Alan Turing and the Enigma Code: Secrets, Lies and Myths of Bletchley Park in World War II

"A brilliant and quite fascinating expose of the many myths surrounding Bletchley Park and Turing" - Michael Smith, author of The Secrets of Station X Early accounts of codebreaking at Bletchley Park during World War II contained many factual errors. This was only natural: many of the authors of these accounts were veterans who did not have access to official records and relied heavily on their own recollection of events that had transpired more than thirty years prior. Over time, historians documenting the history of British intelligence repeated some of the more apocryphal stories. These gradually became part of the mythology surrounding Bletchley Park in print media, as well as in both stage and film productions on the subject over the years until now. In this fascinating work, Joel Greenberg has handpicked twenty of the most common myths associated with Bletchley Park (for example, that thousands of pigeons were used to carry secret messages to British forces in France). The origin of each myth is described in detail, alongside the inaccuracies, secrets and sometimes even lies that have sustained it over the years, before revealing the truth behind each one. This is a wholly unique look at Bletchley Park: no other book on the subject tells its story in this way, and it will be of great value to anyone interested in the world of intelligence work carried out during World War II. AUTHOR: Joel Greenberg is a Canadian author and historian living in the UK who researches and writes about signals intelligence and its impact on two world wars. He is has written the authorised biographies of two key figures in the story of signals intelligence, Gordon Welchman and Alastair Denniston. The Welchman book, Gordon Welchman, Bletchley Park's Architect of Ultra Intelligence, is the basis of a joint BBC/Smithsonian Network 2015 documentary about Welchman The Forgotten Genius of Bletchley Park.. The Denniston book, Alastair Denniston, Code-breaking from Room 40 to Berkeley Street and the Birth of GCHQ, is both a biography and an account of signals intelligence from its early development to the birth of GCHQ. Denniston was the first Head of GCHQ and the book was launched at its headquarters on 7 September 2017 in honour of him.