Which is about WWII in the Pacific, up to the battle of Midway. He talks about the code breaking efforts in Hawaii, and I immediately recognized one of the minor characters from Cryptonimicon - the guy in charge of the cryptanalysis efforts - who was apparently a bit eccentric, and not big on military formalities. I didn't realize that the character in the book was based on someone real.
It's a very well written book, and I'd highly recommend it, as well, as, of course, Cryptonimicon.
Several other characters in that book are also based on real people, albeit living (at time of writing anwyay) ones, so names and some details were changed, as well as adding some more speculation. For example the character Earl Comstock was pretty much Robert McNamara. A lot of the people in the 90's timeline seem to be based on real people Stephenson wrote about in his factual articles. (particularly the ones about cable laying in the pacific).
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005LW5JL2/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...
Which is about WWII in the Pacific, up to the battle of Midway. He talks about the code breaking efforts in Hawaii, and I immediately recognized one of the minor characters from Cryptonimicon - the guy in charge of the cryptanalysis efforts - who was apparently a bit eccentric, and not big on military formalities. I didn't realize that the character in the book was based on someone real.
It's a very well written book, and I'd highly recommend it, as well, as, of course, Cryptonimicon.
Edit - here's a link that talks about him some:
http://www.worldwar2history.info/Midway/mission.html