The Ultra Secret, by F.W. Winterbotham

The Ultra Secret: The first account of the most astounding cryptoanalysis coup of World War II-how the British broke the German code and read most of hte signals between Hitler and his generals throughout the war, by F. W. Winterbotham
Harper & Row, 1974
191 pages plus index. No photos
Library: 940.548 WIN

Description
In 1939, just before the outbreak from World War II, British intelligence achieved, with the help of a Polish defector and the Polish Secret Service, an astounding cryptanalysis coup which enabled them to obtain a precise copy of the highly secret and complex German coding machine known as Enigma. After months of intensive effort by a team of Britain's top mathematicians and cryptanalysts, the supposedly unbreakable Enigma system was solved with the aid of another highly sophisticated machine. and the top-grade intercepted German signals were available to the Allied commanders. This special Intelligence was code-named Ultra.

During the fall of France and the Battle of Britain in the summer and fall of 1940, throughout the U-boat war, the North African and Italian campaigns, and the Allied invasion of France, the British were intercepting and decoding most of the secret wireless messages to and from Hitler and his generals.

As a result, with the exception of the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1945, when Hitler decreed radio silence, Allied leaders knew virtually all German intentions before they were carried out, and in some cases Allied leaders were reading Hitler's orders before German generals in the field received them.

This amazing fact has been kept under the strictest secrecy, on security grounds, for 35 years. Now, for the first time, the full story can be told: how Ultra occured; how it functioned; the secrets it revealed; and how its existence was kept from the GErmans.

Group Captain F. W. Winterbotham of the RAF was in charge of the security and dissemination of this highly secret information-which Churchill called "My most secret source". His firsthand account of this remarkable Intelligence coup is one of the most important stories of the war.

Table of Contents
Foreword
1. Introduction
2. Science to the rescue: The Birth of Ultra
3. The Plan
4. The Battle of France
5. Interlude
6. The Battle of Britain
7. Operation Sea Lion
8. The African Campaign
9. Alamein
10. Naval Affairs and Briefing the Americas
11. "Torch"
12. "Husky"
13. "Avalance"
14. Preparation for "Overlord"
15. The Battle of Normandy
16. Hitler's Miracles
17. The Beginning of the End
18. Arnhem
19. The Japanese War
20. Hitler's Ardennes Offensive
21. Gotterfammerung
22. Conclusion
Index