British Intelligence In The Second World War, Volume II: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations

History of the Second World War: British Intelligence in the Second World War #2

by F.H. Hinsley

The volume covers the period 1941 - 1943. As with all the official histories it is extraordinarily detailed and the basis of many, many books on WWII. If you are seriously interested in the history of World War II this is a must have book.

866 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Sir Francis Harry Hinsley OBE, was an English historian and cryptanalyst. He worked at Bletchley Park during the Second World War and wrote widely on the history of international relations and British Intelligence during the Second World War. He was known as Harry Hinsley.

Reviews

[John Geddes]

“From the spring of 1942 until February 1943, when it ceased to be sent by W/T, GC and CS decrypted in another cypher a daily return of prisoners at Dachau, Buchenwald, Auschwitz and seven other concentration camps - not all of them, but a good cross section.* The daily return consisted of a series of unheaded, unexplained columns of figures which GC and CS worked out to mean (a) number of inmates at the start of the previous day, (b) new arrivals, (c) departures by any means, and (d) number by the previous day. It also specified the various categories of prisoner, such as politicals, Jews, Poles, other Europeans and Russians. GC and CS interpreted column (c) - ‘departures by any means’ - as being accounted for primarily by deaths. The returns from Auschwitz, the largest of the camps with 20,000 prisoners, mentioned illness as the main cause of death, but included references to shootings and hangings. There were no references in the decrypts to gassings.
*Belsen did not exist at the time of the messages”
- p.673

W/T=Wireless Telegraphy
GC=Government Code
CS=Cypher School