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Podcast: In Conversation: An OUP Podcast
Episode: Peter Kornicki, "Eavesdropping on the Emperor: Interrogators and Codebreakers in Britain's War With Japan" (Oxford UP, 2021)
Description: When Japanese signals were decoded at Bletchley Park, who translated them into English? When Japanese soldiers were taken as prisoners of war, who interrogated them? When Japanese maps and plans were captured on the battlefield, who deciphered them for Britain? When Great Britain found itself at war with Japan in December 1941, there was a linguistic battle to be fought--but Britain was hopelessly unprepared. Eavesdropping on the Emperor: Interrogators and Codebreakers in Britain's War With Japan (Oxford UP, 2021) traces the men and women with a talent for languages who were put on crash courses in Japanese, and unfolds th...