Customer Reviews

Decoding History: The Battle of the Atlantic and Ultra

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This small book is well written and provides an excellent synopsis of the many dynamic processes which must be understood as they relate to the victory of the Allies in the battle of the Atlantic. The outcomes at Stalingrad and in the North Atlantic clearly established that the Axis powers in Europe would ultimately be defeated. The value of this book is that it penetrates beneath the sound and smoke of battle to explore some of the interactions at scientific, technical and strategic levels which contributed to victory. In doing so it provides the reader with an excellent summary of events and how critical their linkage was to the ultimate outcome.

For readers unfamiliar with the technology of midcentury direction finding to locate the source of radio emissions, the chapter on technology is quite good and is totally devoid of mathematics. It thus allows the reader to fully appreciate the process without experiencing the pain of the theory.

I found myself referring frequently to my old copy of The Pulse of Radar by Sir Robert Watson-Watt on many occasions as I read this book and the two volumes complement each other nicely. Watson-Watt is a far more entertaining writer but that does not detract from the value of this book in any way. It is another excellent publication from the Naval Institute Press.