Mr Dufty’s book, ‘The Secret Code-Breakers of Central Bureau’ tells the story of the country’s significant code-breaking and signals-intelligence achievements during the Second World War.

It reveals how Australians built a large and sophisticated intelligence network from scratch, how Australian code-breakers cracked Japanese army and air force codes, and how the code-breakers played a vital role in the battles of Midway, Milne Bay, the Coral Sea, Hollandia, and Leyte.

The novel also delves into Australia’s version of Bletchley Park, known to members perhaps from the film ‘The Enigma’.

Mr Dufty will give an illustrated talk about his acclaimed book at the Kiama Family History Centre on Saturday, March 9, and copies will be available for sale.

David Dufty is a Canberra-based writer and researcher. Following degrees in psychology at Newcastle and Macquarie Universities, he has worked in statistics and social research at the University of Memphis, Newspoll and the Australian Bureau of Statistics. He is the author of, How to Build an Android, a non-fiction account of recent developments in robotics and artificial intelligence; and the historical account of Australian wartime code-breaking, The secret Code Breakers of Central Bureau: how Australia’s signals-intelligence network helped win the Pacific War.  

The author talk will begin at 2.30pm.