Breaking the German Enigma codes was not only about brilliant mathematicians and professors at Bletchley Park. There is another aspect of the story which it is only now possible to tell. It takes in the exploits of spies, naval officers and ordinary British seamen who risked, and in some cases lost their lives snatching the vital Enigma codebooks from under the noses of Nazi officials and from sinking German ships and submarines. This book will tell the whole Enigma story: the original invention and use by German forces and how it was the Poles who first cracked - and passed on to the British - the key to the German airforce Enigma. The more complicated German Navy Enigma appeared to them to be unbreakable. Hugh Sebag-Montefiore - like his brother Simon a journalist and author - has unearthed files at the Ministry of Defence and further documents now declassified in the US. He has also traced and made contact with many of the last surviving witnesses to the Enigma story, including Paul Pailliole, who was head of French counterintelligence and has a detailed first hand knowledge of the spying and double crossing which took place in relation to Enigma.

Barrister and journalist (currently attached to the Mail on Sunday). His family owned Bletchley Park - where the Enigma code was broken - until they sold it to the British government in 1937.