Operation Mincemeat

I've seen videos on YouTube that talk about the story of Operation Mincemeat but if it was to any extent, I'd forgotten the details. It was the Netflix movie that fully captured my attention. When I happened upon this book in a used bookstore shortly after, I knew I needed to pick it up.

Sometimes the craziest ideas are the ones that work. Such was the case with Operation Mincemeat which involved planting a deceased ‘soldier' carrying fake documents in enemy waters. Finding a corpse that met the criteria was a challenge of its own, never mind having to pull off such an incredible feat. In the day of modern technology in medicine, it's easy to think that this all would be impossible. Even in the early 1940s this deception was a huge risk, but miraculously, it worked.

The book discusses many sides of the operation such as the inventors of the idea, the coroner tasked with finding an unclaimed body, the secretaries involved, the spies, and ‘William Martin' himself. There are sections that drag on and occasionally feel irrelevant, but as a whole, the book is well-researched and fascinating.

I thoroughly enjoyed this detailed history.

A quite incredible and unbelievable tale written in Macintyres's matter-of-fact style. The details are what makes it such an enjoyable read, bringing to life the huge cast of characters involved. A magnificent feat of research and writing.

WWII espionage attracts strange ideas, and characters. And none more so than 1943's Operation Mincemeat. The plan: float a corpse (Major Martin) ashore in Spain bearing fake secret documents. The reason: to mislead the Germans into believing that the Allies planned to invade Greece and Sardinia. This was instead of the obvious target of Sicily.

Ewen Montagu (one of the two main instigators of the deception) told the story in 1953. His book, The Man Who Never Was, became a successful film. But much remained unwritten. Ben Macintyre, fills in the gaps with fascinating and recently available material.

The body designated as Major Martin was an itinerant Welsh labourer, Glyndwr Michael. Michael was born in Aberbargoed in Monmouthshire in South Wales. Before leaving the town, he held part-time jobs as a gardener and labourer. His father Thomas, a coal miner, killed himself when Michael was 15 and his mother died when he was 31. Michael, homeless, friendless, depressed and with no money, drifted to London where he lived on the streets.

Found in an abandoned warehouse close to King's Cross he was seriously ill from ingesting rat poison. He died two days later. His death may have been suicide, although he may have been hungry. The poison he ingested was a paste smeared on bread crusts to attract rats.

The St Pancras coroner, tipped off about the need for a corpse that wouldn't be missed, alerted Montagu. After illegally removing the body it was stored in a mortuary. Three months later it was set adrift from a submarine off the Spanish coast near Huelva.

To appear more real, Naval Intelligence gave Major Martin a private life:
- he had fake letters from a fiancée “Pam”,
- theatre ticket stubs,
- a bill for an engagement ring,
- letter from an exasperated father demanding his son sort out his financial affairs.

While the deception was intrequate and well plotted, it was the willingness of the Germans to believe. This is what assured the success of Operation Mincemeat. If the Abwehr had been doing its job properly, they would have spotted the deception. The agents in Huelva were looking for something to advance their careers. Once the Führer believed, none of the yes men around him dared suggest otherwise. Even the sceptical Dr Goebbels recorded his doubts only in his diary.

On 14 May 1943 Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz met Hitler. The Admiral, referring to the Mincemeat documents as the “Anglo-Saxon order”, recorded:

The Führer does not agree with ... [Mussolini] that the most likely invasion point is Sicily. Furthermore, he believes that the discovered Anglo-Saxon order confirms the assumption that the planned attacks will be directed mainly against Sardinia and the Peloponnesus.

This is a well researched and readable book. It's a must for anybody interested in the Second World War and the British Secret Service of the time.

The thing that struck me most while reading this was how much luck was involved in the operation's success. It's fascinating how such an event as large-scale as the invasion of Sicily was affected by a series of small events that made Operation Mincemeat work. Little things like finding the right photograph to match the dead body, the documents landing in the hands of an anti-Nazi German officer, etc... if any of those things had happened differently, the entire operation could have failed. The book does a good job of revealing these turns of fortune in an entertaining way so that it reads like a suspense novel.