Kevin’s Reviews > Battle of Wits: The Complete Story of Codebreaking in World War II > Status Update

Ch9:"The Shadow War"
Finally, the Axis side of the cryptanalytic story is told. I think I may have enjoyed the book better if it had led with the stories in this chapter. This is where the actual "battle of wits" was. I find it somewhat ironic that in a book about war, there is little sense of conflict until the penultimate chapter. I'm hesitant to say that later is better than never.

Ch7:"The Machines" The longest but probably most entertaining chapter.

Ch6:"Success Breeds Success"
This is by far the best chapter up to this point. The maneuvers orchestrated by signals intelligence in the Atlantic led to the capture and subsequent sinking of U-110, yielding vital German crypto-documentation. Then the story of how Churchill visited Bletchley Park which resulted in a boon to productivity for the British codebreakers. Plus how the Brits would 'fish' for crypto 'cribs'.

Ch5:"Impossible Problems"
The chapter starts off interestingly enough, with thorough discussion of the Americans' cryptographic recruitment processes and how they solved some of the Japanese ciphers. However, this train quickly comes of the rails, veering once again into the convoluted retelling of piecemeal history. I don't know how much more of this I can take, but I really want to get whatever I can out of this.

Ch4:"Fighting Back"
I can't get over how terribly disorganized this book is. The only thing that somewhat redeems it is the content. This chapter told a lot about the recruiting techniques used by both the Brits and Americans. They were looking for people with the "right mind as opposed to the right education." It was about finding problem-solvers, not academics. The history is compelling here, I hope it continues.

Chapter 3: This chapter gave a decent explanation of the mechanics of the Enigma machine, though I found it easier to follow The Code Book. It does explain the method of finding repeating loops within the first elements of a ciphertext from the knowledge that the first three letters should be repeated. This was a major flaw in the German implementation that the Polish codebreakers were able to exploit.

Chapter 2: "The Nature of the Beast"
Finally, some good crypto talk. Machine ciphers - Enigma, "Red", and "Purple" - are discussed with particular attention paid to the method of codemaking performed by the Japanese. They were more apt to use code books since they have so many more symbols than the 26-letter alphabet. Similar methods for cracking a Vigenere cipher could be used to crack the Japanese code books.

Chapter 1:"No Good, Not Even for Intelligence"
I have to do something that I've never done with a book before. After suffering through the tedium of insipid historical facts strewn together in the most convoluted of fashions, I must skip this chapter. There is simply no story being told, just facts. It's 1943 in one sentence, 1913 in the next, and back to 1929 in the next. I'm skipping to the cryptography talk.

Prologue: Midway.
A bunch of history is jammed into the first few pages making it hard to follow. There isn't a lot of cryptanalysis discussed, but there is mention of the Japanese cipher machine (aka Purple). Despite the detailed discussion of key attacks in 1942, I can't say I'm excited by the intro. Get to the crypto already!