Description: In a spellbinding narrative, Stephen Budiansky lets the reader look right over the shoulder of World War II codebreakers as they accomplish feats of mathematical wizardry that turn the tide of critical battles -- from the fight against the Nazi U-boats in the Atlantic to the success of the D-Day invasion. Battle of Wits reveals the "shadow war" that lay behind the famous events of World War II, and sheds light on the unsung heroes whose work has been wrapped in secrecy for decades.

Until now no one has told the complete story of codebreaking's golden age. Drawing on thousands of newly declassified files, Battle of Wits provides in-depth explanations of how the most impenetrable codes were broken -- including the Japanese "Purple" machines -- and traces the origins of the top secret project, codenamed VENONA, that broke the Soviet spy codes in one of the most incredible cryptoanalytic feats of all time.

The flow of information, its encryption, and computational methods of recovering it from the enemy had never been so important to the outcome of a war. Yet the Allied codebreakers had to struggle against enormous barriers of official indifference and even contempt for their work from within the military bureaucracy. These courageous men and women were able to tip the scales of victory time and again by the most breathtakingly narrow of margins. Here is their story of victory.

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