According to Stevenson, a love affair that Thorpe conducted with the Italian naval attaché Admiral Alberto Lais was especially productive and gained western Allied leaders early strategic insight into Axis war plans in the Mediterranean [REF].
The Italian Naval Enigma message leading to Italian defeat at the Battle of Cape Matapan was broken at the Government Code and Cypher School, Bletchley Park, using Dilly's rodding method without a codebook [REF].