On 6 August, 1945, a mushroom cloud over Hiroshima revealed World War II's most dramatic weapon in all its terrible might, the culmination of years of work at secret laboratories in Cambridge, Chicago, and the New Mexico desert. In his new book, acclaimed author Brian J. Ford gives us a riveting account of the men and women behind the secret science of World War II, from V-rockets to the Manhattan Project. In a story that moves across six years and four continents, we meet the Dutch engineers who pioneered the Enigma machine and the Poles who first learned how to decode the Nazis' top-secret messages; the Japanese doctor whose terrifying germ war experiments in China earned him a secret place in post-war America, where he continued his research; and British engineer Barnes Wallis, who not only created the geodesic framework that enabled the Wellington Bomber to fly severely damaged, but also developed the remarkable bouncing bomb. Never has the thrilling, at times chilling, story of secret weapons been told in such depth or with such scientific understanding, allowing the reader to truly appreciate the dedication, ingenuity and sacrifice of scientists working in strict secrecy more than half a century ago.

Introduction -- The making of a secret war -- Flying weapons: secret aircraft -- Flying weapons: bombs and missiles -- The rocket -- Doctors at war -- Dangerous ideas -- Doomed to fail -- Electronic secrets.