The secret in Building 26 : the untold story of America's ultra war against the U-boat Enigma codes / Jim DeBrosse and Colin Burke.
Material type: TextPublication details: New York : Random House, c2004.Description: xxix, 272 pages : illustrations ; 25 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 0375759956(pbk)
Item type | Current library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Non-Fiction | Davis (Central) Library Non-Fiction | Non-Fiction | 940.5486 DEB | 1 | Available | T00447083 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
For the first time, the inside story of the brilliant American engineer who defeated Enigma and the Nazi code-masters
Much has been written about the success of the British "Ultra" program in cracking the Germans' Enigma code early in World War II, but few know what really happened in 1942, when the Germans added a fourth rotor to the machine that created the already challenging naval code and plunged Allied intelligence into darkness.
Enter one Joe Desch, an unassuming but brilliant engineer at the National Cash Register Company in Dayton, Ohio, who was given the task of creating a machine to break the new Enigma settings. It was an enterprise that rivaled the Manhattan Project for secrecy and complexity-and nearly drove Desch to a breakdown. Under enormous pressure, he succeeded in creating a 5,000-pound electromechanical monster known as the Desch Bombe, which helped turn the tide in the Battle of the Atlantic-but not before a disgruntled co-worker attempted to leak information about the machine to the Nazis.
After toiling anonymously-it even took his daughter years to learn of his accomplishments-Desch was awarded the National Medal of Merit, the country's highest civilian honor. In "The""Secret in Building 26," the entire thrilling story of the final triumph over Enigma is finally told.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [213]-222) and index.
"Reams have been written about the success of the British "Ultra" program in cracking the Germans' Enigma code early in World War II, but few people know what happened in 1942 when the Germans added a fourth rotor to the machine that created the already challenging naval code - and tracking German U-boats once again became impossible." "Joe Desch, an unassuming but brilliant thirty-five-year-old engineer at the National Cash Register Company in Dayton, Ohio, was given the task of creating a machine to break the new Enigma settings - an assignment whose secrecy rivaled that of the atom bomb project, and that was perhaps just as daunting. Not only was Desch under unrelenting pressure to build the machine before the Battle of the Atlantic was lost, but because he was the son of a German immigrant mother, his own life was pinned under a microscope." "The Desch Bombe, as the codebreaking machine was called, was a mammoth electromechanical marvel that stood seven feet high, eleven feet long, and two feet wide. Row upon row of commutator wheels imitated the rotors of the Enigma machine at extremely high speeds, attempting to crack the code. But an earthshaking scandal erupted late in 1943, when it was discovered that one of the engineers at NCR was in touch with German and Japanese embassies. This engineer and his wife were seized immediately, but the story of what happened to them has never been revealed until now." "Joe Desch suffered a nervous breakdown from the pressure of his work; still, he was given the National Medal of Merit, our country's highest civilian honor. When he died in 1987, even his daughter had no idea how important his career had been to the Allied victory in World War II. The Secret in Building 26 brings Desch's story, and the entire story of the war against Enigma, to life."--BOOK JACKET.
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