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Seizing the Enigma: The Race to Break the German U-Boat Codes, 1939–1943

2012

Synopsis

From the start of World War II to mid-1943, British and American naval forces fought a desperate battle against German submarine wolfpacks. And the Allies might have lost the struggle at sea without an astounding intelligence coup. Here, the author brings to life the race to break the German U-boat codes.

As the Battle of the Atlantic raged, Hitler’s U-boats reigned. To combat the growing crisis, ingenious amateurs joined the nucleus of dedicated professionals at Bletchley Park to unlock the continually changing German naval codes. Their mission: to read the U-boat messages of Hitler’s cipher device, the Enigma.

They first found success with the capture of U-110,—which yielded the Enigma machine itself and a trove of secret documents. Then the weather ship Lauenburg seized near the Arctic ice pack provided code settings for an entire month. Finally, two sailors rescued a German weather cipher that enabled the team at Bletchley to solve the Enigma after a year-long blackout.

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