Book Review: Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory

Source: Amazon.com

Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory, by Ben Macintyre

From the book’s cover:

Ben Macintyre’s Agent Zigzag was hailed as “rollicking, spellbinding” (New York Times), “wildly improbable but entirely true” (Entertainment Weekly), and, quite simply, “the best book ever written” (Boston Globe). In his new book, Operation Mincemeat, he tells an extraordinary story that will delight his legions of fans.

In 1943, from a windowless basement office in London, two brilliant intelligence officers 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.

Charles Cholmondeley of MI5 and the British naval intelligence officer Ewen Montagu could not have been more different. Cholmondeley was a dreamer seeking adventure. Montagu was an aristocratic, detail-oriented barrister. But together they were the perfect team and created an 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.

Filled with spies, double agents, rogues, fearless heroes, and one very important corpse, the story of Operation Mincemeat reads like an international thriller.

Unveiling never-before-released material, Ben Macintyre brings the reader right into the minds of intelligence officers, their moles and spies, and the German Abwehr agents who suffered the “twin frailties of wishfulness and yesmanship.” He weaves together the eccentric personalities of Cholmondeley and Montagu and their near-impossible feats into a riveting adventure that not only saved thousands of lives but paved the way for a pivotal battle in Sicily and, ultimately, Allied success in the war.

The Review:

In my opinion, Operation Mincemeat dragged in places, especially when it dealt with some of the personalities of the participants. The "meat" of the story is the actual stuff surrounding Glyndwr Michael, aka: Major William Martin of the Royal Marines, a man who lived a very sad life which was only truly remarkable by its pathetic nature, but who ended up saving so many lives in the Allied invasion of Sicily. Because of this alone, Michael can really be considered a hero of World War II.

The author, Ben Macintyre, along with an alternate cover for his book / Source: telegraph.co.uk

The info about Michael/Martin is interesting, both in a forensic sense (his body going through what it did on its way to a date with Spanish informants and German spies in fascist Spain), and also for the spycraft involved. The planted information, even though it came from a source that had signs of disinformation (the body had been dead longer than it was supposed to have been, as clearly discerned and noted by the medical report on the scene, as well as the traces of phosphorus poisoning that were overlooked based on the apparent facts, and the lack of sea-life bites on the man's tender areas), was swallowed hook, line and sinker by the Nazis. The potential invasion of Sicily was ignored by the Nazi High Command, and plans were made to repulse a massive Allied attack on Greece and Sardinia, which never came.

In fact, if not for the skill in the deception involved, even the D-Day invasion might have been ruined, as the Germans would have exacted a higher toll on Allied forces, who were sent to strike the "soft underbelly of Europe" as Churchill put it. So it can be said that those who participated in this operation, right down to the dead man at the heart of the matter, were true heroes of the war.

Sadly, Operation Mincemeat is another one of those instances in which an academic author really loves his subject, and dredges out every little detail, to the point that the reader gets a bit numb from it all. I swear, if the guy could have put a list of what people ate for lunch in there during critical times in the operation, he'd have done it. Sheesh.

German air cover did play a role in countering the eventual invasion of Sicily, though Operation Mincemeat's deception kept the causalities down by comparison. / Source: LiberationTrilogy.com

Having complained that the book was slow at times, let me clarify by saying that the personalities involved in the planning of the ruse, as well as those on the enemy side ( both in "neutral Spain" and the Germans themselves) were fascinating. But it is my feeling that the author spent too much time on them. Also, I felt at times that the book was too "British." It was obviously written by a Brit, and there are references that go over a foreigner's (American, in my case) head. But the British idioms do sometimes play a nice role. For instance, one of the master spies involved in the plot wrote a letter to a relative which exasperatingly stated "Bugger Hitler!" That statement alone cracked me up.

The look into supposedly neutral Spain during the war was also intriguing. The movie Casablanca makes you think that North Africa was a place for spies, but it appears Spain was also a hotbed of spy activity. Madrid was practically crawling with them, according to Mincemeat.

Also on the downside - and I note that I rarely like when authors do this - the book has a false ending.  Macintyre wraps things up pretty nice by giving a concluding statement, but then turns around and keeps going. He goes on to give a detailed report of what happened to everybody involved. That's OK, but you don't give such a concluding-sounding statement and then turn around and say, "Wait, there's more!" It is a bit of a let-down. Then again, it may not have been so bad, had the author not gone on so much in his details. Trimming a bit would have been nice. Clearly Ben Macintyre wants his text to be the definitive work on the subject, and explains the content that has been previously published (and Hollywood-ized, in the 1960s I think it was - the film entitled: The Man Who Never Was), and makes sure to explain how much he has done to one-up these previous publications. Laudable, but ultimately a bit of overkill for the reader.

A political cartoon from the era, which depicts Benito Mussolini sending a German soldier to check under his bed for US or British advance soldiers that might be hiding there, before he can sleep soundly. / Source: ww2cartoons.org

Be that as it may, Operation Mincemeat's subject is really fascinating. It's very much a fiction-become-fact, and it boggles the mind to think how the Germans were duped into believing that the island of Sicily was not the Allies intended target. This saved thousands of lives and helped hasten the withdrawal of Italy from the war. For that alone, the book does a great service in being a resource on this really fascinating subject. Recommended for anyone who wants to learn more on spycraft and deceptive operations in the European Theater of World War II.

Learn more about Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory on Amazon.com


The parting comment:



Source: LOLSnaps.com

Operation: Mincemeat was so simple in concept, even a first grader should have seen through it.  Luckily, the Nazis were run by overgrown children who wouldn't have passed kindergarten without help.  Oh, and my personal favorite from the list would have to be number five.