Operation Mincemeat was one of the most deceptive plans during World War II and was pulled off by British intelligence officials Charles Cholmondeley and Ewen Montagu. With the Allies successfully defeating Italy and Germany in the North African Campaign, it was believed by the Axis Powers that the Allies would target Italy next.
In April 1943, a fisherman spotted a dead corpse off of the coast of Spain. The dead body turned out to be a British man under the name of Major William Martin, who was part of Britain's Royal Marines. In addition to the dead body, a briefcase was also found, containing what was thought to be official documents. The documents revealed that the Allied Army would plan an attack on Greece and Sardinia, which were both occupied by Germany, by traveling through the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa. This information spread all the way to Adolf Hitler, who secretly transferred his troops from France to Greece in anticipation of a great invasion from the Allies.
However, little did Hitler and the Nazis know that the dead body and official documents were all intentionally planned to be unveiled to the Axis Powers. Cholmondeley and Montagu had created a fake identity for the dead man, and they had also written fake documents of the Allied Army's plans. With the Germans fooled by the idea that the Allies would attack Greece, 160,000 Allied troops invaded Sicily on July 10th, 1943.
Since Hitler was so deceived by Operation Mincemeat, he had only left two German divisions in Sicily. As a result of the Allied invasion, the Germans and Italians were utterly defeated in the battle, and thousands of Allied soldiers were saved. Italy was also significantly weakened as the defeat brought Italy one step closer towards its downfall.
Operation Mincemeat could be considered as one of the most successful plans during the war, and it ended up helping out the Allies significantly. The plan also brings into account of how important it is not to trust anything or anyone as the operation even fooled Hitler. Had the Nazis found out that the documents were fake, they probably would have been more prepared to confront the Allies at Sicily. It is interesting how one dead man lead to a huge victory for the Allies.
Sources:
http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/what-was-operation-mincemeat
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/topics/operation_mincemeat
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/invasion-of-sicily
Kevin, this post was very interesting. I have never heard of any plan like this until now. It is a very clever way of feeding false information to the enemy, and am curious to know how they came up with it. Besides that, I am curious how the Allies were so sure that Hitler would fall for the trap. Imagine if the information never got to him or he decided to ignore it, the Ally invasion might have ended up being a disaster. I think it is crazy how one dead man not just led to victory for the Allies, but how it possibly could have changed history.
ReplyDeleteKevin, I agree with Ari in saying that this post was very interesting. I remember Mr. Stewart mentioning this briefly in class, but your article was very helpful in revealing more about the plan. Ari, to answer your question about the Allies's knowledge of the German belief of the misinformation, the Allies by that time had cracked the Enigma machine, allowing them to break the German codes and see the correspondence between Hitler and his forces. Because of this, they knew he was moving his forces into Greece, and they followed through with their invasion of Sicily.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-11887115
Operation Mincemeat was no doubt a success diversion of German troops, but I think that Operation Fortitude (the deceptive invasion plan before D-Day) was a more important operation. D-Day was arguably one of the most important Allied operations in the whole war, and it required a diversion of German troops in order to succeed. I think that the confusion and misinformation among the Germans that Operation Fortitude achieved was crucial in leading to D-Day's success, and because D-Day was more pivotal than the invasion of Sicily, I think that Fortitude was more important than Mincemeat.
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