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Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory
In 1943, from a windowless London basement office, two intelligence officers conceived a plan that was both simple & complicated—Operation Mincemeat. Purpose? To deceive the Nazis into thinking the Allies were planning to attack Europe by way of Greece or Sardinia, rather than Sicily, as the Nazis had assumed & the Allies ultimately chose. Charles Cholmondeley of MI5 & the British naval intelligence officer Ewen Montagu were very different. Cholmondeley was a dreamer seeking adventure. Montagu was an aristocratic, detail-oriented barrister. A perfect team, they created an ingenious plan: equip a corpse with secret (but false) papers concerning the invasion, then drop it off the coast of Spain where German spies would hopefully take the bait. The idea was approved by British intelligence officials, including Ian Fleming (007's creator). Winston Churchill believed it might ring true to the Axis & help bring victory.
Filled with spies, double agents, rogues, heroes & a corpse, the story of Operation Mincemeat reads like an international thriller. Unveiling never-before-released material, Macintyre goes into the minds of intelligence officers, their moles & spies, & the German Abwehr agents who suffered the “twin frailties of wishfulness & yesmanship.” He weaves together the eccentric personalities of Cholmondeley & Montagu & their improbable feats into an adventure that saved thousands & paved the way for the conquest of Sicily.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published May 4, 2010
About the author
Ben Macintyre
37 books3,223 followersBen Macintyre is a writer-at-large for The Times (U.K.) and the bestselling author of The Spy and the Traitor, A Spy Among Friends, Double Cross, Operation Mincemeat, Agent Zigzag, and Rogue Heroes, among other books. Macintyre has also written and presented BBC documentaries of his work.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,817 reviews
August 12, 2011
I feel I ought to have liked this book more than I did. Lord knows, the author did his research, in commendable detail. But did he really have to include everything he learned in the final book? At some point the level of detail provided went (for me) beyond interesting and started to become stultifying. MacIntyre is a decent writer, but I think he falls into the trap that bedevils many non-fiction authors -- all the time and energy spent doing the research causes him to lose perspective. The story is endlessly fascinating to him, but he forgets that some pruning of the details is needed in order to shape the narrative for the reader. But pruning is something that MacIntyre seems incapable of -- even the most peripheral actor is this tale gets at least two pages of backstory, which often does little to advance the real story.
Every chapter of the book is stuffed with irrelevant detail. Ewen Montagu, one of the main protagonists, came from an extremely wealthy family, a fact which is largely irrelevant to the story, but which nonetheless gets about 8 pages of text as MacIntyre gushes on about the number of family servants, the decor in the family mansion, their glittering social contacts etc etc. Discussion of the difficulties in acquiring a cadaver that can be used to fool the Germans is expanded (bloated) by inclusion of completely irrelevant biographical information on everyone consulted in the process, what everyone ate or drank at any given meeting, the temperature of the sherry, the mood of Montagu's stepmother, a digression on the history of grave-robbing, and any other random tidbit that showed up in MacIntyre's notebooks apparently. This kind of thing will either charm you or drive you up the wall.
Operation Mincemeat was an important, and fascinating, episode from the second world war, but it surely could have been told in fewer than 400 pages. That said, the book is not a bad read, and the occasional lapses into grandiosity of the kind "that single (hotel) register entry could have changed the course of World War II" are mercifully rare.
My inner pedant finds it necessary to point out that the correct term for what MacIntyre refers to as "champagne de mousse" (the white froth around the mouth that is characteristic of drowning victims) is actually "champignon de mousse".
Every chapter of the book is stuffed with irrelevant detail. Ewen Montagu, one of the main protagonists, came from an extremely wealthy family, a fact which is largely irrelevant to the story, but which nonetheless gets about 8 pages of text as MacIntyre gushes on about the number of family servants, the decor in the family mansion, their glittering social contacts etc etc. Discussion of the difficulties in acquiring a cadaver that can be used to fool the Germans is expanded (bloated) by inclusion of completely irrelevant biographical information on everyone consulted in the process, what everyone ate or drank at any given meeting, the temperature of the sherry, the mood of Montagu's stepmother, a digression on the history of grave-robbing, and any other random tidbit that showed up in MacIntyre's notebooks apparently. This kind of thing will either charm you or drive you up the wall.
Operation Mincemeat was an important, and fascinating, episode from the second world war, but it surely could have been told in fewer than 400 pages. That said, the book is not a bad read, and the occasional lapses into grandiosity of the kind "that single (hotel) register entry could have changed the course of World War II" are mercifully rare.
My inner pedant finds it necessary to point out that the correct term for what MacIntyre refers to as "champagne de mousse" (the white froth around the mouth that is characteristic of drowning victims) is actually "champignon de mousse".
May 23, 2023
Churchill stated that, in war, truth is protected by "a bodyguard of lies" and how right he was. Spies came in all forms.....double agents, triple agents, fictional agents, traitors, and in the case of Operation Mincemeat, a dead man. It was an intelligence plan that was amazingly complex and didn't appear to have much chance of succeeding but the author beautifully explains how it indeed succeeded.
Room 13, the little known center of British intelligence activities, was made up of individuals from varying backgrounds who planned and controlled the use of spies. They developed Operation Mincemeat which consisted of procuring the dead body of an unknown man, creating a military identity for him, and slipping his body into the waters off the coast of Spain with fake letters which revealed battle plans about where the Allies' invasion of Fortress Europa would take place. Spain was a neutral country but aligned themselves with Germany and Room 13 knew that the discovery of the body and the papers would find its way to the Nazis.
The trickiest aspect of this lie was maintaining it. Creating a lie is easy but continuing and maintaining it is far harder. The author explains how this was done to convince the Nazis that the papers on the body were factual. There were obvious flaws in the plan but the Nazis fell into the trap of "willingness to believe" and self deception and Operation Mincemeat was successful.
This is only a brief outline of an amazing story, all of which cannot be captured in a review. This may be the best book I have read this year and highly recommend it.
Room 13, the little known center of British intelligence activities, was made up of individuals from varying backgrounds who planned and controlled the use of spies. They developed Operation Mincemeat which consisted of procuring the dead body of an unknown man, creating a military identity for him, and slipping his body into the waters off the coast of Spain with fake letters which revealed battle plans about where the Allies' invasion of Fortress Europa would take place. Spain was a neutral country but aligned themselves with Germany and Room 13 knew that the discovery of the body and the papers would find its way to the Nazis.
The trickiest aspect of this lie was maintaining it. Creating a lie is easy but continuing and maintaining it is far harder. The author explains how this was done to convince the Nazis that the papers on the body were factual. There were obvious flaws in the plan but the Nazis fell into the trap of "willingness to believe" and self deception and Operation Mincemeat was successful.
This is only a brief outline of an amazing story, all of which cannot be captured in a review. This may be the best book I have read this year and highly recommend it.
July 20, 2010
The basic story is well known, but since the appearance of the first book, The Man Who Never Was, an extraordinary amount of new material has become available. Even if you've read The Man Who Never Was (I had), I can't recommend Operation Mincemeat highly enough. This is, quite simply, the most extraordinary book of its kind that I've ever come across. I couldn't put it down, and finished it in a little more than a day.
The plot in a nutshell, in case you aren't already familiar with it. It's early 1943, and the Allies have just pushed the Germans off North Africa. The next step is use that as a springboard to invade Southern Europe. But where? A quick look at a map shows there's only one sensible target: Sicily. Any sane strategist would be expecting an invasion of Sicily, and, indeed, it's just what the Allies were planning.
On the other hand... suppose they could confuse the Germans, and make them think they were really planning to strike elsewhere, say in Greece? It seemed impossible, but a few resourceful people in Counter-Intelligence thought they could see a way to do it. They would take a dead body, attach a briefcase to it containing some papers, let it wash up on a Spanish beach (Spain was neutral) and make it look like he was a courier whose plane had crashed while he was on the way to deliver a top-secret message. If it was done right, the Germans might just swallow the bait.
They did it, and it worked. In the earlier book, written by one of the people who masterminded the operation, it was made to look comparatively easy, and he glossed over all the really interesting details. Not his fault; he wasn't allowed to reveal them. Now, 67 years after the event, most of the story can finally be told, and what an exciting story it is! The plan was on a knife-edge the whole time: it was almost impossible to find a suitable body, there were obvious holes in the cover story that the Germans could easily have spotted, the Spanish nearly didn't hand over the briefcase to the Germans, and the operation's security was compromised from the beginning. Even though you know how it's going to end, it's a white-knuckle ride.
One of the most interesting aspects is the analysis of why the plan succeeded. The author argues, very plausibly, that great pieces of deception only work when people want to be deceived. If the Abwehr had been doing its job properly, they would have spotted the ruse. An organisation, however, is only as good as its people, and the people who made the individual judgements all turned out to have reasons for wanting to believe this apparent windfall. Some of them were nervous about their jobs, and hoped it would put them in better standing with their superiors; some were just lazy and incompetent; one key analyst may well have figured out what was really going on, and knowingly passed incorrect information to the German High Command.
The author never says one word about it, but I couldn't help thinking of the greatest intelligence failure of our own time. In 2003, why did the Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was concealing weapons of mass destruction? For all of the supposedly solid evidence presented to the UN Security Council, Saddam's WMDs turned out to be as illusory as the Allies' 1943 plan to invade Greece. I still haven't seen anything approaching an explanation of how people could get it so wrong. Perhaps, in 2070, we'll get to find out what really happened.
The plot in a nutshell, in case you aren't already familiar with it. It's early 1943, and the Allies have just pushed the Germans off North Africa. The next step is use that as a springboard to invade Southern Europe. But where? A quick look at a map shows there's only one sensible target: Sicily. Any sane strategist would be expecting an invasion of Sicily, and, indeed, it's just what the Allies were planning.
On the other hand... suppose they could confuse the Germans, and make them think they were really planning to strike elsewhere, say in Greece? It seemed impossible, but a few resourceful people in Counter-Intelligence thought they could see a way to do it. They would take a dead body, attach a briefcase to it containing some papers, let it wash up on a Spanish beach (Spain was neutral) and make it look like he was a courier whose plane had crashed while he was on the way to deliver a top-secret message. If it was done right, the Germans might just swallow the bait.
They did it, and it worked. In the earlier book, written by one of the people who masterminded the operation, it was made to look comparatively easy, and he glossed over all the really interesting details. Not his fault; he wasn't allowed to reveal them. Now, 67 years after the event, most of the story can finally be told, and what an exciting story it is! The plan was on a knife-edge the whole time: it was almost impossible to find a suitable body, there were obvious holes in the cover story that the Germans could easily have spotted, the Spanish nearly didn't hand over the briefcase to the Germans, and the operation's security was compromised from the beginning. Even though you know how it's going to end, it's a white-knuckle ride.
One of the most interesting aspects is the analysis of why the plan succeeded. The author argues, very plausibly, that great pieces of deception only work when people want to be deceived. If the Abwehr had been doing its job properly, they would have spotted the ruse. An organisation, however, is only as good as its people, and the people who made the individual judgements all turned out to have reasons for wanting to believe this apparent windfall. Some of them were nervous about their jobs, and hoped it would put them in better standing with their superiors; some were just lazy and incompetent; one key analyst may well have figured out what was really going on, and knowingly passed incorrect information to the German High Command.
The author never says one word about it, but I couldn't help thinking of the greatest intelligence failure of our own time. In 2003, why did the Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was concealing weapons of mass destruction? For all of the supposedly solid evidence presented to the UN Security Council, Saddam's WMDs turned out to be as illusory as the Allies' 1943 plan to invade Greece. I still haven't seen anything approaching an explanation of how people could get it so wrong. Perhaps, in 2070, we'll get to find out what really happened.
December 29, 2013
When a dead man becomes a highly effective spy, fools the enemy and helps win a war with the world in the balance, well, that sounds like something James Bond writer Ian Fleming would concoct. Oh wait, he did.
To be specific (and more correct), Operation Mincemeat, a plan devised by Britain's intelligence agency MI5 to convince Germany that a southern attack on Europe via the Mediterranean by Allied forces, was signed off on by Fleming, one of many in Britain's spy ring.
Though Fleming may not have been top dog, he was what drove me to this bizarre tale. Certainly, there was an interest in the story itself, but I also wanted to hear about those familiar names of history, literature and even the culinary arts (even tv chef Julia Child did her bit for secret service during WWII) that had a hand - underhandedly - in taking down the Axis powers. Ben Macintyre provides plenty of background information on these shadows. With the declassification of files, writer's like Macintyre are able to cast light on the actions of agents for both sides, and some of it is as exciting as any fiction you'll ever read!
Those of you into WWII spy craft may be familiar with Macintyre's other relatively popular work on the subject, Agent Zigzag. As of the writing of this review, I haven't gotten around to reading that one yet, but if it's as competently and enticingly written as Operation Mincement I'll be on it like a tail that can't be shaken.
To be specific (and more correct), Operation Mincemeat, a plan devised by Britain's intelligence agency MI5 to convince Germany that a southern attack on Europe via the Mediterranean by Allied forces, was signed off on by Fleming, one of many in Britain's spy ring.
Though Fleming may not have been top dog, he was what drove me to this bizarre tale. Certainly, there was an interest in the story itself, but I also wanted to hear about those familiar names of history, literature and even the culinary arts (even tv chef Julia Child did her bit for secret service during WWII) that had a hand - underhandedly - in taking down the Axis powers. Ben Macintyre provides plenty of background information on these shadows. With the declassification of files, writer's like Macintyre are able to cast light on the actions of agents for both sides, and some of it is as exciting as any fiction you'll ever read!
Those of you into WWII spy craft may be familiar with Macintyre's other relatively popular work on the subject, Agent Zigzag. As of the writing of this review, I haven't gotten around to reading that one yet, but if it's as competently and enticingly written as Operation Mincement I'll be on it like a tail that can't be shaken.
July 20, 2020
The operation Mincemeat was definitely one of the most important operations of WWII. The book was interesting and intriguing, with lots of personal details about the people involved, also how they fared after the war.
April 19, 2023
The difficulty with this was struggling past the forests of extraneous padding. At the heart of this is a great tale. I've no quarrel with the author spending time giving us an insight into the main players: they deserve recognition.
Some historians suggest this was not the pivotal operation of the war, I'll not argue either way. Some view Operation Mincemeat as a small part of Operation Barclay. Barclay was a deception operation used to convince Hitler that the plan to invade Europe was via the Balkans (SIS intelligence had indicated that this was Hitler's belief). Operation Barclay was seen as a complete success.
In this the author tries to insist that the Germans suspected, believed, accepted, had no doubt, that Sicily was the route Allied forces would take. Not so apparently. Mincemeat helped corroborate Barclay. Barclay was the main meal. Mincemeat was the dessert.
I'm sure not too many will argue against the amount of allied lives it helped save: thereby this must be seen as a massive and successful operation.
Under this author's pen, I'd suggest he's allowed the operation to become the molehill and the swirl of irrelevant musing over characters not central to the operation to become the mountain.
At times I was close to marking it off as a DNF.
Some historians suggest this was not the pivotal operation of the war, I'll not argue either way. Some view Operation Mincemeat as a small part of Operation Barclay. Barclay was a deception operation used to convince Hitler that the plan to invade Europe was via the Balkans (SIS intelligence had indicated that this was Hitler's belief). Operation Barclay was seen as a complete success.
In this the author tries to insist that the Germans suspected, believed, accepted, had no doubt, that Sicily was the route Allied forces would take. Not so apparently. Mincemeat helped corroborate Barclay. Barclay was the main meal. Mincemeat was the dessert.
I'm sure not too many will argue against the amount of allied lives it helped save: thereby this must be seen as a massive and successful operation.
Under this author's pen, I'd suggest he's allowed the operation to become the molehill and the swirl of irrelevant musing over characters not central to the operation to become the mountain.
At times I was close to marking it off as a DNF.
April 18, 2023
The first few pages introduce us to ‘The Sardine Spotter’ (the fisherman who found the body of Major Martin floating in the briny). We learn of the day from the ‘Sardine Spotter’s POV. He reflects on his life, his work, the fishing community. We learn of what the ‘Sardine Spotter’ thought when he first saw the mass bobbing in the water, what he thought when he first realised he’d come across a dead man.
Macintryre has painted the day, in detailed colour, for us: even told us of the weather that day. We’ll not need to wonder what might have been, put our own imagination to work. Macintyre’s done all that for us.
Of course, all this is what Macintyre ‘imagined’ the ‘Sardine Spotter’ thought and what Macintyre decided must have happened on that day.
Is the Macintyre simply wetting our whistle, setting the jib for the thrill ride ahead?
This gripping opener is followed by an introduction to the ‘Corkscrew Minds’ and how they managed to concoct such a devilishly clever ploy………
We are told, by Macintyre, Godfrey and Fleming wrote: “The following suggestion is used in a book by Basil Thomson: a corpse dressed as an airman, with despatches in his pockets, could be dropped on the coast, supposedly from a parachute that had failed.”
That does not fit with the tale told by Ewen Montagu [the man who commanded Operation Mincemeat].
We’re then given a short history of Basil Thomson’s life and times. Among other things, he wrote a number of penny-dreadfuls!!!
The further into the book I delved, the more and more I felt Macintyre had used his overly rich sense of the dramatic, along with his wild imagination, to paste and paint, in amongst the facts, his idea of what people thought, what they actually did and why.
No need for us to even hazard a guess.
As the thrill ride waned a sense I’ve been sold a novel, not an historical account, took its place.
This may well be what the majority want today. It has to be a thrill ride or it won’t sell: demands made by the publishing house, I shouldn’t wonder.
I’ll not bother with Macintyre’s other works: I’ll search out the TRUE, historically precise, offerings. It won’t be too difficult: it took no time to find a copy of Ewen Montagu’s book, ‘The Man Who Never Was’. Ewen Montagu being the man who led Operation Mincemeat.
Ohh, yes, I almost forgot ………… early on, Macintyre states: “If my discovery of these papers [documents kept by Ewen Montagu from his war-days and handed to Macintyre by his son] reads like something out of a spy film, that may be no accident: Montagu himself had a rich sense of the dramatic. He [Ewen Montagu] must have known they [the documents] would be found one day.”
Is Macintyre trying to justify where his wild imagination took him during his re-writing of history?
Macintryre has painted the day, in detailed colour, for us: even told us of the weather that day. We’ll not need to wonder what might have been, put our own imagination to work. Macintyre’s done all that for us.
Of course, all this is what Macintyre ‘imagined’ the ‘Sardine Spotter’ thought and what Macintyre decided must have happened on that day.
Is the Macintyre simply wetting our whistle, setting the jib for the thrill ride ahead?
This gripping opener is followed by an introduction to the ‘Corkscrew Minds’ and how they managed to concoct such a devilishly clever ploy………
We are told, by Macintyre, Godfrey and Fleming wrote: “The following suggestion is used in a book by Basil Thomson: a corpse dressed as an airman, with despatches in his pockets, could be dropped on the coast, supposedly from a parachute that had failed.”
That does not fit with the tale told by Ewen Montagu [the man who commanded Operation Mincemeat].
We’re then given a short history of Basil Thomson’s life and times. Among other things, he wrote a number of penny-dreadfuls!!!
The further into the book I delved, the more and more I felt Macintyre had used his overly rich sense of the dramatic, along with his wild imagination, to paste and paint, in amongst the facts, his idea of what people thought, what they actually did and why.
No need for us to even hazard a guess.
As the thrill ride waned a sense I’ve been sold a novel, not an historical account, took its place.
This may well be what the majority want today. It has to be a thrill ride or it won’t sell: demands made by the publishing house, I shouldn’t wonder.
I’ll not bother with Macintyre’s other works: I’ll search out the TRUE, historically precise, offerings. It won’t be too difficult: it took no time to find a copy of Ewen Montagu’s book, ‘The Man Who Never Was’. Ewen Montagu being the man who led Operation Mincemeat.
Ohh, yes, I almost forgot ………… early on, Macintyre states: “If my discovery of these papers [documents kept by Ewen Montagu from his war-days and handed to Macintyre by his son] reads like something out of a spy film, that may be no accident: Montagu himself had a rich sense of the dramatic. He [Ewen Montagu] must have known they [the documents] would be found one day.”
Is Macintyre trying to justify where his wild imagination took him during his re-writing of history?
May 28, 2022
“The plan was born in the mind of a novelist and took shape through a most unlikely cast of characters: a brilliant barrister, a family of undertakers, a forensic pathologist, a gold prospector, an inventor, a submarine captain, a transvestite English spymaster, a rally driver, a pretty secretary, a credulous Nazi, and a grumpy admiral who loved fly-fishing.”
An almost implausible sounding, exciting, very well-built up true story.
Historian Ben Macintyre managed it all very nicely: it is a structured, objective, informative and utterly exciting read & very well narrated by John Lee.
And there are all these characters I'd like to read more about, like Bill Jewell and his submarine, Bill Derby and his rangers, etc.
“Wars are won by men like Bill Darby, storming up the beach with all guns blazing, and by men like Leverton, sipping his tea as the bombs fell. They are won by planners correctly calculating how many rations and contraceptives an invading force will need; by tacticians laying out grand strategy; by generals inspiring the men they command; by politicians galvanizing the will to fight; and by writers putting war into words. They are won by acts of strength, bravery, and guile. But they are also won by feats of imagination. Amateur, unpublished novelists, the framers of Operation Mincemeat, dreamed up the most unlikely concatenation of events, rendered them believable, and sent them off to war, changing reality through lateral thinking and proving that it is possible to win a battle fought in the mind, from behind a desk, and from beyond the grave. Operation Mincemeat was pure make-believe; and it made Hitler believe something that changed the course of history.”
An almost implausible sounding, exciting, very well-built up true story.
Historian Ben Macintyre managed it all very nicely: it is a structured, objective, informative and utterly exciting read & very well narrated by John Lee.
And there are all these characters I'd like to read more about, like Bill Jewell and his submarine, Bill Derby and his rangers, etc.
“Wars are won by men like Bill Darby, storming up the beach with all guns blazing, and by men like Leverton, sipping his tea as the bombs fell. They are won by planners correctly calculating how many rations and contraceptives an invading force will need; by tacticians laying out grand strategy; by generals inspiring the men they command; by politicians galvanizing the will to fight; and by writers putting war into words. They are won by acts of strength, bravery, and guile. But they are also won by feats of imagination. Amateur, unpublished novelists, the framers of Operation Mincemeat, dreamed up the most unlikely concatenation of events, rendered them believable, and sent them off to war, changing reality through lateral thinking and proving that it is possible to win a battle fought in the mind, from behind a desk, and from beyond the grave. Operation Mincemeat was pure make-believe; and it made Hitler believe something that changed the course of history.”
January 4, 2011
Briefly, I have to say that this is one of the most fascinating books of history I've read in a very long time. You don't even need to be a WWII buff to appreciate it -- I'm not -- but it's simply amazing. The basic story is this: it's 1943, and the Allies have plans to invade Sicily to get a foothold in Europe and defeat Hitler. But since Sicily is the most obvious place for an Allied landing, Ewen Montagu and Charles Cholmondeley (it's pronounced "Chumley") of the Naval Intelligence section of the Admiralty decide to dupe the Germans into thinking that Greece is the actual target -- and with the help of a fiction writer, a plan is born. The British Navy will ferry a dead body in the guise of a Navy officer carrying misleading documents to the coast of Spain, where the body would be found and the documents leaked to German spies there and hopefully believed. The idea is that the Germans will redeploy a large percentage of their military forces currently on Sicily elsewhere, saving countless Allied lives. How the plan was conceived and how it was put into action is an amazing story in itself, but Macintyre does so much more -- he manages to infuse the story with a bit of suspense and delivers human portraits of all those involved, including the Germans, rounding out this remarkable story. The drawback to this one is that often the story gets bogged down with a little too much detail (like the description of an entertainer doing his show), breaking up the flow of the narrative, but otherwise it is definitely one of those stories you won't soon forget.Highly recommended.
May 20, 2021
Ugh why is Macintyre so good!??! This book was BEYOND anything I could have hoped for, excellent in every way, every page.
Rivals The Spy and the Traitor, but this one was just so ... imaginative, yet all true.
“The plan was born in the mind of a novelist and took shape through a most unlikely cast of characters: a brilliant barrister, a family of undertakers, a forensic pathologist, a gold prospector, an inventor, a submarine captain, a transvestite English spymaster, a rally driver, a pretty secretary, a credulous Nazi, and a grumpy admiral who loved fly-fishing.”
“Wars are won by men like Bill Darby, storming up the beach with all guns blazing, and by men like Leverton, sipping his tea as the bombs fell. They are won by planners correctly calculating how many rations and contraceptives an invading force will need; by tacticians laying out grand strategy; by generals inspiring the men they command; by politicians galvanizing the will to fight; and by writers putting war into words. They are won by acts of strength, bravery, and guile. But they are also won by feats of imagination. Amateur, unpublished novelists, the framers of Operation Mincemeat, dreamed up the most unlikely concatenation of events, rendered them believable, and sent them off to war, changing reality through lateral thinking and proving that it is possible to win a battle fought in the mind, from behind a desk, and from beyond the grave. Operation Mincemeat was pure make-believe; and it made Hitler believe something that changed the course of history.”
Rivals The Spy and the Traitor, but this one was just so ... imaginative, yet all true.
“The plan was born in the mind of a novelist and took shape through a most unlikely cast of characters: a brilliant barrister, a family of undertakers, a forensic pathologist, a gold prospector, an inventor, a submarine captain, a transvestite English spymaster, a rally driver, a pretty secretary, a credulous Nazi, and a grumpy admiral who loved fly-fishing.”
“Wars are won by men like Bill Darby, storming up the beach with all guns blazing, and by men like Leverton, sipping his tea as the bombs fell. They are won by planners correctly calculating how many rations and contraceptives an invading force will need; by tacticians laying out grand strategy; by generals inspiring the men they command; by politicians galvanizing the will to fight; and by writers putting war into words. They are won by acts of strength, bravery, and guile. But they are also won by feats of imagination. Amateur, unpublished novelists, the framers of Operation Mincemeat, dreamed up the most unlikely concatenation of events, rendered them believable, and sent them off to war, changing reality through lateral thinking and proving that it is possible to win a battle fought in the mind, from behind a desk, and from beyond the grave. Operation Mincemeat was pure make-believe; and it made Hitler believe something that changed the course of history.”
November 26, 2016
You can't make this stuff up! Or more precisely, you can which is what makes this story of espionage and deception so much fun. It is almost hard to believe it is all true.
When I first began the book, I didn't think Ben Macintyre had enough material to make an interesting story. I presumed he would be repetitive, or worse, insert his own personal 'journey' into the narrative. I was proved decidedly wrong in both cases. So many unique, colorful characters pepper the story of Operation Mincemeat that it might even have been longer. I laughed out loud on several occasions and thoroughly enjoyed each new person introduced. Macintyre explains a little at the beginning what inspired him to pursue writing about Mincemeat but he never returns to the subject. It actually left me wanting to know more about him as the author, something that rarely happens for me!
The only complaint I have with this book is with the audiobook I was listening to. It was actually a very good reading. However, the author has a British accent and can do a Russian accent, but that is about it. Every other nationality (German, Italian, etc.) sounded Russian. Even the American accent was a little wobbly.
An interesting, incredible book about the men and women who fooled the Germans with a dead body and some fake documents and helped save thousands of lives during the invasion of Italy.
When I first began the book, I didn't think Ben Macintyre had enough material to make an interesting story. I presumed he would be repetitive, or worse, insert his own personal 'journey' into the narrative. I was proved decidedly wrong in both cases. So many unique, colorful characters pepper the story of Operation Mincemeat that it might even have been longer. I laughed out loud on several occasions and thoroughly enjoyed each new person introduced. Macintyre explains a little at the beginning what inspired him to pursue writing about Mincemeat but he never returns to the subject. It actually left me wanting to know more about him as the author, something that rarely happens for me!
The only complaint I have with this book is with the audiobook I was listening to. It was actually a very good reading. However, the author has a British accent and can do a Russian accent, but that is about it. Every other nationality (German, Italian, etc.) sounded Russian. Even the American accent was a little wobbly.
An interesting, incredible book about the men and women who fooled the Germans with a dead body and some fake documents and helped save thousands of lives during the invasion of Italy.
March 13, 2021
This book by Ben MacIntyre is a very interesting and most of all enjoyable read. It almost reads like a novel. Ben MacIntyre leaves no stone unturned. I particularly enjoyed his description of the German reception of the fake documents and the aftermath of it. Also, the final chapters describes the fate of all participants in this high suspense operation, which is very nice to know.
June 3, 2013
A marvellous story of intrigue of actual events during World War II. There are a host of wonderful and eclectic characters in England, Spain and Germany. The author presents all these in readable detail.
The sequence of events – and there are several – are well depicted and we are clearly presented with the logical construction of this set-up meant to deceive the Germans into believing that the Allies mean to launch a multi-pronged invasion in the Mediterranean – instead of just Sicily.
The author is careful to show all the nuances of the deception – how much embellishment do you do to preserve the initial lie? The author is also forthright to point out that “Mincemeat” was part of an overall package. The Germans in Spain pushed their find over-enthusiastically and many used it to reinforce their own preconceptions of an Allied invasion of Greece. As Mr. Macintyre demonstrates, if German Intelligence would have probed more in any direction (such as the ambiguous autopsy from the Spanish coroner) the ruse would have been exposed. Instead the clientele was an over-eager buyer.
It is with sadness at the end of the book when we are shown the tombstone of this “unknown civilian” – whose body was used in after-life to conjure this grand deception.
The paperback edition has some useful footnotes.
This is just a really fabulous spy story with all the different layers exposed for us to marvel at.
The sequence of events – and there are several – are well depicted and we are clearly presented with the logical construction of this set-up meant to deceive the Germans into believing that the Allies mean to launch a multi-pronged invasion in the Mediterranean – instead of just Sicily.
The author is careful to show all the nuances of the deception – how much embellishment do you do to preserve the initial lie? The author is also forthright to point out that “Mincemeat” was part of an overall package. The Germans in Spain pushed their find over-enthusiastically and many used it to reinforce their own preconceptions of an Allied invasion of Greece. As Mr. Macintyre demonstrates, if German Intelligence would have probed more in any direction (such as the ambiguous autopsy from the Spanish coroner) the ruse would have been exposed. Instead the clientele was an over-eager buyer.
It is with sadness at the end of the book when we are shown the tombstone of this “unknown civilian” – whose body was used in after-life to conjure this grand deception.
The paperback edition has some useful footnotes.
This is just a really fabulous spy story with all the different layers exposed for us to marvel at.
February 26, 2012
It's a rare gem when history is unfolded for us in such a detailed and thrilling form. In 1943, Ewan Montagu of the British Naval Intelligence and Charles Cholmondeley of MI5 came together in collaboration of a complex plan of deception. The plan that was ultimately approved was to take a suitable corpse, dress it in a suitable military uniform, place certain well-planned personal items, attach to it a chained briefcase containing fake official documents and personal letters, and then drop it the ocean close to Huelva in Spain, where German agents and sympathizers were known to work. The objective? To deceive Hitler and his army that the Allies were going to use Sicily as a cover, but that they were going to attack Greece and Sardinia instead. If the plan was successful, Hitler would move his troops away from Sicily, thus leaving this underbelly of Italy vulnerable to the British armada and air attacks.
Sicily was identified as being the pivotal point at which a successful Allied attack could destroy Germany's hold over Italy. Secret agents and double agents were seemingly living cheek by jowl in Spain, and both Great Britain and Germany built an impressive network of spies in Spain.
What makes this a fascinating read is the attention to the cast of characters that had any part at all in this particular secret operation, both on the British side as well as on the German side. The personalities of all characters, their background before, during and after the war, and the parts they played, both in the development, and the witting and unwitting execution of Operation Mincemeat are carefully detailed. And this includes the life of the person who took the central spotlight in this play - the corpse, who never in his living days thought he'd be serving his country in such a dramatic fashion.
The unfolding of Operation Mincemeat once the corpse was released into the water was a non-stop thrill. There were so many opportunities for the plan to go pear-shaped but the way in which the British spymasters manipulated their network was sheer genius and eventually led to the successful invasion of Sicily, wrenching away Germany's control and the toppling of Mussolini.
There is a reference to a similar outline of a plan to use a corpse by Ian Fleming, and indeed it could have given the duo the idea, but credit must be given to both Cholmondeley and Montagu for crafting and thinking of all angles to this plan and then being instrumental in executing it so successfully.
Sicily was identified as being the pivotal point at which a successful Allied attack could destroy Germany's hold over Italy. Secret agents and double agents were seemingly living cheek by jowl in Spain, and both Great Britain and Germany built an impressive network of spies in Spain.
What makes this a fascinating read is the attention to the cast of characters that had any part at all in this particular secret operation, both on the British side as well as on the German side. The personalities of all characters, their background before, during and after the war, and the parts they played, both in the development, and the witting and unwitting execution of Operation Mincemeat are carefully detailed. And this includes the life of the person who took the central spotlight in this play - the corpse, who never in his living days thought he'd be serving his country in such a dramatic fashion.
The unfolding of Operation Mincemeat once the corpse was released into the water was a non-stop thrill. There were so many opportunities for the plan to go pear-shaped but the way in which the British spymasters manipulated their network was sheer genius and eventually led to the successful invasion of Sicily, wrenching away Germany's control and the toppling of Mussolini.
There is a reference to a similar outline of a plan to use a corpse by Ian Fleming, and indeed it could have given the duo the idea, but credit must be given to both Cholmondeley and Montagu for crafting and thinking of all angles to this plan and then being instrumental in executing it so successfully.
May 8, 2020
Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre was truly excellent. A true story told with all the verve and pace of a top notch thriller. This was a truly British caper full of eccentric characters such as the cross dressing spy master,an RAF intelligence officer who hated locusts with a passion and a myopic former racing driver turned MI5 operative who drove straight over a roundabout because he couldn't see it. Also, we mustn't forget Derek Leverton,the undertaker who became an officer in the Royal Artillery. His first act after landing on the beach in Sicily, while under heavy German artillery fire ,was to make a cup of tea ! These are just some of the remarkable people that played their part in what was an incredible feat of deception that even fooled Hitler himself. Ben Macintyre delivers a brilliant and fitting tribute to all those involved which I greatly enjoyed especially with today being the 75th anniversary of VE Day. If you liked Agent Zigzag then I can highly recommend this book as I thought it was better. Highly recommended.
November 5, 2022
I knew this was a true story from the outset, yet the more I read the more I thought, "Nooo. They didn't. Did they?"
I know times were different (none of that high-tech surveillance and the lack of a digital sea of information at your fingertips), and of course so much was at stake, but that was not what made this doable: it was the brains, the belief, the courage. How fantastic is this?
I bet such people must still be around today.
This is a great story and a great read.
I know times were different (none of that high-tech surveillance and the lack of a digital sea of information at your fingertips), and of course so much was at stake, but that was not what made this doable: it was the brains, the belief, the courage. How fantastic is this?
I bet such people must still be around today.
This is a great story and a great read.
October 29, 2021
3 -1/2*
Positively fascinating!!! Obviously researched to the nth degree. So much so the author could have spared us some of the more mundane aspects which were not necessary to an already compelling story.
As interesting as the story is it did not require 300+ pages.
An undertaking of such an elaborate deception took months of planning and many devious minds and even so could have gone horribly wrong in so many ways, but it didn’t.
I was reminded of the Hitchcock movie “North by Northwest” when Cary Grant’s character is mistaken for a secret agent who does not exist. At the time I thought it was rather a clever plot having no idea that such a thing was most likely based in fact.
Positively fascinating!!! Obviously researched to the nth degree. So much so the author could have spared us some of the more mundane aspects which were not necessary to an already compelling story.
As interesting as the story is it did not require 300+ pages.
An undertaking of such an elaborate deception took months of planning and many devious minds and even so could have gone horribly wrong in so many ways, but it didn’t.
I was reminded of the Hitchcock movie “North by Northwest” when Cary Grant’s character is mistaken for a secret agent who does not exist. At the time I thought it was rather a clever plot having no idea that such a thing was most likely based in fact.
June 25, 2022
This is now a film on Netflix, so I wanted to get it read before we sat down (as we undoubtedly will) for an evening viewing.
It is an incredible read and one must give credit to the author. It's an incredible story and so would be lapped up anyhow, but I do believe the author made it all that more delectable.
I doubt there is much point in describing what goes on - it's on Netflix.
The mindsets behind the plot must have been most remarkable: "spiral thinkers", a term often
bandied around where I did at one time work; maybe this is where it originates from.
I do recommend this; it's worth every penny.
It is an incredible read and one must give credit to the author. It's an incredible story and so would be lapped up anyhow, but I do believe the author made it all that more delectable.
I doubt there is much point in describing what goes on - it's on Netflix.
The mindsets behind the plot must have been most remarkable: "spiral thinkers", a term often
bandied around where I did at one time work; maybe this is where it originates from.
I do recommend this; it's worth every penny.
August 5, 2022
Slightly boring history lesson, the characters didn’t come into life, so much repetitive presentation of character upon character, so in the end I lost track of who was actually important in this story. The epilogue helped a bit, and the Montague brothers (as I was listening to this, I don’t know exactly if I am spelling the name correctly) I certainly got in place, but then again they were easy to remember.
A bit disappointing after having listened to another of his books, The Spy and the Traitor which was a convincing 5 star read for me
A bit disappointing after having listened to another of his books, The Spy and the Traitor which was a convincing 5 star read for me
November 23, 2022
Spycraft in a WWII setting. Real life James Bond type stuff here (which is somewhat ironic given that one of the characters in this story is Ian Fleming—yes, that Ian Fleming).
Macintyre's writing is not ornate but his storytelling is effortless. One thing I really appreciate is the way he introduces characters as the story unfolds rather than doing it all up front. It makes things much easier to follow.
Macintyre's writing is not ornate but his storytelling is effortless. One thing I really appreciate is the way he introduces characters as the story unfolds rather than doing it all up front. It makes things much easier to follow.
August 19, 2012
Rating Clarification: 4.5 Stars
From the book blurb:
"In 1943, from a windowless basement office in London, two brilliant intelligence officers (Charles Cholmondeley of MI5 and the British naval intelligence officer Ewen Montagu) conceived a plan that was both simple and complicated— Operation Mincemeat. The purpose? To deceive the Nazis into thinking that Allied forces were planning to attack southern Europe by way of Greece or Sardinia, rather than Sicily, as the Nazis had assumed, and the Allies ultimately chose.
Their ingenious plan: Get a corpse, equip it with secret (but false and misleading) papers concerning the invasion, then drop it off the coast of Spain where German spies would, they hoped, take the bait. The idea was approved by British intelligence officials, including Ian Fleming (creator of James Bond). Winston Churchill believed it might ring true to the Axis and help bring victory to the Allies."
The above is, once again, confirmation of why I love reading non-fiction. Because if it were fiction, I'd throw the book against the wall and scream: "that's improbable, crazy and impossible!" And yet Operation Mincemeat was so wildly improbable, so imaginatively crazy, so charged with failure at any given junction that the mere fact that the body in question made it to the attention of the Spanish & German authorities was a feat in itself. The cast of participants in this elaborate deception ranged from the pathetic: (the body of a down-trodden, mentally unstable Welshman whose sad, empty real life- and death- was replaced with a purpose-filled new "life"), to the romantic: (the dashing submarine commander), to the bizarre: (the cross-dressing British commanding officer) and finally to the brilliant: (the imaginations and talents of the counter-intelligence agents), who together pulled off this bold and audacious plan and fooled Hitler into shallowing a lie he already desperately wanted to believe.
Author Ben Macintyre lays out the operation from conception to completion, and shows how the coordinated efforts of people both larger-then-life as well as relatively obscure helped frame the most successful espionage operation of WWII. Great writing, page-turning suspense, humorous anecdotes, fully fleshed out true-life character studies, and a poignant ending make this a book that's hard to put down for the last 200 pages (and I didn't...)
From the book blurb:
"In 1943, from a windowless basement office in London, two brilliant intelligence officers (Charles Cholmondeley of MI5 and the British naval intelligence officer Ewen Montagu) conceived a plan that was both simple and complicated— Operation Mincemeat. The purpose? To deceive the Nazis into thinking that Allied forces were planning to attack southern Europe by way of Greece or Sardinia, rather than Sicily, as the Nazis had assumed, and the Allies ultimately chose.
Their ingenious plan: Get a corpse, equip it with secret (but false and misleading) papers concerning the invasion, then drop it off the coast of Spain where German spies would, they hoped, take the bait. The idea was approved by British intelligence officials, including Ian Fleming (creator of James Bond). Winston Churchill believed it might ring true to the Axis and help bring victory to the Allies."
The above is, once again, confirmation of why I love reading non-fiction. Because if it were fiction, I'd throw the book against the wall and scream: "that's improbable, crazy and impossible!" And yet Operation Mincemeat was so wildly improbable, so imaginatively crazy, so charged with failure at any given junction that the mere fact that the body in question made it to the attention of the Spanish & German authorities was a feat in itself. The cast of participants in this elaborate deception ranged from the pathetic: (the body of a down-trodden, mentally unstable Welshman whose sad, empty real life- and death- was replaced with a purpose-filled new "life"), to the romantic: (the dashing submarine commander), to the bizarre: (the cross-dressing British commanding officer) and finally to the brilliant: (the imaginations and talents of the counter-intelligence agents), who together pulled off this bold and audacious plan and fooled Hitler into shallowing a lie he already desperately wanted to believe.
Author Ben Macintyre lays out the operation from conception to completion, and shows how the coordinated efforts of people both larger-then-life as well as relatively obscure helped frame the most successful espionage operation of WWII. Great writing, page-turning suspense, humorous anecdotes, fully fleshed out true-life character studies, and a poignant ending make this a book that's hard to put down for the last 200 pages (and I didn't...)
August 27, 2015
Dad was involved in the occupation of N. Africa and in the landings at Gela on the south coast of Sicily. An army cryptanalyst attached to the U.S. navy, he and his colleagues maintained ship-to-shore communications during the successful invasion. Books relevant to his experiences there and in the Pacific have long attracted my attention.
This book is an account of how the British successfully misled the Germans and Italians into believing that their European invasion plans were directed at Sardinia and Greece, not the island of Sicily, a deception that saved thousands of allied lives and expedited the overthrow of the Mussolini regime. Unlike previous books on the subject, this one appears to fill in the missing and hidden pieces.
Macintyre is an exceptionally good writer, his prose being fast-paced, his handling of details being often quite witty.
This book is an account of how the British successfully misled the Germans and Italians into believing that their European invasion plans were directed at Sardinia and Greece, not the island of Sicily, a deception that saved thousands of allied lives and expedited the overthrow of the Mussolini regime. Unlike previous books on the subject, this one appears to fill in the missing and hidden pieces.
Macintyre is an exceptionally good writer, his prose being fast-paced, his handling of details being often quite witty.
March 27, 2022
What this story entails is out there, so .......
Another great thriller and this one is true.
And again, this tale focuses on a team of people (from the intelligence community) who work together to achieve a ‘HARD ASK’.
"Teamwork, Sam. Teamwork."
Maybe it is easier for writers (maybe it is laziness) to create a super hero (a one-man army) who conquers all. Saves all that thinking up characters and giving them credible backstories.
Why do so many lap-up the myth?
This would make an incredible film: I know a BBC documentary type film has been made, but this would be such a great film in its own right.
There was so much at risk, yet they took the gamble. Who dares wins!
I could not put this down, with frequent caffeine intake, I read late, late, into the night.
Thanks Mary.
Another great thriller and this one is true.
And again, this tale focuses on a team of people (from the intelligence community) who work together to achieve a ‘HARD ASK’.
"Teamwork, Sam. Teamwork."
Maybe it is easier for writers (maybe it is laziness) to create a super hero (a one-man army) who conquers all. Saves all that thinking up characters and giving them credible backstories.
Why do so many lap-up the myth?
This would make an incredible film: I know a BBC documentary type film has been made, but this would be such a great film in its own right.
There was so much at risk, yet they took the gamble. Who dares wins!
I could not put this down, with frequent caffeine intake, I read late, late, into the night.
Thanks Mary.
March 11, 2011
Very interesting operation that saved many Allied lives in World War II. The story suffers from "padding" and some quotes and anecdotes that just don't quite fit.
July 17, 2020
“We fooled those of the Spaniards who assisted the Germans, we fooled the German Intelligence Service both in Spain and in Berlin, we fooled the German Operational Staff and Supreme Command, we fooled Keitel, and, finally, we fooled Hitler himself, and kept him fooled right up to the end of July." - Ewen Montagu
In 1943, a Spanish fisherman found the corpse of a British soldier floating off the Spanish coast. The sinister discovery would set a series of important events in motion. The year before, an elaborate plan had been developed by a team of British intelligence members with the goal of disguising the future Allied invasion of Sicily. Charles Cholmondeley (inspired by the 1939 Trout memo) outlined a plan where a corpse would be used to knowingly place false documents in the hands of the enemy. Cholmondeley's initial plan sounded as following,
"A body is obtained from one of the London hospitals ... The lungs are filled with water and documents are disposed in an inside pocket. The body is then dropped by a Coastal Command aircraft ... On being found, the supposition in the enemy's mind may well be that one of our aircraft has either been shot or forced down and that this is one of their passengers."
The plan would over the span of a couple of months go through many changes, the people involved (Cholmondeley and Ewen Montagu being some of the main figures) becoming greatly entangled in the plotting and scheming; to the point that some of them would feel as if the invented identity of the corpse was that of someone they knew very well.
Ben MacIntyre has written an immensely detailed account of this deception operation. It is incredibly well-paced and full of intrigue and suspense. His book features a cast of interesting and eccentric characters and while being completely true and well-researched, it reads smoothly like a piece of fiction. It is not only a story about the operation itself but also a very vivid description of the lives and fates of those involved. We often read about well known historical figures but the lives of those working behind the scenes can be just as interesting. MacIntyre provides the reader with every detail related to the operation and it never becomes dry or boring, on the contrary we are eager to know more- to let the whole truth with all its details unravel.
Operation Mincemeat was only one element in the larger deception scheme planned by the British intelligence to give the appearance of an invasion in Greece and Sardinia by the Allies, and its true effect can never be known; however, it is safe to assume that it was an important cog in the machine.
In 1943, a Spanish fisherman found the corpse of a British soldier floating off the Spanish coast. The sinister discovery would set a series of important events in motion. The year before, an elaborate plan had been developed by a team of British intelligence members with the goal of disguising the future Allied invasion of Sicily. Charles Cholmondeley (inspired by the 1939 Trout memo) outlined a plan where a corpse would be used to knowingly place false documents in the hands of the enemy. Cholmondeley's initial plan sounded as following,
"A body is obtained from one of the London hospitals ... The lungs are filled with water and documents are disposed in an inside pocket. The body is then dropped by a Coastal Command aircraft ... On being found, the supposition in the enemy's mind may well be that one of our aircraft has either been shot or forced down and that this is one of their passengers."
The plan would over the span of a couple of months go through many changes, the people involved (Cholmondeley and Ewen Montagu being some of the main figures) becoming greatly entangled in the plotting and scheming; to the point that some of them would feel as if the invented identity of the corpse was that of someone they knew very well.
Ben MacIntyre has written an immensely detailed account of this deception operation. It is incredibly well-paced and full of intrigue and suspense. His book features a cast of interesting and eccentric characters and while being completely true and well-researched, it reads smoothly like a piece of fiction. It is not only a story about the operation itself but also a very vivid description of the lives and fates of those involved. We often read about well known historical figures but the lives of those working behind the scenes can be just as interesting. MacIntyre provides the reader with every detail related to the operation and it never becomes dry or boring, on the contrary we are eager to know more- to let the whole truth with all its details unravel.
Operation Mincemeat was only one element in the larger deception scheme planned by the British intelligence to give the appearance of an invasion in Greece and Sardinia by the Allies, and its true effect can never be known; however, it is safe to assume that it was an important cog in the machine.
Read
July 15, 2022An almost picaresque story about Royal Marine Major William Martin, who was lost at sea in an aircraft accident carrying important dispatches about future Allied plans in the Mediterranean. His body washed ashore in Spain and by nefarious means the dispatches were copied and forwarded to Abwehr, German intelligence.
Except that that major was no major and those dispatches were fake. It was all an elaborate plot cooked up by British Intelligence to deceive the enemy, and which disinformation Abwehr and Hitler himself swallowed whole, to the extent that the Germans moved a vitally significant portion of their forces from Sicily, where as Macintyre puts it anyone with an atlas knew the Allies would invade, to Greece and Sardinia, where the British hoped to fool the Germans into thinking they would. Operation Mincemeat was, to put it mildly, successful.
The British Eighth Army had expected some ten thousand casualties in the first week of the invasion; just one-seventh of that number were killed or wounded. The navy had anticipated the loss of up to three hundred ships in the first two days; barely a dozen were sunk...The Allies had expected it would take ninety days to conquer Sicily. The occupation was completed on August 17, thirty-eight days after the invasion began.
Further, Operation Mincemeat began a cascade of other events, Mussolini's downfall, Italy's surrender, the abandonment of the German siege of Kursk and pretty much the beginning of the end of the European war. Macintyre writes
The Third Reich never recovered from the failure of Operation Citadel, and from then until the end of the war, the German armies in the east would be on the defensive as the Red Army rolled, inexorably, toward Berlin.
The cast of characters has to be read to be believed. There's the British Jewish nobleman (I didn't even know there was such a thing), his unbelievable brother (I won't spoil), the submarine driver with comprehensive powers of seduction (I'm thinking of the car with the doors that wouldn't open), the crazy commando who kept refusing promotion and went on to be portrayed in film by James Garner, the undertaking brothers, one in the front lines and the other not but still part of the story, and so many more. But! One of the things I particularly love is that at least three (possibly four, I lost count) of the men engaged in kerflummoxing the Germans so completely were...writers.
A rollicking story, all the more exquisite because it's all true. Don't pick up this book until you've got a few days with nothing else to do because you won't be able to put it down. Highly recommended.
***
See also A Presumption of Death by Jill Paton Walsh & Dorothy L. Sayers, the second of Walsh's continuation of Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey series. Walsh uses the Official Secrets Act as a motive for murder. Also recommended.
Except that that major was no major and those dispatches were fake. It was all an elaborate plot cooked up by British Intelligence to deceive the enemy, and which disinformation Abwehr and Hitler himself swallowed whole, to the extent that the Germans moved a vitally significant portion of their forces from Sicily, where as Macintyre puts it anyone with an atlas knew the Allies would invade, to Greece and Sardinia, where the British hoped to fool the Germans into thinking they would. Operation Mincemeat was, to put it mildly, successful.
The British Eighth Army had expected some ten thousand casualties in the first week of the invasion; just one-seventh of that number were killed or wounded. The navy had anticipated the loss of up to three hundred ships in the first two days; barely a dozen were sunk...The Allies had expected it would take ninety days to conquer Sicily. The occupation was completed on August 17, thirty-eight days after the invasion began.
Further, Operation Mincemeat began a cascade of other events, Mussolini's downfall, Italy's surrender, the abandonment of the German siege of Kursk and pretty much the beginning of the end of the European war. Macintyre writes
The Third Reich never recovered from the failure of Operation Citadel, and from then until the end of the war, the German armies in the east would be on the defensive as the Red Army rolled, inexorably, toward Berlin.
The cast of characters has to be read to be believed. There's the British Jewish nobleman (I didn't even know there was such a thing), his unbelievable brother (I won't spoil), the submarine driver with comprehensive powers of seduction (I'm thinking of the car with the doors that wouldn't open), the crazy commando who kept refusing promotion and went on to be portrayed in film by James Garner, the undertaking brothers, one in the front lines and the other not but still part of the story, and so many more. But! One of the things I particularly love is that at least three (possibly four, I lost count) of the men engaged in kerflummoxing the Germans so completely were...writers.
A rollicking story, all the more exquisite because it's all true. Don't pick up this book until you've got a few days with nothing else to do because you won't be able to put it down. Highly recommended.
***
See also A Presumption of Death by Jill Paton Walsh & Dorothy L. Sayers, the second of Walsh's continuation of Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey series. Walsh uses the Official Secrets Act as a motive for murder. Also recommended.
February 16, 2023
I was somewhat familiar with Operation Mincemeat before reading this account and knew the general outline of how the British deceived the Nazis into thinking the next wave of fighting in WWII, after North Africa, would occur in Greece rather than Italy. They floated a body holding a briefcase that contained false documents about the planned invasion, which was discovered near the coast of Spain. This book provides the details and background using actual records of the operation and interviews of participants (and their relatives).
Macintyre has a knack for following the people involved in a way that kept me engaged, almost like reading an espionage novel, but in this case all the outlandish deception actually occurred. He provides insight into strategies of the war and brings to light the part played by the people (and spies) in southern Spain. He occasional gets carried away with detail, but I know some readers like all the nitty gritty. There are several scenes of wry humor. I found this book well researched and well written. I feel like I can always count on Ben Macintyre to tell an entertaining true story.
Macintyre has a knack for following the people involved in a way that kept me engaged, almost like reading an espionage novel, but in this case all the outlandish deception actually occurred. He provides insight into strategies of the war and brings to light the part played by the people (and spies) in southern Spain. He occasional gets carried away with detail, but I know some readers like all the nitty gritty. There are several scenes of wry humor. I found this book well researched and well written. I feel like I can always count on Ben Macintyre to tell an entertaining true story.
August 17, 2016
I'm in awe of this book. Incredible story, very well-told, and all true. As a Christian, you can read this as a story of divine providence, which ultimately, it is.
March 10, 2020
Fantastic book. Witty and interesting, great fun, reads like really good fiction - but it’s true!
June 28, 2021
ספר מרתק כמו כל ספריו של בן מקנטייר, אותם קראתי עד כה.
לדעתי בספר זה, שמגולל פרשת הונאה מדהימה כאמור בתקציר, מקנטייר נוטה לפרטנות יתר והיה ניתן לצמצם את היקף הספר מבלי לפגוע באיכותו.
על כך אתן לו 4 1/2 כוכבים.
לדעתי בספר זה, שמגולל פרשת הונאה מדהימה כאמור בתקציר, מקנטייר נוטה לפרטנות יתר והיה ניתן לצמצם את היקף הספר מבלי לפגוע באיכותו.
על כך אתן לו 4 1/2 כוכבים.
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