Codebreakers: The Secret Intelligence Unit that Changed the Course of the First World War

An extraordinary story well researched and entertainingly written. A pre-cursor to the more famous Bletchley Park. Ties in well with Double Cross about the D-Day landings subterfuge. The characters described are an amazing bunch - mercifully they were on the Allies' side!

This is a fascinating and informative book about the activites of Room 40 during the First World War and describes in general detail the contribution made by the pioneer codebreakers gathered together by Admiral Hall. However, I was misled by the title; this book is about the use made of intelligence gathered from both wireless and telegraph intercepts but does not describe the various codes in use nor the methods used in their decoding and decryption other than in very general terms.If you are looking for a book on how Room 40 was established and the contribution maed by Admiral Hall's organisation then it is very good. If, however, like me you are looking for information on the codes and ciphers themselves and how they were broken then this is not the book for you - but I would nevertheless recommend it as a useful account of this aspect of WW1 and how the foundation was laid for the success of GC&CS in the Second World war.

Excellent. A good read and nice to see something on this subject from this period. Lots of characters and basically everybody seemed to be breaking into everyone elses codes. Lots of interesting little side stories. Recommended.

Great story of the history of WW1 codebreaking and other activities. Loved it.

Very interesting story of code breaking and code breakers in, mainly, the First World War in Europe and America. A complicated story and very little that I knew about, sometimes just reading on over parts too complicated to comprehend. Nevertheless, well worth persevering to explore little known subterfuges in separate and not always joined up code breakers and military departments.

Fine but lacking degree of impartiality and balance. Nevertheless worthwhile informative and taut. Sterling effort on such an important subject.

Good item, quickly delivered. Thank you.

I've read many books on WW2 codebreaking - Enigma, Purple, Fish and the like - but didn't really know a lot about WW1. This book filled the gap admirably. A good and lively read