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Colossus : the secrets of Bletchley Park’s code-breaking computers
Copeland B., Oxford University Press, Inc., New York, NY, 2010. 480 pp. Type: Book (978-0-199578-14-6)
Date Reviewed: Jan 20 2011

Whether avoiding U-boat wolf packs in the North Atlantic or knowing Hitler’s response to the Allied landing at Normandy, the Allies were able to preempt the actions of the enemy because they had broken Germany’s secret military codes. This is the story of the Bletchley Park code breakers and their computers. Contrary to popular belief, the world’s first electronic digital computers were built in England during World War II by a group whose contribution to the Allied victory has only recently been declassified. The book is a collection of essays, mainly by people who worked at Bletchley Park, but also authorities in the field of cryptography, who are only now able to tell their stories.

The book is a compilation of 26 chapters, arranged into six sections. As a collection of individual essays, there is some variation in style and some repetition in their introductory segments, but this does not detract from the whole. The constant theme running through the collection is the major players’ dismay at their government’s insistence on secrecy, decades after the war ended. This secrecy, imposed well into the 1980s, is claimed to have deprived those involved of due credit and constrained the development of computing and cryptography in post-war years. Some aspects of the work remained classified by the UK government until the year 2000.

Section 1 introduces the work at Bletchley Park and the effort to break the German Lorentz SZ40 and 42 cryptographic systems, which the Allied code breakers called “Tunny.” Section 2 looks at the Colossus computers, how they were built, and what they were able to do. These machines are revealed to have been of great importance to the final outcome of World War II. Section 3 covers the code breaking work done at Bletchley Park by the team led by Max Newman, and Section 4 looks at similar work done by the team led by Major Ralph Tester. Section 5 highlights the work done at the Post Office Research Station Dollis Hill in North London, the group led by Thomas Flowers, which provided much of the machinery used at Bletchley Park. Section 6 looks at how the Bletchley Park teams broke the Siemens and Halske T52 cipher machines (code named “Sturgeon” by the Allies). The book concludes with 12 technical appendices and a brief index.

The book provides a brief history of cryptography, an introduction to the techniques and machines used to encrypt messages, and the techniques used to break them. The stories of life at Bletchley Park during the war make for engaging reading. This is a book for those interested in cryptography, the history of World War II, or the history of computing, alike.

Reviewer:  David B. Henderson Review #: CR138716 (1110-1039)
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