Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Anderson
I'm enjoying Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre -- non-fiction history about an Allied intelligence ruse during WWII that involved planting a dead, faked British officer to wash up on the shores of Spain carrying papers that would fool the enemy about the invasion of Sicily. Lots of nice background about the quirky intelligence officers who cooked up the con, many of whom were novelists and frustrated adventurers.
I usually read (and write) historical espionage fiction but this is doing the trick. It was also a movie called The Man Who Never Was. As far as the characters go, it's about as close to fiction as you can get. |
It's a fascinating period. British intelligence was doing their best to play with the heads of the Nazis. They were assisted in this by the Nazis, who had different intelligence services competing with each other, and spies directed by and loyal to their particular spymasters, who were often trying to undermine each other to rise in the hierarchy.
There was one case where the British turned a Nazi agent, then deliberately ran him as incompetently as they could manage, with the idea that the Nazis would discover it, and get an unrealistically low opinion of British Intelligence abilities. Only one problem: the Nazis never picked up that the guy
was a double agent...
If you should happen to encounter it, there's a charming British film called "I was Monty's double", in which an actor who resembles Montgomery is recruited by British Intelligence to pretend he
is Montgomery, and then sent
as Montgomery on an inspection tour of North Africa. It's the build up to the Normandy invasion, and the Germans know a strike is coming, but
don't know whether it will be across the English Channel, or up from North Africa, or both, and Intelligence wants to keep them guessing and their forces divided as long as possible.
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Dennis