed. The Poles (especially Marian Rejewski) deduced the structure of the German Enigma machine just through examining the encoded message structures, and built one. Later, Turing took the idea of linking Enigma machines together to test patterns and developed a process for finding which settings were being used each day. Almost unbelievably, ideas and machines came along later that greatly improved the efficiency of this process even further.
If you like puzzles, you will love the discussions of the codebreaking technques because they employ detailed descriptions of the codes, code machines, and the exact methods used. Many wonderful diagrams of wiring and logical connections make this transparent for those who are interested in fully understanding. If you are not so interested, you can skip ahead to the material that interests you instead.
Emotionally, you will find yourself riveted by the races between the code breakers and the pace of unfolding battles. In several instances, such as at Midway, in the North Atlantic convoy runs, in North Africa, and during the Battle of the Bulge, the codebreakers played a decisive role. You will be intrigued by how many military leaders were reluctant users of this intelligence. Does Monty come to mind? You will never think about the events in World War II in the same way, after fully understanding what was known and not known by government and military leaders.
New light was shed on major controversies for me in this book. A famous one surrounds whether FDR knew of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and used inaction to manipulate entry into World War II. From a codebreaking perspective, it is clear that the U.S. knew that the Japanese were going to break off diplomatic relations, but little else. There were indications that an attack was coming, but no knowledge that it was aimed at Pearl Harbor.
On the other hand, decoded radio transmissions from German police units clearly indicated that massive numbers of Jews were being killed during the invasion of Russia. This material was probably read by Churchill. It is not clear who else read it. Those who are interested in what government should have been doing about the Holocaust will find much troubling evidence of government's knowing inaction in this book.
The many bureaucratic battles detailed here to take over codebreaking and to get the credit for it are worth the price of the book by themselves. For example, there is a fascinating story of how the key person in the codebreaking for the battle of Midway, Commander Joseph Rochefort, ended up running a dry dock on the west coast soon thereafter, far away from codebreaking for the rest of the war.
007 fans will enjoy the many references to the war-time activities of Ian Fleming in dreaming up schemes to help the codebreakers.
After you finish reading and thinking about this fascinating book, I suggest that you consider how you can overcome the vulnerability that you have to someone breaking into your communications. How can and should you be using encryptian today? This book won't answer those questions, but you should be asking them and looking for answers.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
20 reviews
63 of 68 people found the following review helpful
Fascinating Account of Codebreaking and Its Effects
18 Oct 2000
Format:Hardcover
This book deserves more than five stars, and the massive British and American government information releases that made it possible also deserve credit for making the book possible.
This book pays the reader the compliment of assuming both intelligence and sincere interest in the subject. Although much of the book is a repeat of what has been written before, the book also contains much new information (especially about breaking the Japanese codes) and important insights. As the most complete examination of the code side of World War II, the book is essential reading for anyone who is interested in that conflict.
Although this book is about World War II, it contains much interesting material about earlier code-breaking, especially during World War I and the disarmament conference in the 1920s.
Basically, codes and codebreaking were in a transition period during the 1930s and 1940s between the primitive historical codes and the modern encryption techniques. The weakness of this transition period was that computer-like devices could use brute force calculations to spot patterns that the code designers were unaware of.
Clues came from many places. For example, "eins" showed up very frequently in German communications, so by looking for four word groups of great frequency, you could guess that they meant "eins" and work from there. This could unmask the daily code key much faster. Luftwaffe code operators were sloppy about the codes they used, and those bad habits provided clues as well. The British were brilliant in targeting German naval and weather vessels, and sinking them in ways so that codes and code machine parts could be saved. In some cases, Japanese embassies were broken into and codes directly stolen.
The most fascinating parts of the book come from the descriptions of how raw brain power solved problems. Many new code-solving techniques were developed. The Poles (especially Marian Rejewski) deduced the structure of the German Enigma machine just through examining the encoded message structures, and built one. Later, Turing took the idea of linking Enigma machines together to test patterns and developed a process for finding which settings were being used each day. Almost unbelievably, ideas and machines came along later that greatly improved the efficiency of this process even further.
If you like puzzles, you will love the discussions of the codebreaking technques because they employ detailed descriptions of the codes, code machines, and the exact methods used. Many wonderful diagrams of wiring and logical connections make this transparent for those who are interested in fully understanding. If you are not so interested, you can skip ahead to the material that interests you instead.
Emotionally, you will find yourself riveted by the races between the code breakers and the pace of unfolding battles. In several instances, such as at Midway, in the North Atlantic convoy runs, in North Africa, and during the Battle of the Bulge, the codebreakers played a decisive role. You will be intrigued by how many military leaders were reluctant users of this intelligence. Does Monty come to mind? You will never think about the events in World War II in the same way, after fully understanding what was known and not known by government and military leaders.
New light was shed on major controversies for me in this book. A famous one surrounds whether FDR knew of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and used inaction to manipulate entry into World War II. From a codebreaking perspective, it is clear that the U.S. knew that the Japanese were going to break off diplomatic relations, but little else. There were indications that an attack was coming, but no knowledge that it was aimed at Pearl Harbor.
On the other hand, decoded radio transmissions from German police units clearly indicated that massive numbers of Jews were being killed during the invasion of Russia. This material was probably read by Churchill. It is not clear who else read it. Those who are interested in what government should have been doing about the Holocaust will find much troubling evidence of government's knowing inaction in this book.
The many bureaucratic battles detailed here to take over codebreaking and to get the credit for it are worth the price of the book by themselves. For example, there is a fascinating story of how the key person in the codebreaking for the battle of Midway, Commander Joseph Rochefort, ended up running a dry dock on the west coast soon thereafter, far away from codebreaking for the rest of the war.
007 fans will enjoy the many references to the war-time activities of Ian Fleming in dreaming up schemes to help the codebreakers.
After you finish reading and thinking about this fascinating book, I suggest that you consider how you can overcome the vulnerability that you have to someone breaking into your communications. How can and should you be using encryptian today? This book won't answer those questions, but you should be asking them and looking for answers.
32 of 34 people found the following review helpful
Best overall coverage of the topic
19 Oct 2000
Format:Hardcover
This book is well-written in a clear, flowing and lucid style. Lots of details and human interest liven up a subject that is always on the edge of putting some readers to sleep. This book surveys code-breaking in both the European and Pacific theaters of war and even-handedly deals with the contributions of both the Brits and the Yanks (all too few books on this topic do so). The author wisely puts the most arcane bits of math in appendices.
Very well done and hightly recommended to both those who have never read a book on this subject and those who have read several.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Fills in a critical part of WWII history.
15 Feb 2006
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I have for many years wondered exactly how the supposedly unbreakable German Enigma machine and the Japanese diplomatic and Naval codes were broken. Stephen Budiansky does a great job at explaining how this was done. This was no easy task, requiring the ability to explain complex mathematical and mechanical concepts in a political and military context. Budiansky is uniquely suited to this task and I for one am grateful for his successful effort. He has a master's degree in applied mathematics, along with work in military studies as a Congressional Fellow. To this one must add that he is a good writer, as attested to by the fact that he is a correspondent for The Atlantic, The New York Times and The Economist among other prestigious publications.
This is no dry academic text, but is a story of great excitement, of great internal rivalries and intrigues. It is also fortunately much more, as it also goes into detail about the design and operation of the code machines and ciphers, as well as the novel approaches that were used to overcome them. It goes into considerable detail about these approaches, without becoming overly pedantic. This book covers the Japanese Diplomatic and Naval codes as well as the German Enigma machine. As such, it covers both code machines and ciphers, with a very good discussion of the history of both and the distinction between them. This book is more than a dry discussion of mathematics, but also delves into the personalities of the people involved and the internal rivalries between the US Army and Navy and between the civilian and military branches of the governments involved. It touches on espionage and the application of the knowledge of what was learned from the code breaking.
I was aware of the general outlines of what was done, of Bletchley Park and the American equivalents and of the importance of the early work of Polish code breakers. What I was not aware of was exactly how this was done. The Germans were confident that even if the allies got hold of a code machine they could not unscramble a message that was coded with what was a virtually unlimited number of possible combinations. I now have a better idea of how this was done and if you read this book so will you. I learned of the importance of a spy in Germany who early on provided a few messages and some code setting that were of great initial help, how German regularity in the form of the messages and the laziness of some operators in reusing the same text were of great importance, of the struggles to overcome the continual changes in the machines and upgrading of the codes. Most of all, I learned of the creativity and persistence of the human mind. My only criticism, and it is a minor one, is that very little space is given to the German and Japanese efforts (many of them successful) in deciphering allied codes. I hope that this will be the subject of a future book of Budiansky's.
This is no dry academic text, but is a story of great excitement, of great internal rivalries and intrigues. It is also fortunately much more, as it also goes into detail about the design and operation of the code machines and ciphers, as well as the novel approaches that were used to overcome them. It goes into considerable detail about these approaches, without becoming overly pedantic. This book covers the Japanese Diplomatic and Naval codes as well as the German Enigma machine. As such, it covers both code machines and ciphers, with a very good discussion of the history of both and the distinction between them. This book is more than a dry discussion of mathematics, but also delves into the personalities of the people involved and the internal rivalries between the US Army and Navy and between the civilian and military branches of the governments involved. It touches on espionage and the application of the knowledge of what was learned from the code breaking.
I was aware of the general outlines of what was done, of Bletchley Park and the American equivalents and of the importance of the early work of Polish code breakers. What I was not aware of was exactly how this was done. The Germans were confident that even if the allies got hold of a code machine they could not unscramble a message that was coded with what was a virtually unlimited number of possible combinations. I now have a better idea of how this was done and if you read this book so will you. I learned of the importance of a spy in Germany who early on provided a few messages and some code setting that were of great initial help, how German regularity in the form of the messages and the laziness of some operators in reusing the same text were of great importance, of the struggles to overcome the continual changes in the machines and upgrading of the codes. Most of all, I learned of the creativity and persistence of the human mind. My only criticism, and it is a minor one, is that very little space is given to the German and Japanese efforts (many of them successful) in deciphering allied codes. I hope that this will be the subject of a future book of Budiansky's.
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