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The Secret Listeners: How the Y Service Intercepted the German Codes for Bletchley Park
Author(s): Sinclair McKay (Author)
- Publisher: Aurum
- Publication Date: 4 Oct. 2012
- Edition: First Edition
- Language: English
- Print length: 352 pages
- ISBN-10: 1845137639
- ISBN-13: 9781845137632
Book Description
Behind the celebrated code-breaking at Bletchley Park lies another secret. Before the German war machine’s messages could be decoded thousands more young men and women had to locate and monitor endless streams of radio traffic around the clock, and transcribe its Morse code with a speed few have ever managed since.
They were part of the “Y”- (for “Wireless”) Service: the Listening Service – an organisation just as secret as Bletchley Park but still little-known and unrecognised. Without it, however, the Allies would have known nothing of the enemy’s military intentions. Its listeners might be posted to bustling Cairo to listen in to Rommel’s Eighth Army, or Casablanca in Morocco, or Karachi for the Burma campaign, or in one case even the idyllic Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean to monitor Japan. To men and women often hardly out of school such exotic postings were life-changing adventures.
Now, in the follow-up to his Sunday Times-bestselling The Secret Life of Bletchley Park, through dozens of interviews with surviving veterans, Sinclair McKay chronicles the history and achievements of this remarkable group of people and the Y-Service’s vital contribution to the war effort.
Praise for The Secret Life of Bletchley Park
‘McKay has succeeded in honouring a genuinely remarkable group of people in a solid, often entertaining and above all warm-hearted way’ Daily Mail
‘A truly breath-taking, eye-opening book’ A.N. Wilson, Reader’s Digest
‘A remarkably faithful account of what we did, why it mattered, and how it all felt at the time’ Guardian
Editorial Reviews
Review
‘A fascinating read’
Milton Keynes Citizen
‘McKay’s focus is rather on the personal experiences of the individual Y Service operators — it brings home not only the reality of what these people were doing but also the daily privations endured with remarkable resilience by so many in that war. As with those at Bletchley, the silence of that generation, their disciplined restraint for decades afterwards, is as impressive as their achievements. They felt the powerful pull of common cause and (mostly) had the privilege of knowing that their contribution was significant. Awful as it was for much of the time, for many nothing that followed ever quite lived up to it. We should be grateful that the survivors are talking now.’
Alan Judd Spectator
‘As McKay argues in this well-told story, the Y Service has been “sadly and curiously” uncelebrated. Yet were it not for all those encoded messages relayed with such care, the codebreakers at Bletchley would have had little to go on. It was their efforts that made the revolutionary leaps of Bletchley possible. They should be commemorated properly as having played their parts in one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century, he says. And he has done them proud.’
Brian MacArthur Daily Telegraph
‘Sinclair McKay has gathered together memories, from published works and from interviews with surviving veterans. This book is full of delightful episodes.’
The Book Dad
‘Sinclair McKay’s account of this secret war of the airwaves is as painstakingly researched and fascinating as his bestselling The Secret Life Of Bletchley Park, and an essential companion to it.’
Daily Mail
‘Their contribution enabled the code-breakers to achieve their break-through, something that, in turn, shortened the war and saved countless lives.’
Good Book Guide
The veterans who monitored radio traffic and transcrived Morse code are given full, overdue credit in this intriguing book
Saga Magazine
