If you love spy novels and
movies-especially in the James Bond style, you will enjoy this book.
All the more so because it’s true.
Ewan Montague knew that in order
to turn the tide of WWII, they were going to have convince Hitler
that the allied forces were going to invade in places other than
where they actually intended to invade.
This was not a new concept. In
fact many British agents and double agents, the most famous being
Agent Garbo, had spent most of the war feeding the German spy
network, the Abwehr, false information about where England and
America’s forces were and where they weren’t.
What was unique was their approach.
Ewan Montague and Charles
Chomondeley, both members of MI6 (the British equivalent of the CIA)
concocted a plan that was so crazy and absurd it just might work.
And it did.
Montague and Chomondeley enlisted
the help of a man, Bill Martin, to plant information inside the
Abwehr. This information would contain plans that the Allied forces were going to invade Greece rather than
Sicily. If Hitler bought it, he would concentrate his army far away
from where the Allies were actually going to invade.
How did they do this? They had
Lt. Martin’s plane crash into the ocean off the coast of Portugal
where his body was discovered by Portuguese fishermen who turned it
over to Spanish authorities. On his person was a briefcase attached
to his trench coat with, among other things, tickets to a play he had
just seen, a love letter from his fiancée, and..oh yes.. official
letters “hinting” at the next Allied invasion.
Did I mention that Bill Martin
was already dead?
In fact, Bill Martin wasn’t his
real name and he never served in the Royal Military. He was a
homeless derelict named Glyndwr Michael whose body was found in a
warehouse after he apparently committed suicide.
And his plane didn’t crash. He
was never on a plane. He was transported by submarine and ejected
into the ocean.
Operation Mincemeat, as the plan
was dubbed, was an elaborate scheme that took months of preparation
with no detail left unturned.
Macintyre’s books gives an
excellent and exciting account of everyone involved. He gives the
background of Glyndwr Michael, allowing the reader to see him as a
real person that one could have sympathy for rather than viewing him
merely as a prop in an espionage scheme.
He also gives us backgrounds of
all the players involved: Montague’s family life and background,
Cholmondeley’s, Lieutenant Jewell- the commander of the submarine
that carried Martin/Michael’s body, as well as the likes of Ian
Fleming and other spies who went on to become novelists. We also
meet a number of men who inspired some of Fleming’s Bond characters
such and “M” and “Q”.
As much as he is able, Macintyre gives us the personas of the Germans who were at the receiving
end of Allied misinformation. He devotes some tantalizing portions
of his book to Agent Garbo. Since then I’ve read books written
about that fascinating and mysterious man who is considered to be the
greatest double agent of WWII.
Macintyre’s book is
methodical and allows one to easily read the whole story from the
germination of the idea, to persuading the right powers to implement
Operation Mincemeat, to creating the legend of Lt. Martin, the nuts
and bolts of getting Martin over to the enemy and the use of British
intelligence to work the information through to the upper echelons of
the Reich’s spy network.
Everything hinged on persuading
Hitler’s most trusted advisor that everything the allies said was
going to happen was true.
This man was Lieutenant Colonel
Alexis Baron von Roenne, Germany’s chief intelligence analyst.
While other German spy agents worked out of motives for monetary gain
and personal gain, even self-preservation, Roenne, alone cast a
clear, cold eye over every piece of information that came across his
desk. If they were going to convince Hitler of an invasion in Sardenia (rather than the actual location, Sicily),
they were going to have to convince Roenne.
Many sources like to attribute
the Allied victory over Germany to Britain’s spy network, and
especially Agent Garbo. The fact is, none of these intelligence
operatives would have gone anywhere without Roenne. Roenne was the
one Hitler most trusted. He had an unswerving faith in this
descendant of Latvian aristocracy. If Roenne didn’t convince
Hitler of the truth of the reports, nothing would have transpired.
Not only would Operation Mincemeat fail but so would the work of
Agent Garbo.
Can I say now that out of all
the operatives working, the Nazi, Roenne, is my hero? Why, do you
ask? Let me tell you.
Because Roenne was, in fact, a
devout Christian and anti-Nazi conspirator. He was appalled at the
carnage and holocaust of human life Hitler’s regime wrecked. In
his own way he was determined to do something about it.
Von Roenne, however, may have
chosen to believe in the fake documents for an entirely different
reason: because he loathed Hitler, wanted to undermine the Nazi war
effort, and was intent on passing false information to the high
command in the certain knowledge that it was wholly false and
extremely damaging.
It is quite possible that Lieutenant
Colonel Alexis Baron von Roenne did not believe the Mincemeat
deception for an instant. (pg. 383)
Von Roenne was a secret but
committed opponent of Nazism... he detested Hitler and the uncouth
thugs surrounding him....His Christian conscience had been outraged
by the appalling SS terror unleashed in Poland...From 1943 onward, he
deliberately and consistently inflated the Allied order of battle,
overstating the strength of the British and American armies in a
successful effort to mislead Hitler and his generals....
.....Perhaps, like other German
anti-Nazi conspirators, he just wanted Germany to lose the war as
swiftly as possible, to avoid further bloodletting and remove Hitler
and his repellent circle from power. Whatever his reasons, and
despite his reputation as an intelligence guru, by 1943 von Roenne
was deliberately passing information he knew to be false, directly to
Hitler’s desk. (pg. 385, 386).
Macintyre goes on to say the Roenne’s
finest hour was when he “faithfully passed on every deception ruse
fed to him” about the Normandy invasion and the buildup to D-day.
He accepted every “bogus unit” and “inflated forty-four
divisions in Britain to an astonishing eighty-nine.”
Macintyre maintains that without
Roenne’s “willing connivance” the entire deceptive operation
surrounding D-Day could have unraveled.
Other historians, whom
Macintyre lists in his bibliography, corroborate these facts.
Eventually Roenne was found out
through his connections and friendship with the German Nazis who
conspired to assassinate Hitler. Even though he wasn’t involved in
the plot, his association with those that were sufficed to determine
his fate.
Roenne was given a mock trial in
the “People’s Court” where he stated that “Nazi race policies
were inconsistent with Christian values.” (pg. 387)
I won’t describe here how he
was executed. Just know that it was long and agonizing. And Hitler
had it filmed for his personal viewing pleasure.
The night before he died Roenne
wrote a letter to his wife:
In a moment now I shall be
going home to our Lord in complete calm and in the certainty of
salvation. (pg. 387)
I believe some of the most
fascinating aspects of the war efforts as well as allied success can
be attributed to Germans like Roenne who fought against Hitler and
his regime from the inside. I wonder how many of us would have had
the courage to do so in similar circumstances? Would I?
In conclusion, Operation
Mincemeat is a rollicking read that pulls you right into the heart of
a roller coaster ride of spy networking and scheming that prevented a
terrorist organization to rule the world.
Kindle $11.99
I borrowed this book from my local
library.
