Cunningham and the Enigma Machine
January 2001
On 25 March 1941, Admiral Cunningham received a most sensitive
top secret cypher message. It had the new message designation
of Ultra. This message came from Bletchley Park, the hush hush
naval shore establishment in the English countryside which was
attempting to break the German and Italian cyphers which were
encrypted using a new amazing mechanical device called an enigma
machine. It had broken a message which had been sent from Supermarina,
the Italian admiralty in Rome, to the Italian Naval Officer
in charge of Rhodes. This message stated that the 25 March was
X - 3 day and that recce air flights over Crete, Piraeus and
Alexandria should be started immediately. Thus pointing to major
enemy sea operations west of Crete being stated in three days.
It should be remembered that Britain, at that time, had gone
to the assistance of Greece in its battle against the invading
Germans army divisions and the Royal Navy was then escorting
troopship convoys from Alexandria to Greece. Since the Mediterranean
naval war had started in June 1940, the Italian fleet had never
come so far to the east as this. But Cunningham, after weighing
all the various options, came to conclusion that they were finally
going to do this and attack our convoys. He immediately ordered
his second in command, Vice-Admiral Pridham Whippell, to leave
Alexandria, with a cruiser and destroyer force and await developments
off Crete.
Alexandria is 420 miles from Crete, so this force at 20
knots was quickly off Crete by the late afternoon of 26 March.
Cunningham with three battleships, Warspite, Valiant and Barham
plus an
aircraft carrier Formidable and escorting destroyers soon followed.
Before leaving, he and his flag lieutenant, made a diversion
to confuse the spies who were known to be in Alexandria. For
instance, the Japanese consul would play golf at the Alexandria
Sporting Club to see what RN senior officers were playing. If
he saw Cunningham playing he would know that the fleet was not
not a sea. and pass this information to the Axis powers. So
C-in-C and Flags played nine holes on the afternoon of 27 March
1941 and sure enough the Japanese consul was playing. Within
earshot of the consul, Cunningham mentioned something about
a dinner part to be held that night. Both of them then left
and returned to the flagship and the fleet sailed after dark
for Crete.Cunningham’s greatest battle ensued the next
day and it was called the Battle of Matapan after the nearby
cape which was the most southerly in Greece.
Formidable flew off a recce aircraft at dawn of 28 March 1941
and soon found three Italian cruisers and four destroyers off
southwestern Crete. The Pridham Whippell force came upon this
Italian force but did not engage but tried to lure it toward
the main British fleet. It later came across another Italian
force of a battleship plus cruisers and destroyers. which had
been reported by Allied carrier-borne aircraft.
The Pridham Whippell force immediately withdrew from being
under fire of the enemy under cover of a smokescreen, with no
hits being sustained. Throughout the day the Italian forces
were attacked by our aircraft from Crete and Formidable. The
Italian battleship was hit and damaged and retired with its
other ships from the action.
By the evening of 28th, Cunningham decided on a risky night
action. He would follow his other force and try and make contact.
His
fleet had practiced night operations using radar which the Italians
didn’t have. They never fought at night.
At 10.30 pm, Cunninghams’ force suddenly came upon two
Italian cruisers and four destroyers in the night and they were
only two miles away on sighting after being forewarned by radar.
The gun differential between the two forces was huge in the
favour of the British. Within minutes the two cruisers and two
destroyers were blown to bits.
Later a third Italian cruiser was found nearby stopped in the
water. It
had been damaged by an air attack. It too was quickly sunk.
The two
Italian cruisers had separated from the Italian main fleet to
assist the
damaged cruiser.
Cunningham then decided to withdraw before a mishap occured
with his forces moving around in the darkness. Five enemy ships
had been
sunk with the loss of thousands of their crews for the loss
on our side
of one aircraft. As an aside, Cunningham radioed the Italian
Supermarina
the position of the sunken ships so that any survivors could
be picked
up and was reprimanded by Churchill for this chivalrous action.
We, the cypher officers of C-in-C, had obviously never heard
of Bletchley Park but as soon as we saw the Ultra messages,
we realised
just how sensitive they were from their content. We never talked
about
them even amongst ourselves, thinking that the intelligence
must have
come from our agents in Berlin and Rome.
Much later Cunningham visited Bletchley Park and thanked the
staff , several of whom were women, for their outstanding work
in breaking the enemy codes which lead to his great victory.
See Enigma - The Battles of the Codes, by Hugh Sebag
Montefiore, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 2000.
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