Had this book only covered the Special Duties Service and its radio intercept stations, it would be a very important addition to the available knowledge on one of the most important but covert parts of activity during WWII. The author has covered much more including details of RAF Mosquito squadrons and her later service for the OSS. Most Highly Recommended.
NAME: Secret Duties of a Signals Interceptor, Working With Bletchley Park, The SDS and the OSS FILE: R2440 AUTHOR: Jenny Nater PUBLISHER: Pen & Sword BINDING: hard back PAGES: 207 PRICE: £19.99 GENRE: Non Fiction SUBJECT: WWII, World War 2, World War Two, Second World War, American volunteers, SDS, RAF, SOE, Station Y, Station X, radio intercepts, SIGINT, Bletchley Park ISBN: 1-47388-712-7 IMAGE: B2440.jpg BUYNOW: http://tinyurl.com/zpfogj2 LINKS: DESCRIPTION: Had this book only covered the Special Duties Service and its radio intercept stations, it would be a very important addition to the available knowledge on one of the most important but covert parts of activity during WWII. The author has covered much more including details of RAF Mosquito squadrons and her later service for the OSS. Most Highly Recommended. The author began her war service as a bilingual wireless operator in the most secret SDS at Dover. Her job was to intercept traffic from German warships in the English Channel and report this to Bletchley Park. This work was vital but has received very little coverage before. The code breaking work at Bletchley Park has dominated coverage since the secrets began to be published during the last twenty years. Of course there was so much of enormous importance and fascination in the Bletchley story, not least that it led Britain to build the first electronic computers and begin the information revolution that now dominates life around the world. In the process, SIGINT may seem rather less glamorous at the critical intercept point. However, without signal interception there would have been no code to break at Bletchley and even before the codes were broken, the source and volume of wireless traffic could provide some very important information. In WWI the RN wireless intercept stations warned of the German Fleet preparing to sail and resulted in the Battle of Jutland which may have been costly to the RN warships, but ensured that the Germans ran for their home port and stayed there safely to the end of the war. The author struck up several friendships, including a young man who was lost off Dover in tragic circumstances. Young men and women formed these relationships as an important part of their lives as they were they were thrown together far from home. Later, the author was to meet her husband in this manner. When the US entered the war, volunteers who had already been fighting for Britain were encouraged to move to the US forces. The author moved to OSS and met her husband who had been flying Mosquito missions over Occupied Europe. This aerial experience has been included in the book and adds several valuable insights. The book is a trilling and poignant story that opens up a secret world in a new way. There is also a very interesting photo-plate section that adds much to an already enthralling story.