A Game of Birds and Wolves: The Ingenious Young Women Whose Secret Board Game Helped Win World War II

In this dramatic but disjointed history, New Yorker contributor Parkin (Death by Video Game) explores the role that war games played in British efforts to defeat the German U-boat menace during WWII. After the fall of France in June 1940, Parkin explains, the British war effort depended on transatlantic shipments of food, oil, and raw materials. Knowing that England would be forced to surrender if U-boats sank Allied ships at a fast enough rate, the German navy developed aggressive tactics, including attacking at night in groups of six or more (“wolfpacks”). Seeking to stem Allied losses, British naval officer Gilbert Roberts and members of the Women’s Royal Naval Service, nicknamed Wrens, created a giant board game to recreate actual U-boat attacks. Though the Wrens helped to prove that “support groups” of destroyers would prove effective against the wolfpacks, readers expecting a deep dive into the role of women in WWII will be disappointed—Parkin focuses more on German submariners than he does on the individual Wrens. Though it feels like three different narratives stuffed into one, the book is packed with colorful trivia, such as the number of condoms U-boats carried for use as weather balloons and antennae extensions (1,500). This overstuffed account misses its mark. (Jan.)