Ferris, John. "From
Broadway House to Bletchley Park: The Diary of Captain Malcolm D. Kennedy,
1934-1946." Intelligence and National Security 4, no. 3 (Jul.
1989): 421-450. Ferris, John. "From
Broadway House to Bletchley Park: The Diary of Captain Malcolm D. Kennedy,
1934-1946." Intelligence and National Security 4, no. 3 (Jul.
1989): 421-450.
Kennedy worked as a Japanese translator, including in the Japanese Diplomatic Section, in the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) from 1934 to 1946. His diary from that period is "unusually discreet," but still offers a number of insights into the work at Broadway House, Bletchley Park, and Berkeley Street. The pages from 430 to 444 consist of selections from Kennedy's diaries. Sexton calls this a "very valuable source."
Ferris, John. "Ralph
Bennett and the Study of Ultra." Intelligence and National Security
5, no. 2 (Apr. 1991): 473-486.
The author surveys the historiographical implications of the revelation of Ultra for historians. Bennett's Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy (1989) is offered as a model for historians to look to in assessing the Ultra's impact on decisionmakers.
Filby, P. William.
1. "The Best Kept Secret of the Second World War." A.B. Bookman's Weekly 79 (29 Jun. 1987): 2872-2879.
According to Sexton, this article "reviews the story of the breaking of the German ENIGMA cipher system."
2. "Bletchley Park and Berkeley Street." Intelligence and National Security 3, no. 2 (Apr. 1988): 272-284.
The author was a cryptanalyst who worked on diplomatic traffic at both sites during World War II.
3. "Floradora and a Unique Break into One-Time Pad Ciphers." Intelligence and National Security 10, no. 3 (Jul. 1995): 408- 422.
This article is based on the author's memory "without recourse to official papers." According to Filby, Floradora was broken in 1943, not in 1942 as stated in Alastair G. Denniston, "The Government Code and Cypher School Between the Wars," Intelligence and National Security 1, no. 1 (Jan. 1986), p. 56.
Fitzgerald, Penelope.
The Knox Brothers. New York: Coward, McCann, & Geoghegan, 1977.
Rev. ed. Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 2000.
According to Kruh, Cryptologia 25.2, this is the biography of the author's father (Edmund) and his three brothers. One of the brothers was Dillwyn "Dilly" Knox who played a major role as a British codebreaker in World War I (Room 40), during the interwar years (Foreign Office) and in World War II (Bletchley Park). Sexton terms this an "[o]utstanding biography of the four Knox brothers." The author views Dillwyn Knox as "one of the most important cryptanalysts of all time."
FitzGibbon, Constantine. "'The Ultra Secret': Enigma in the War." Encounter 44 (Mar.
1975): 81-85.
Clark comment: This is a review of Winterbotham's The Ultra Secret. Sexton sees the article as a "balanced account ... that serves as a needed corrective to popular myths" surrounding the use of Ultra.
Freedman, Maurice. Unravelling Enigma: Winning the Code War at Station X. Barnsley, UK: Leo Cooper, 2001.
Kruh, Cryptologia 25.2, calls this book a "concise and readable account." On the other hand, Erskine, I&NS 17.1, says that "Unravelling Enigma contains no real insights into what made Bletchley so successful, and does not convey the flavour of working there. Regrettably, it does not deliver on its title, and cannot be recommended, even for the general reader."
Gallehawk, John.
1. Convoys and the U-boats. Bletchley Park Report no. 7. Bletchley Park, UK: Bletchley Park Co. Ltd., 1997.
Kruh, Cryptologia 22.2: "An account of critical events in the Battle of the Atlantic in March 1943."
2. How the Enigma Secret Was Nearly Revealed. Bletchley Park Report no. 11. Bletchley Park, UK: Bletchley Park Co. Ltd., 1998.
Kruh, Cryptologia 24.4: "The author describes three examples of how the secrecy of Ultra information was potentially compromised but fortunately the Germans never recognized the opportunity that was before them."
3. Some Polish Contributions in the Second World War. Bletchley Park Report no. 15. Bletchley Park, UK: Bletchley Park Co. Ltd., 1999.
Kruh, Cryptologia 24.4: "This report recounts the pre-war breaking of the German Enigma cipher system and the famous meeting of July 1939, when this work was revealed to the British and French Intelligence Services."
4. "Third Person Singular (Warsaw 1939)." Cryptologia 30, no. 3 (Jul.-Sep. 2006): 193-198.
Based on "official documentary evidence," the author identifies the third person who met with Polish and French cryptologists in Warsaw in July 1939 as Commander Humphrey Sandwith, head of the Admiralty Interception Service.
5. and Kerry Johnson. Figuring It Out at Bletchley Park 1939-1945. Reddich: Book Tower, 2007.
Kruh, Cryptologia 32.2 (Apr. 2008), notes that this work "is not a textual one, it is a compilation of facts anf figures about the Bletchley Park operation." This is an "essential reference book" that "offers important and interesting data."
Gannon, Paul. COLOSSUS: Bletchley Park’s Greatest Secret. London: Atlantic, 2006.
According to Peake, Studies 50.3 (Sep. 2006) and Intelligencer 15.2 (Fall-Winter 2006-2007), the author "sorts out the differences in the BOMBE and COLOSSUS, describes their actual contribution to the war effort, and clarifies the true role of Alan Turing. The first two parts of the book describe the intercept and decryption processes. The third contains 17 appendices that describe the technical aspects of codebreaking.... This book is a comprehensive treatment of an important and, heretofore, not well-understood subject. A readable, thoroughly documented, valuable contribution."
Cohu, Telegraph (London), 12 Mar. 2006, finds that this "book is a labour of love" and the author's "knowledge is profound, but it is poorly edited and can be turgid.... A telecommunications specialist, Gannon is very good on the Post Office contribution, but he lost me when describing the mathematical processes of encryption and decryption." Ferry, The Guardian, 29 Jul. 2006, finds that comparing Gannon's treatment to Jack Copeland's, Gannon's work "is readable enough if you want a single-author treatment, though it suffers occasionally from poor editing."
To Singh, Times (London), 11 Mar. 2006, the author "weaves together four strands" of the Colossus story. He "explains the cryptography in detail, and gives an equally rigorous account of how it influenced military strategy. Thirdly, and possibly closest to his heart, he argues that Colossus was an historic breakthrough in computing.... Finally, Gannon tells of the heroic efforts of the inventors and mathematicians."
Garlinski, Jozef. The Enigma War. New York: Scribner's, 1979. Intercept: The Enigma War. London: Dent, 1980.
For Constantinides, this is neither Garlinski's best book nor the best book on the cryptographic aspects of World War II. The author relied too much on secondary sources and was "prone to repeat errors or speculations." Nautical Brass Bibliography calls Garlinski "[a]n excellent narrative story of Enigma, spies, and intelligence from the Polish point of view."
Grey, Christopher, and Andrew Sturdy. "The 1942 Reorganization of the Government Code and Cypher School." Cryptologia 32, no. 4 (Oct. 2008): 311-333.
The focus here is the reorganization of Bletchley Park (BP) in January 1942. This reorganization "marked a transition in the leadership of BP from Commander Alistair Denniston to Commander (later Sir) Edward Travis. It also ... marked a transition from a small, rather ad hoc, organization to a larger, more formalised and industrialised, organization."
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