Product: Breaking The Codes
Rating: 4.0
Incomplete but interesting
It is just not possible to give a full account of WW2 Allied cryptology in one 140 minutes documentary. This version leaves out altogether the breaking of the German encrypted teleprinter used for high level communications. Thus the role of signals intelligence in checking that the Fortitude deception operations designed to conceal the the coming invasion of Normandy had in fact succeeded is passed over. But this omission leaves space to describe the Battle of the Atlantic in some detail. Churchill had said that the one thing that really scared him in the war was the attack by submarines on the shipping needed to keep Britain going. The documentary does find space for much about the breaking of the various Enigma systems. But again something else has to go, and it is about another submarine blockade, this time of Japan by American submarines. Some serious misapprehensions about the attack on the principal operational cipher systems of the Japanese Navy are passed on. In particular the role of the British in breaking into JN-25A in 1939-1940 and JN-25B in 1941-1942 do not get a mention. The technical work by the production crew seems first class. In summary, this DVD is misleading in parts, incomplete but still presents an interesting introduction to its subject.