This time free is good !

Excellent history of history’s most important information war. This was well read and very interesting !

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Techno Thriller but it is a True Story

The story of how the enigma machine was conceived and developed after WW1 then perfected by the German Navy in WW2. Then how the Poles almost cracked it before moving to Britain where a massive secret program at Blechley Park and throughout the Navy ultimately destroyed the German submarine packs and won the war.
The best thing about this book is the way it describes how the machines were constructed and how the messages were decrypted. Ten times better than the movies I've see on the subject. I want to read more from David Kahn but only after I have built an enigma machine myself.

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Fascinating Book

This is a very interesting book with the entire background of the British efforts to break the code to the Enigma machines.

The one problem with the book is that there are many pages explaining how to set up and operate the enigma machine - this is interesting only to a very limited audience.

Other than that I recommend it highly.

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Fascinating story requiring patient audience

This is a VERY detailed history of a very convoluted military technology that evolved and matured over several decades, not just the period of 1939 through 1943. As such, the author chose to include at times bewilderingly complex, long-winded, and dry technical content that is nonetheless vital to his audience’s understanding of the momentous contribution of the decryption of the Enigma cyphers to the Allied victory in the Battle of the Atlantic. While the narrative contains several moments of wartime drama, this is a work intended for an audience of serious serious students of military history, as well as academics looking for source materials. Bernard Mayes’ reading style is clear and of an appropriate pace for such an information-dense subject, making this book an ideal candidate for an audiobook. This reviewer probably would not have attempted to read this on his own!

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Fascinating Story - I learned a lot

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would definitely recommend this book.

It tells the story behind the challenge to break the German U-Boat communications that was the key to the Allies reducing the toll of sunken ships and associated loss of lives and materials critical to fighting and ultimately winning the war. It provides interesting background stories of the players including several unsung heroes (including the Poles) that led to the ultimate success in the Battle of the Atlantic. Unlike other books and TV documentaries I've read/seen that have told a rather simplistic story about cracking Enigma (which apparently didn't actually occur in a sustained way until the very end of the war), this book tells the more nuanced story of the hard detailed grunt work and multiple approaches that gradually (and periodically) improved the ability of the allies to get more timely and accurate information on German plans, even as the the codes and methods evolved.

Particularly fascinating to me was seeing how successes were often the result of taking advantage in weaknesses in well-intentioned German implementation procedures rather than in Enigma itself. For example, the author points out that the German guidance that a code should never repeat the same character -- guidance that is usually applied to modern passwords to this day -- actually weakened the overall strength of the encryption by eliminating an entire letter from consideration. As another example, the practice of sometimes send out the exact same message both to Navy warships using Enigma and other vessels using a lesser (i.e. cracked) coding method would provide a template for reverse-engineering the enigma key (another practice that would still apply today).

Bernard Mayes' has a nice voice with an even cadence that I generally found enjoyable. Much of the book is telling a highly suspenseful story, and in these sections his even cadence let's the natural excitement of the book shine through.

However, as noted by other reviewers, there are places where the book goes into fairly dense levels of detail, and in these sections Mr. Mayes' even cadence can be very slow going. Had I been reading the book in paper format I would have just skimmed these denser sections, going to re-read any that I found interesting or useful, but that's not possible in the audio format. And, I didn't want to just skip these sections as the background being provided is important to the overall understanding of the book.

Then I got the idea to mimic skimming by using the Audible Apps Narration Speed control and the Jump Back button. When set to about 1.2-1.3x speed, the reading still sounded natural but went by at a fast enough pace that kept my interest. And whenever a section proved interesting but I felt I might have missed something, I would hit the Jump Back button to re-listen to 30 or 60 seconds. Then, when the story resumed, I would go back to normal 1x speed.

All-in-all, it's a great story that's well told and provides lessons that are still useful today. I highly recommend it.

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Almost Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Enigma

Fantastic book, exhaustive research and filled with great detail. I also love this reader’s style; nice and understated.

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A somewhat slow narrative

The Enigma story is like something out of a thriller- the author recounts several daring exploits in the quest for Enigma, but they fall a little flat. I think part of the problem is the narrator; I have several other books narrated by him which I quite enjoyed but his lack on inflection in this recording is disappointing. I still enjoyed the book, but I wasn't able to just listen all the way through as is my habit.

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Loved it, incredible detail.

Way more information than I ever knew about the Enigma. An excellent book for the history buff.

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Great Story

Very well done. Exciting plot, wonderful narrative. This is a great value for those interested in history.

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This is the COMPLETE history of the Enigma Code Breakers.

I thought I knew this history but no I learned I did know even half of the story. Great read, deep research and a superb performance. It can get a bit wonky and detailed. I’m no math whiz and I stayed interested and engaged. Well Done!

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