Operation Mincemeat was the codename of the Second World War deception plan that misled the Axis forces into believing the Allied thrust from North Africa would be aimed at Sardinia and Greece rather than the more obvious Sicily. By diverting German and Italian forces away from Sicily, the invasion met with limited resistance and rapid success.
The scheme was dreamed up in room 13 in the basement of the Admiralty by intelligence officers Charles Cholmondeley and Ewan Montagu. The plan was to float ashore in Spain the body of an officer, carrying fake secret messages to Allied commanders. Franco’s Spain, though technically neutral, could be relied upon to allow the German intelligence services access to the documents before returning them, seemingly unmolested, to the British. The British would then pretend to believe their secrets were safe and the plan (fake plan) was still going ahead.
Macintyre is a leisurely guide through the two months of planning and execution, from getting the idea approved, through acquiring a suitable corpse, creating an identity, faking documents (not only the secret messages but also the ‘wallet litter’ that created family, a fiancée, debts, and a social life), transportation of the body by submarine, its discovery by Spanish fishermen, to the diplomatic and intelligence responses to the dead body in Spain and Germany.
It is all clearly explained and enlivened by pen portraits of the key players along the way, many eccentric – Cholmondeley, Montagu, and their team; the coroner, pathologist, and undertaker; the submariner; and various diplomats, spies, and military personnel.
Although told many
times since the end of the war, this 2010 volume benefits from newly declassified
files and recently discovered archives to provide a fuller picture, both
comprehensive and entertaining.
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