The Secret Listeners: How the Y Service Intercepted the German Codes for Bletchley Park - Hardcover

'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.'

'The Secret Listeners draws our attention to the important contribution made by modest, patriotic men and women engaged in war work where individual decorations were rarely awarded and secrecy demanded that even their closest relatives were denied an insight into their contribution to the Allied victory.’

‘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.’

‘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.’

'The veterans who monitored radio traffic and transcrived Morse code are given full, overdue credit in this intriguing book'

'McKay’s story of the wireless interceptors is one of willing amateurs and gifted eccentrics, of patience, accuracy, and endurance. A fine book with a genuinely new angle on a familiar topic, full of vivid and fascinating characters.’

'Author Sinclair McKay has once again unearthed a fascinating compendium of memories from surviving veterans whose vital contribution to the war effort had been shrouded in secrecy.'

‘Their contribution enabled the code-breakers to achieve their break-through, something that, in turn, shortened the war and saved countless lives.’

'A fascinating read'

‘Sinclair McKay has gathered together memories, from published works and from interviews with surviving veterans. This book is full of delightful episodes.’

Behind the celebrated code-breaking at Bletchley Park lies another secret...

The men and women of the ‘Y’ (for Wireless’) Service were sent out across the world to run listening stations from Gibraltar to Cairo, intercepting the German military’s encrypted messages for decoding back at the now-famous Bletchley Park mansion.

Such wartime postings were life-changing adventures – travel out by flying boat or Indian railways, snakes in filing cabinets and heat so intense the perspiration ran into your shoes - but many of the secret listeners found lifelong romance in their far-flung corner of the world. Now, drawing on dozens of interviews with surviving veterans, Sinclair McKay tells their remarkable story at last.