Marching Orders: The Untold Story Of World War II [Paperback]

Bruce Lee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 27, 2001

Robert T. Crowley, an intelligence officer in World War II who later became a senior executive at the CIA, has called Marching Orders simply "one of the most important books ever published about World War II." At last available in paperback, the book reveals a host of previously untold stories about codes and codebreaking—including how the American breaking of the Japanese diplomatic Purple ciphers led to the defeat of Germany, as well as why America and England agreed to use nuclear weapons against Japan. Bruce Lee, who had access to 1.5 million pages of U.S. Army documents and 15,000 pages of the sometimes daily top-secret messages sent to Tokyo from Japanese diplomats stationed in Berlin and elsewhere, constructs the most complete history available on American codebreaking activity and its consequences. He concisely documents the extraordinary casualties both American and Japanese forces would have suffered in an invasion and occupation of Japan, demonstrating through intercepted secret communications between Japanese leaders that Tokyo was adamant in its refusal to surrender.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This sprawling, undisciplined study argues that the U.S. breaking of Japanese diplomatic and military codes played a major role as well in the defeat of Nazi Germany. Lee (coauthor of Pearl Harbor: Final Judgment) suggests that intercepts expressing Germany's commitment to world conquest helped determine the Allied policy of unconditional surrender. He demonstrates that Japanese reports on German defenses in northeastern Europe shaped plans for D-Day. And he argues that decoded messages stressing Japan's search for common ground with the Soviet Union near the end of the war encouraged the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japan to end the war before this approach could bear fruit. Lee, however, significantly overstates the direct connection between Magic code intercepts and Allied decision-making. Much of his information is also available in Carl Boyd's Hitler's Japanese Confidant?a significantly superior work of analysis and interpretation. Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Lee, the editor of David Garrow's Pulitzer Prize-winning Bearing the Cross (LJ 11/15/86) and coauthor with Henry Clausen of Pearl Harbor: Final Judgement (LJ 9/15/92), has analyzed recently declassified Magic codes (Japanese secret crypts) and U.S. Army Intelligence documents. The result is the most complete history available of American code-breaking activity and its consequences during World War II. Lee shows convincingly how these daily decrypts influenced Generals Marshall and Eisenhower in their strategic prosecution of the war. Daily top-secret messages sent to Tokyo by Japanese diplomats in Berlin gave American leaders unique access to the thoughts and battle plans of Hitler and the German General Staff. Many of the mysteries that have eluded historians since the end of the war are much clarified: the Pearl Harbor fiasco, D-Day, why the Americans let the Russians capture Berlin, and why the decision to drop the atomic bomb was made. This is the most significant publication about World War II since the recent series of books on the Ultra revelations and should be purchased by all libraries.
Richard Nowicki, Emerson Vocational H.S., Buffalo,
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 640 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; First Edition edition (March 27, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306810360
• ISBN-13: 978-0306810367
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #636,487 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How the allies really used the Ultra and Purple codes to win, June 21, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Marching Orders: The Untold Story of World War II (Hardcover)

Marching Orders reveals for the first time what the Allies knew about Axis plans and strategies during WW II . The combined information revealed to them by Ultra and Japanese codes is staggering. Throw everything you know about WW II out the window, for this book will teach why events unfolded as they did. Direct quotes from Axis leaders read by the Allies in real time. An amazing fountain of information that must be savored! You will never view Allied generals in the same light again!

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning. Without it you don't know WWII, May 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Marching Orders: The Untold Story of World War II (Hardcover)

Read it. It takes away the schroud of politics into the reality of a very difficult world situation, with life and death decisions, troubling potential alliances, and knowledge available to only those who could be counted on by the fingers of one hand. A must read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 3 stars, December 19, 2008

By 

D. K. Stokes - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Marching Orders: The Untold Story of World War II (Hardcover)

This book about the codes from WWII, how they were used; who knew what when; and how it changed the course of the war was fascinating, but dry as dust.

I could only read a few pages at a time before my eyes started to cross, so it took me forever to read.