Enigma: How Breaking the Code Helped Win World War II

Well illustrated

This is very well illustrated with photographs and gives some historical context to the subject. However it is technically flawed, some aspects are misleading or inadequately covered. A reader that is broaching the subject for the first time will not get a true picture. More attention should have been given to the early Polish successes, the use of pure mathematics to break a code was a first ever. The technical nature of the various Enigma machines employed is not covered, and often misleading. In a work such as this an appendix covering the nuts-and-bolts would be useful and would not intrude into the flow of the narrative. For example the author does not state that the 4th rotor of the Kriegsmarine machine was static, built in by reducing the thickness of the reflector disc. He fails to pint out that the disc wiring of the commercial Enigmas, as used by the Italian navy and by civilian concerns before the war was different from the disc wiring of the military versions, the use of the plugboard and the way to discount it during decryption, etc.