In 1943\, from a windowless basement offic
e in London\, two brilliant intelligence officers conceived a plan that wa
s both simple and complicated&mdash\; Operation Mincemeat. The purpose? To
deceive the Nazis into thinking that Allied forces were planning to attac
k southern Europe by way of Greece or Sardinia\, rather than Sicily\, as t
he Nazis had assumed\, and the Allies ultimately chose.
\;
Charles Cholmondeley of MI5 and the British naval intelligence officer Ewe
n Montagu could not have been more different. Cholmondeley was a dreamer s
eeking adventure. Montagu was an aristocratic\, detail-oriented barrister.
But together they were the perfect team. They created an ingenious plan:
Get a corpse\, equip it with secret (but false and misleading) papers conc
erning the invasion\, then drop it off the coast of Spain where German spi
es would\, they hoped\, take the bait. The idea was approved by British in
telligence officials\, including Ian Fleming (creator of James Bond). Wins
ton Churchill believed it might ring true to the Axis and help bring victo
ry to the Allies.
Filled with spies\, double agents\, rogues\, fea rless heroes\, and one very important corpse\, the story of Operation Minc emeat reads like an international thriller.
\nUnveiling never-before -released material\, Ben Macintyre brings the reader right into the minds of intelligence officers\, their moles and spies\, and the German Abwehr a gents who suffered the &ldquo\;twin frailties of wishfulness and yesmanshi p.&rdquo\; 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.
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th Ben Macintyre - Goodreads author page\, Twitter\, official we
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