Battle of Wits: The Complete Story of Codebreaking in World War II

I have for many years wondered exactly how the supposedly unbreakable German Enigma machine and the Japanese diplomatic and Naval codes were broken. Stephen Budiansky does a great job at explaining how this was done. This was no easy task, requiring the ability to explain complex mathematical and mechanical concepts in a political and military context. Budiansky is uniquely suited to this task and I for one am grateful for his successful effort. He has a master's degree in applied mathematics, along with work in military studies as a Congressional Fellow. To this one must add that he is a good writer, as attested to by the fact that he is a correspondent for The Atlantic, The New York Times and The Economist among other prestigious publications.This is no dry academic text, but is a story of great excitement, of great internal rivalries and intrigues. It is also fortunately much more, as it also goes into detail about the design and operation of the code machines and ciphers, as well as the novel approaches that were used to overcome them. It goes into considerable detail about these approaches, without becoming overly pedantic. This book covers the Japanese Diplomatic and Naval codes as well as the German Enigma machine. As such, it covers both code machines and ciphers, with a very good discussion of the history of both and the distinction between them. This book is more than a dry discussion of mathematics, but also delves into the personalities of the people involved and the internal rivalries between the US Army and Navy and between the civilian and military branches of the governments involved. It touches on espionage and the application of the knowledge of what was learned from the code breaking.I was aware of the general outlines of what was done, of Bletchley Park and the American equivalents and of the importance of the early work of Polish code breakers. What I was not aware of was exactly how this was done. The Germans were confident that even if the allies got hold of a code machine they could not unscramble a message that was coded with what was a virtually unlimited number of possible combinations. I now have a better idea of how this was done and if you read this book so will you. I learned of the importance of a spy in Germany who early on provided a few messages and some code setting that were of great initial help, how German regularity in the form of the messages and the laziness of some operators in reusing the same text were of great importance, of the struggles to overcome the continual changes in the machines and upgrading of the codes. Most of all, I learned of the creativity and persistence of the human mind. My only criticism, and it is a minor one, is that very little space is given to the German and Japanese efforts (many of them successful) in deciphering allied codes. I hope that this will be the subject of a future book of Budiansky's.

If you're interested in how code breaking works, then this book is a great place to start. If, however, you're more interested in how code breaking fit into the larger scheme of things during WW II, then the same suggestion applies: this book is a great place to start! At first, I was afraid that the author had gotten lost in the weeds when he explains some of the nitty-gritty involved in the breaking of various codes. However, I soon realized that if the reader was either lost or just not interested in some of those details, that the book was written such that some sections can be either skipped or ignored, without hurting the general flow of the history being told. As a computer professional, I found those portions -- which later grew into the industry of my profession -- to be fascinating. However, the more interesting aspects were the author's description of the contributions of the various characters who had influence on this particular aspect of history. Stephen Budiansky does a superb job in making all of these people come alive in the reader's mind. It is a great read!

Ultra was the British operation to read the World War II German military radio messages. The Germans used a powerful encoding machine, the Enigma machine. Alan Turing was the math genius who led the Brits, building on the brilliant work of Polish and French code breakers.The book tells the story, starting early on, in the a920's, and gives an excellent overview. The author then tells us the seldom and little known story of how the Americans decrypted the Japanese dipolomatic and Naval codes, essential to the winning of the crucial early Pdacific battles of the Coral Sea and Midway. The style is clear, the photos and drawings are good. I would highly recommend this book to general readers as well as to those interested in code breaking and in World War II. It is no exaggeration to say that the code breakers, both European and American, turned the tide from losing into winning. And their story should be told over and over again, as it is starting to being told now.

Well, there is no "complete" history of WW II code breaking. Budiansky starts with just enough from WW I for set the story running, and then continues, taking advantage of the great deal of information declassified in the 90s, which wasn't available earlier (for example, Kahn in The Codebreakers was too soon). Conversely, NSA appears to have declassified the documentation on breaking Gee in about 2015, and I'm sure there is more still hidden. I have several small quibbles with Budiansky, but this is an an excellent book, both extremely readable as well as extremely well researched, and I recommend it highly, from cover to cover.

Very Good. It says that it is the "complete" story of codebreaking during WW2, but it is extremely USA and Great Britain centered. Nothing that I remember about the USSR, very little about the Axis powers. I assume everyone was trying to read everyone else's radio messages. I don't think of it as cheating. I think of it as being prepared. Still a good book of code breaking from the Allied side. Good balanced story, seemed to report everyone's triumphs and failures evenly. No one won the war by themselves. No one was a complete failure.

This is an excellent, well-written and thorough history of cryptanalysis. He deals well with the techniques and the science. He is a lively and readable guide to the human interest stories. He seems to have a blind spot for Poland between the wars, but not the brilliant Polish code breakers. Unlike most historians of science he does not count Colossus as the first electronic computer. New for me was the knowledge that the British had broken Gestapo and SS codes, so that they knew precise numbers about the Holocaust until 1943 when the Nazis stopped sending these encrypted messages by radio. Hence Churchill's famous broadcast of August 24th 1941 denouncing a "crime without a name", the crime we now know as genocide. Churchill and the British could not quite believe that the dead were all Jews, as the decrypted messages stated they were, but Jews they proved to be.

This was a gift and came within hours of ordering.. Excellent