Description

The achievements of Alan Turing and code-breakers at Bletchley Park in reading Enigma-encoded WWII signals is well documented and celebrated. What is not so well known is that German Intelligence was intercepting and decyphering Royal Navy signals through the code-crackers of the Beobachnungs Dienst (B-Dienst) for much of the War. The dire consequences of this unchecked situation, deeply regretted by the principal author, led to the death of over 40,000 seamen that were being inadequately protected by Royal Navy warships.

Royal Navy Telegraphist Leslie Howson witnessed this sorry situation first hand, which was the motivation for his research on retirement from the Royal Navy and his later career in academia. He provides a highly informative history of Wireless Telegraphy and codes, and their influence on the outcome of historic sea battles before and during WWI and WWII. The co-author, Lt John Nixon RN, taught telecommunications at HMS Mercury, the former Royal Navy Communications School, and completed this book at the request of Leslie Howson after he became terminally ill and died in 1986. First published in 2006, this illustrated second edition provides a much-improved account of Howson’s expansive findings, and also explores how naval communications could have been made secure.