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History of the Second World War: British Intelligence in the Second World War #1
British Intelligence in the Second World War, Volume 1: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations (Evaluation of Programming and Systems Techniques)
British Intelligence in the Second World War provides the only reliable account yet published--or ever likely to be published--of the part played by British intelligence in allied strategy and operations in the Second World War. No such account could have been written without the unrestricted access which was afforded to Professor Hinsley and his colleagues to the full range of British government intelligence records and to political and military archives of the war and before.
- GenresWorld War IIHistory
601 pages, Hardcover
First published July 21, 2015
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About the author
F.H. Hinsley
23 books7 followersSir 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.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 18, 2018
Perhaps not for the general public, but for my purposes, as I work on the sequel to A FLOOD OF EVIL, this is outstanding stuff. For example ...
... the (British) Air Ministry’s assumptions as to how the German Air Force would be used were so much modelled on the Air Staff’s own plans for the RAF that it not only neglected the available intelligence but also omitted to subject its acceptance of the prevailing opinion to technical study.
... the German bombers were ‘ not equipped for weight carrying ’ and were ‘ too small ’ to deliver on the United Kingdom the vast tonnages postulated. 85 From what was known of German aircraft it should have been possible to deduce that the long-range bomber force would have had to sacrifice much of its bomb load if it was to carry enough fuel for the flight from north-west Germany and back with or without over-flying the Low Countries. Again, the task of manufacturing, moving and storing the required number of bombs would have been truly vast, yet its feasibility was neither examined nor questioned.
... on 10 July. It became obvious by that day, after a month of scattered night raids, that the GAF had embarked on a programme of concentrated daylight attacks on ports, coastal convoys and aircraft factories with the object of wearing down the RAF’s fighter defences in the south-east. By mid-August it had failed in this object but could no longer defer the decision to increase the scale of its attack and seek the direct destruction of the RAF on and over its airfields. Unless this was achieved without delay, the landings in England could not take place, as planned, early in September.
A Flood of Evil
... the (British) Air Ministry’s assumptions as to how the German Air Force would be used were so much modelled on the Air Staff’s own plans for the RAF that it not only neglected the available intelligence but also omitted to subject its acceptance of the prevailing opinion to technical study.
... the German bombers were ‘ not equipped for weight carrying ’ and were ‘ too small ’ to deliver on the United Kingdom the vast tonnages postulated. 85 From what was known of German aircraft it should have been possible to deduce that the long-range bomber force would have had to sacrifice much of its bomb load if it was to carry enough fuel for the flight from north-west Germany and back with or without over-flying the Low Countries. Again, the task of manufacturing, moving and storing the required number of bombs would have been truly vast, yet its feasibility was neither examined nor questioned.
... on 10 July. It became obvious by that day, after a month of scattered night raids, that the GAF had embarked on a programme of concentrated daylight attacks on ports, coastal convoys and aircraft factories with the object of wearing down the RAF’s fighter defences in the south-east. By mid-August it had failed in this object but could no longer defer the decision to increase the scale of its attack and seek the direct destruction of the RAF on and over its airfields. Unless this was achieved without delay, the landings in England could not take place, as planned, early in September.
A Flood of Evil
July 27, 2020
Warning, this is not a weekend at the beach read. It's an intense looks at the actions of British intelligence from just before the beginning of the war to Operation Barbarossa, the German's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. You get the disorganization of the Brits in the beginning, the refinement of the organization, the massive contribution of the Enigma Machines, and the overall effort to find information. This is a serious book for those who are interested in the intelligence effort in World War II. One down, four more to go.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews