How to succeed in (the war) business without really spying

 

Take one anonymous corpse - give him the identity of a supposed Mayor of the Royal Marines bearing "top secret" messages; cast him from a submarine into the sea just off the coast of Spain; sit back and wait for the body to be discovered by the Spanish and the messages turned over to the Germans; then watch the enemy - right up to the High Command - fooled into changing their Mediterranean defense plans!

Result: one of the most startling and enthralling true tales to come out of World War II which was made into an espionage thriller in 1956. Based on the book of the same name by Lt. Cmdr. Ewen Montagu, it chronicles "Operation Mincemeat", a 1943 British intelligence plan to deceive the Axis powers into thinking the Allied invasion of Sicily would take place elsewhere in the Mediterranean.

 

Operation Mincemeat was a successful British disinformation strategy used during the Second World War. As a deception intended to cover the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily, two members of British intelligence obtained the body of Glyndwr Michael, a tramp who died from eating rat poison, dressed him as an officer of the Royal Marines and placed personal items on him identifying him as Captain (Acting Major) William Martin. Correspondence between two British generals which suggested that the Allies planned to invade Greece and Sardinia, with Sicily as merely the target of a feint, was also placed on the body. Part of the wider Operation Barclay, Mincemeat was based on the 1939 Trout memo, written by Rear Admiral John Godfrey, the Director of the Naval Intelligence Division, and his personal assistant, Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming. With the approval of the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill and the overall military commander in the Mediterranean, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the plan began with transporting the body to the southern coast of Spain by submarine, and releasing it close to shore. It was picked up the following morning by a Spanish fisherman. The nominally neutral Spanish government shared copies of the documents with the Abwehr, the German military intelligence organisation, before returning the originals to the British. Forensic examination showed they had been read, and decrypts of German messages showed the Germans fell for the ruse. Reinforcements were shifted to Greece and Sardinia both before and during the invasion of Sicily; Sicily received none. The true impact of Operation Mincemeat is unknown, although the island was liberated more quickly than anticipated and losses were lower than predicted. The events were depicted in a 1950 novel by the former cabinet minister Duff Cooper, before one of the agents who planned and carried out Mincemeat, Ewen Montagu, wrote a history in 1953. Montagu's work formed the basis for a 1956 film.

 

I've ordered the DVD on ebay, but in the meantime may start on the book "The Man Who Never Was". Want to find out why we lost the war? Be my guest and read the book; simply SIGN UP, LOG IN, and BORROW.

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