Bletchley Park's Secret Source: Churchill's Wrens and the Y Service in World War II
- ISBN-10
- 1784385840
- ISBN-13
- 9781784385842
- Category
- History
- Pages
- 240
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2021-03-23
- Publisher
- Greenhill Books
- Author
- Peter Hore
Description
The World War II codebreaking station at Bletchley is well known and its activities documented in detail. Its decryption capabilities were vital to the war effort, significantly aiding Allied victory. But where did the messages being deciphered come from in the first place? This is the extraordinary untold story of the Y-Service, a secret even more closely guarded than Bletchley Park. The Y-Service was the code for the chain of wireless intercept stations around Britain and all over the world. Hundreds of wireless operators, many of them who were civilians, listened to German, Italian and Japanese radio networks and meticulously logged everything they heard. Some messages were then used tactically but most were sent on to Station X – Bletchley Park – where they were deciphered, translated and consolidated to build a comprehensive overview of the enemy’s movements and intentions. Peter Hore delves into the fascinating history of the Y-service, with particular reference to the girls of the Women’s Royal Naval Service: Wrens who escaped from Singapore to Colombo as the war raged, only to be torpedoed in the Atlantic on their way back to Britain; the woman who had a devastatingly true premonition that disaster would strike on her way to Gibraltar; the Australian who went from being captain of the English Women’s Cricket team to a WWII Wren to the head of Abbotleigh girls school in Sydney; how the Y-service helped to hunt the German battleship Bismarck in the North Atlantic, and how it helped to torpedo a Japanese cruiser in the Indian Ocean. Together, these incredible stories build a picture of World War II as it has never been viewed before.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2021-03-23
- 240 pages
- Ebook
- Greenhill Books
Similar books
-
The Wrens of World War II: Bletchley's Secret Source
By Peter HoreThree CSWS operators who already knew Japanese Morse were employed, at first carrying out their own transcription into kana (in effect a Japanese 'alphabet') – Japanese Morse used nearly twice as many characters as Western Morse.
-
Colossus: Bletchley Park's Greatest Secret
By Paul Gannon... the Enigma and the Internet, Cambridge 2002, 158–9. Chapter. ten. –. Fishing. the. Depths. 1 C McKay & B Beckman, Swedish Signal Intelligence 1900–1945, London 2003, 133 2 McKay & Beckman, Swedish Signal Intelligence, 167 3 HW14/22, ...
-
Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park
By Francis Harry Hinsley, Alan StrippThe story of Bletchley Park, the successful intelligence operation that cracked Germany's Enigma Code. Photos.
-
The Secret Life of Bletchley Park: The WW11 Codebreaking Centre and the Men and Women Who Worked There
By Sinclair McKaySinclair McKay’s book is the first history for the general reader of life at Bletchley Park, and an amazing compendium of memories from people now in their eighties – of skating on the frozen lake in the grounds (a depressed Angus ...
-
The Debs of Bletchley Park and Other Stories
By Michael SmithThey are an incredible set of women, and this is their story.
-
Geniuses at War: Bletchley Park, Colossus, and the Dawn of the Digital Age
By David A. PriceDrawing upon recently declassified sources, David A. Price’s Geniuses at War tells, for the first time, the full mesmerizing story of the great minds behind Colossus and chronicles the remarkable feats of engineering genius that marked ...
-
The Secret Listeners: How the Y Service Intercepted the German Codes for Bletchley Park
By Sinclair McKaySuch wartime postings were life-changing adventures – travel out by flying boat or Indian railways, snakes in filing cabinets and heat so intense the perspiration ran into your shoes - but many of the secret listeners found lifelong ...
-
The Secret War: Spies, Ciphers, and Guerrillas, 1939-1945
By Max HastingsIn The Secret War, Max Hastings presents a worldwide cast of characters and some extraordinary sagas of intelligence and resistance, to create a new perspective on the greatest conflict in history.
-
War of Shadows: Codebreakers, Spies, and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East
By Gershom GorenbergYears in the making, this book is a feat of historical research and storytelling, and a rethinking of the popular narrative of the war.
-
Delusions of Intelligence: Enigma, Ultra, and the End of Secure Ciphers
By R. A. RatcliffPublisher Description