the codebreakers of Bletchley Park Smith, Michael creator author. text enk London Pan Books c2004 2004 1998 monographic eng

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216 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; In 1939 several hundred people - students, professors, international chess players, junior military officers, actresses and debutantes - reported to a Victorian mansion in Buckinghamshire: Bletchley Park. This was to be 'Station X', the Allies' top-secret centre for deciphering enemy codes. Their task was to break the ingenious Enigma cypher used for German high-level communications. The settings for the Enigma machine changed continually and each day the German operators had 159 million million million different possibilities. Yet against all odds this gifted group achieved the impossible, coping with even greater difficulties to break Shark, the U-Boat Enigma, and Fish, the cypher system used by Hitler to talk to his generals. Station X is also the story of the people involved from leading codebreakers such as Alan Turing, father of the modern computer, to the female operators who intercepted the messages. The arrival -- Astrologers and academics -- The battle to break Enigma -- The first break -- The battle of Britain -- The first battle of the Atlantic -- 'Action this day' -- The North African campaign -- The shark blackout -- The Americans -- Fish and Colossus -- Double cross and D-Day -- The invasion of Europe -- The Burma road -- The end of Station X Adult Michael Smith. Includes bibliographical references and index. General Education General Education : History English Government Code and Cypher School (Great Britain) Military intelligence History 20th century Great Britain World War, 1939-1945 Cryptography Bletchley (Buckinghamshire, England) History 9780330419291 [paperback] 251217 20251217125750.0