Opération Mincemeat · L'histoire d'espionnage qui changea le cours de la Seconde Guerre mondiale

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.