Admiral Cunningham was also known for some of the most memorably terse signals in RN history. After the successful attack by Swordfish torpedo bombers on the Italian fleet at Taranto, the commander of the carrier group signalled:

"Operation Judgement executed"

A few hours later, after seeing air reconnaissance photographs of Taranto which showed three battleships sunk at their moorings, Cunningham signalled back:

"Manoevre well executed"

This latter signal was only a two-letter group in the standard signal book. In a war which was later to become too well known for verbose self-congratulatory speeches and messages, this was a classic.