Ralph Bennett – författare

Ultra in the West is a major work in the field of Second World War literature. Originally published in 1979, it told for the first time Ultra's contribution to the liberation of Europe. At every point from the Normandy landings to the German surrender eleven months later Ultra in the West offers a unique analysis. It shows, for instance, how Montgomery was able to note the astonishing success of the deception plan which kept men and tanks away from his front in the dangerous early days of the build-up and held them idle round Calais, waiting for an assault the Allied Command never intended to make. Not all decodes were put to such good use. Ultra gave warning of Panzer divisions in the Arnhem area before the air landings of Operation Market Garden. If read correctly they would have warned that the German concentrations opposite the lightly-held Ardennes in November and December 1944 meant attack not defence. As the review in the Economist said, ' . . . his important summary makes a lot of the war look in need of a rewrite.' 'Throws much light on the intelligence background against which ''vital decisions were, or ought to have been taken,'' and shows that this background was markedly different from what has hitherto been supposed. His careful scholarship makes the book a valuable contribution to Ultra history.' R. V. Jones, author of Most Secret War'A new prime source of undoubted value.' Peter Calvooressi, The Times'Ultra in the West is a professional's rewriting of military history . . . as a war-time intelligence officer, and more as professional historian, he is at pains to e as accurate and objective as possible, and to provide backing in reference for every statement. He has achieved his aim of demonstrating the great contribution which Ultra made to the campaign . . . It is on these (decoded signals) that Ralph Bennett has drawn, his memory transforming them from dead into live historical material.'Field Marshall Lord Carver, Times Literary Supplement

It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of Ultra intelligence (the information derived from decrypting the radio traffic of the German armed force).For example, within four days of his arrival in the desert in August, 1942 Ultra told Montgomery that the new troop dispositions he had just made were ideally suited to counter Rommel's last attempt to reach the Nile; the way was cleared for Alamein and the turning of the tide of the war. Before the invasion of Sicily in July, 1943 an Allied feint sought to baffle the German defence by suggesting that Sardinia and Greece were the targets. Hitler was duped and within three days Ultra knew that he had been and could reassure Eisenhower that the Germans were not concentrating in Sicily but were preparing to defend the whole southern European coastline.After the assault on Italy in the following September, would Hitler waste men, tanks, petrol and guns stubbornly contesting the Italian peninsula, or would he economize resources by retiring to the Alps? By the beginning of October Ultra showed that Hitler was the unwitting accomplice of Allied policy, pouring his diminishing resources into Italy when they might have been put to better use against the Russians or against the invasion of France the following year: the knowledge was invaluable for the direction of Allied strategy for the remainder of the war.Faber Finds are reissuing Ralph Bennett's three Ultra titles, the other two being Ultra in the West; the Normandy Campaign of 1944-1945 and Behind the Battle: Intelligence in the War with Germany, 1939-45.

This remains a much needed book. It offers a succinct and authoritative survey of military intelligence available to Britain and her allies during the Second World War. When war began, Britain was as ill-prepared in intelligence as in armaments. Scientists had discovered the principle of radar in the mid-1930s but everything else had to be learned from scratch in the heat of emergency. Early signs of improvement came in mid-1941, when Ultra targeted naval vessels and bomber aircraft so successfully onto Rommel's supply ships that the Afrika Corps came close to inanition. From then on intelligence played an increasingly indispensable part in the ultimate victory. Ultra won the Battle of the Atlantic, driving the U-boats back to coastal waters by June 1943. Ultra confirmed the whereabouts of the German tanks as Montgomery planned the breakthrough at Alamein. Only 'Bomber' Harris refused to give intelligence the credit it deserved which, as this book makes clear, proved to be a costly mistake.'This book has been needed for some years, both by general readers and by scholars. The author is ideally equipped to write it, and it could hardly be better done. . . His summary of the value and limitations of intelligence work in western Allied strategy will be of lasting value.' M.R. D. Foot'Ralph Bennett's mastery of narrative and clarity of analysis are such that we can safely signal a new benchmark in intelligence books.' David Linton'Bennett has done more than anyone else to throw light on the impact of Ultra on command decisions. . . Essential reading for any historian of intelligence.' David Stafford'Ralph Bennett has a unique place in the history of wartime intelligence. . . Once an insider, thereafter a historian. . . his research approaches the ideal more closely than any previous study has done.' John Ferris, Intelligence and National Security

Military intelligence, grossly neglected during the interwar period, had by mid-1942 proved itself indispensable through information gathered from intercepted radio messages in the supposedly unbreakable German Enigma cipher. Ralph Bennett, who worked for four years at Bletchley Park as a senior producer of the intelligence (Ultra') derived from the Enigma decrypts, illustrates in this collection of reprinted essays some of the steps by which he and others developed the new type of information and in the process a candid glimpse of the workings of British intelligence both past and present.