Hinsley, F.H. "British Intelligence in the Second World War: An Overview." Cryptologia
16, no. 1 (1990): 1-10.London, Daily Telegraph, 21 Feb. 1998, reports the death of Sir Francis Harry Hinsley at the age of 79. During World War II, Hinsley served in the Naval section at the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park. After the war, he returned to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he rose to be Master and, later, Vice Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. In 1972, Hinsley was appointed official historian of British intelligence in the war, heading a team of four historians. British Intelligence in the Second World War was published in five volumes between 1979 and 1990. "The triumph of Hinsley's narrative was the integration of his account of the intelligence picture with the decisions of the commanders in the field and in Whitehall." [From the Electronic Telegraph at http://www.telegraph.co.uk] See also, Wolfgang Saxon, New York Times, 24 Feb. 1998, A23.
Hinsley, F.H. "British Intelligence in the Second World War: An Overview." Cryptologia
16, no. 1 (1990): 1-10.
This is a sweeping, all-too-brief summary of the role of British communications intelligence in World War II.
[UK/WWII/Overviews/Hinsley]
Hinsley, F.H.
"The Counterfactual History of No Ultra." Cryptologia 20,
no. 4 (Oct. 1996): 308-324.
Speech given by Hinsley at the University of Cambridge Computing Laboratory Security Seminar, 19 October 1993, with text of follow-on question-and-answer session.
[UK/WWII/Overviews/Hinsley]
Hinsley, F.H.
"Cracking the Ciphers." Electronics and Power: The Journal
of the Institute of Electrical Engineers 33 (Jul. 1987): 463-465.
To Sexton, this is an "informative discussion of the breaking of high-level German on-line ciphers (codenamed FISH) by COLOSSUS in World War II."
[UK/WWII/Overviews/Hinsley; UK/WWII/Ultra]
Hinsley, F.H.
"The Enigma of ULTRA." History Today 43 (Sep. 1993): 15-20.
Adapted from Hinsley and Stripp, eds., Codebreakers, this is an excellent brief look at Hinsley's view of the importance of the Ultra material to the war effort.
[UK/WWII/Overviews/Hinsley; UK/WWII/Ultra]
[Hinsley, F.H.] "The Influence of ULTRA in the Second World War." Intelligencer 14, no. 2 (Winter/Spring 2004): 103-113.
Remarks and answers to questions by Hinsley on 19 October 1993. Recorded at "Babbage Lecture Theatre, Computer Laboratory."
[UK/WWII/Overviews/Hinsley; UK/WWII/Ultra]
Hinsley, F.H.,
and Alan Stripp, eds. Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. [pb] 1994. [pb] 2001.
According to Surveillant 3.2/3, this book has "30 chapters, all written by persons who worked at Bletchley Park"; they are "important contributions."
Weierud, Cryptolog 15.1, believes that the stories told in Codebreakers "deserve serious attention.... It is its authenticity that make[s] this book unique.... The book is amazingly coherent and well written" and "documents an important part of our wartime history."
For Ferris, I&NS 9.3, this is "an essential work. It must be read by anyone and everyone concerned with intelligence during the Second World War.... Gaps, of course, remain." For example, it "does not discuss diplomatic codebreaking." This is a "companion to the official history."
Bates, NIPQ 11.2, notes that "Codebreakers ... is a collection of ... personal recollections of things that occurred 50 years ago. In order to minimize errors due to faulty memories the editors have done extensive cross checking between contributions and research into documents which have been declassified. Hinsley has written an excellent introduction.... This is a major contribution to the cryptanalyst's professional library.... [B]ut it is also of great interest to all intelligence professionals."
Ceruzzi, Science, 13 May 1994, says that this book "is unique in that it contains only first-person accounts," all by participants in the Bletchley Park drama. "These are the stories mainly of people working at the lowest levels, who had little knowledge of how their work fitted into the big picture, other than knowing that it was important.... [T]his is one of the best of the books about Bletchley Park."
To Trevor-Roper, Spectator, 18 Sep. 1993, the details of the work of the people at Bletchley Park "were so complicated that it is hard to explain them, or make them interesting, to the uninitiated, as some readers of this book may find. But the book is an important record.... To say that BP won the war would be untrue and unfair. But it certainly tipped the scales, shortened the war, and preserved us from defeat."
Booklist , 1 Nov. 1993, comments that the narratives do "not require much background on cryptography" to understand. The stories present " the human side of an operation more secret than and just as critical to Allied victory as anything in the war except the Manhattan Project. For the most part, the men and women involved ... tell their stories with simple eloquence."
Kruh, Cryptologia 18.1, finds Codebreakers to be "a remarkable book, undoubtedly the definitive work on Bletchley Park, with lively anecdotes and detailed stories giving a colorful account of BP's daily life and work." Also in Cryptologia 18.1, Deavours writes that "[e]veryone interested in cryptology or history in general[] will want to own a copy of this book.... [T]he articles are quite well written and fit together in a nearly seamless fashion..., a tribute to the book's editors who have done an outstanding job."
Click for the Table of Contents of Codebreakers.
[UK/WWII/Hinsley/Codebreakers; UK/WWII/Ultra]
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