Codebreakers’ Victory: How the Allied Cryptographers Won World War II

With exclusive interviews, a Signal Corps veteran tells the full story of how cryptography helped defeat the Axis powers, at Bletchley Park and beyond.

For years, the story of the World War II codebreakers was kept a crucial state secret. Even Winston Churchill, himself a great advocate of Britain’s cryptologic program, purposefully minimized their achievements in his history books. Now, though, after decades have passed, the true scope of the British and American cryptographers’ role in the war has come to light. It was a role key to the Allied victory. From the Battle of Britain to the Pacific front to the panzer divisions in Africa, superior cryptography gave the Allies a decisive advantage over the Axis generals. Military intelligence made a significant difference in battle after battle.

In Codebreakers’ Victory, veteran cryptographer Hervie Haufler takes readers behind the scenes in this fascinating underground world of ciphers and decoders. This broad view represents the first comprehensive account of codebreaking during World War II. Haufler pulls together years of research, exclusive access to top secret files, and personal interviews to craft a captivating must-read for anyone interested in the behind-the-front intellect and perseverance that went into beating the Nazis and Japan.

Hervie Haufler (1919-2016) was an author and World War II veteran. Born in Kentucky, he attended the University of Michigan, where he was editor of the Michigan Daily and a member of Phi Betta Kappa. His two books of World War II history, Codebreakers’ Victory (2003) and The Spies Who Never Were (2006), grew out of his wartime experiences as a cryptographer in one of the American units assigned to ＂Ultra,＂ the British program for intercepting and decoding Axis messages. Haufler researched public archives and interviewed other members of British and American codebreaking programs to write the books. A longtime employee of General Electric, he left the company in 1980 to found a communications consulting firm with his wife, Patricia. Haufler’s short stories and articles appeared in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and Travel & Leisure, among many other publications.