Volume 29, Number 16 · October 21, 1982
Ultra Ultra Secrets
By Zara Steiner
British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations
by F.H. Hinsley, by E.E. Thomas, by C.F.G. Ransom, by R.C. Knight
Cambridge University Press, Vol. II: 850 pp., $39.50
Intelligence was the British success story of the Second World War. The Russian army broke the power of the Wehrmacht, and American industry provided the material superiority that allowed Britain to survive and triumph. The British war record was a mixed one, but in intelligence its victory over the Germans was indisputable. Stories about espionage and counterespionage, clandestine operations and prisoner-of-war escapes flooded the market after the war. The Wooden Horse, The White Rabbit, and M.R.D. Foot's semiofficial SOE in France were all best sellers. But in 1974, the publication of The Ultra Secret by a former air intelligence officer, F.W. Winterbotham, opened a new chapter in the history of the European war. [1] Winterbotham, defying a strictly enforced government ban, revealed that through intercepting and decoding radio signals, the British had been able to read the strategic and tactical information being relayed at every level of the three German armed forces and many domestic messages as well. The Germans knew nothing of this. They thought the codes and ciphers for their 'Enigma' machine were impregnable. The story of the British triumph became the best-kept secret of World War II.
Review, 4557 words
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