Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The origins of the Ultra secret, December 12, 2005
After World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill told King George VI: "It was thanks to Ultra that we won the war." The western Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower, called Ultra a "decisive" contribution to victory. A leading light of Britain's Bletchley Park Ultra (Enigma-decryption) operation wrote in his 1982 book, "The Hut Six Story": "Ultra would never have gotten off the ground if we had not learned from the Poles, in the nick of time, the details... of the German military... Enigma machine, and of the operating procedures that were in use."
This book details how mathematician-cryptologist Marian Rejewski, in late December 1932, assisted by documents obtained by French Intelligence, reconstructed the German Enigma machine; and how he and his mathematician colleagues, Jerzy Rozycki and Henryk Zygalski, developed techniques and equipment to keep pace with the evolution of the Enigma's components and operating procedures.
On July 25, 1939, a bare 5 weeks before the outbreak of World War II, the Poles initiated French and British intelligence representatives into the secrets of Enigma decryption. It was this that made possible the subsequent massive wartime British cryptologic effort that altered the course of World War II.
Miraculously Rejewski survived the war, for another 35 years till 1980, to produce an impressive body of papers and interviews--virtually all included in appendices and chapter notes to this book--documenting Poland's prewar and wartime cryptologic achievements. (This volume is much more than a mere translation of Kozaczuk's original, skimpily documented 1979 Polish-language book "W kregu Enigmy.") This book has aptly been called "the Bible" on the fundamental Polish contribution to Enigma decryption.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Personal and Technical Account of Greatest Secret of WWII, August 15, 2001
The greatest secret of WWII is that the Allied Governments were able to read the German coded transmissions. This was often on a "Real Time" basis. The history books are being revised due to acknowledgement of this great technical feat.The book is a combination of personal account and technical review of the people intimately involved in the origins of the codebreaking. It is about the Polish mathematicians and students who first "cracked" the Enigma Code, and how they protected the secret, evolved with the changes for several years before the war started, and how they jump-started the British efforts on the eve of the German Invasion of Poland. Compelling reading, both from the personal and mathematical side. You do NOT need math to appreciate the impact of these unsung warriors.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Personal and Technical Account of Greatest Secret of WWII, August 15, 2001
The greatest secret of WWII is that the Allied Governments were able to read the German coded transmissions. This was often on a "Real Time" basis. The history books are being revised due to acknowledgement of this great technical feat.The book is a combination of personal account and technical review of the people intimately involved in the origins of the codebreaking. It is about the Polish mathematicians and students who first "cracked" the Enigma Code, and how they protected the secret, evolved with the changes for several years before the war started, and how they jump-started the British efforts on the eve of the German Invasion of Poland. Compelling reading, both from the personal and mathematical side. You do NOT need math to appreciate the impact of these unsung warriors.
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