Operation Mincemeat

I'm not done with World War II yet! This book, which my friend Elizabeth recommended, finally made its way off my reading list and into my hands, where it drew me in such that I believe I read the entire story in 48 hours. And what a story it is.

The operation itself, a high stakes British deception of the Nazis at the height of the war, would be too improbable to believe it it weren't actually true. It goes a little something like this: procure a dead body, kit it out in a British officer's uniform, chain a briefcase full of "top secret" correspondence to the body, cart it by submarine to the Straits of Gibraltar, set it adrift, and pray like hell that the documents make their way into German hands by way of Spanish collaborators and spies. So much could have and probably should have gone wrong with this operation, that I find it remarkable that not only did Churchill and Eisenhower both personally sign off on it, but the Germans bought it hook, line, and sinker (possibly owing to their own secretly anti-Nazi intelligence chief).

While Operation Mincemeat is a fascinating undertaking, Operation Mincemeat is highly readable because of the humor with which it's disbelieving author, Ben MacIntyre, relays so many of the anecdotes that comprised the operation. From options for procuring a body to hurtling through the night from London to Scotland to deliver the corpse-officer to the submarine (sans headlights, owing to blackout restrictions) to the submarine crew's struggle to sink the tube that transported the body, I often found myself laughing aloud. To say nothing of the story of Garcia Juan Pujol, the Spanish "spy" determined to do his part to confuse and delude the Germans.

This book also provides an excellent study in the ways of a spymaster (if the Spy Museum doesn't sell this book in their gift shop, they really should). While the creation of non-existent battalions of spies, the planting of documents, and other techniques are interesting, I was partial to the history of the haversack ruse. The success of this ruse, made famous by the British against the Turks in World War I, is difficult to judge, as MacIntyre notes that it was accompanied by the dropping of opium-laced cigarettes behind enemy lines, potentially rendering much of the Turkish fighting force stoned, whether or not they had been "had."