Thursday, May 19, 2011

The Histrory files: Operation Mincemeat

Early in World War Two a young British Royal Navy Officer in the Naval Intelligence Department, wrote a memo to his commanding officer outlining a plan using a dead body to carry documents to the Germans in order to deceive them. The commanding officer dismissed the plan as ridiculous and sent it to be filed away. The young naval officer returned to his desk and dreamed of other plots. His name was Ian Flemming and little did he know his plot would be used in a deception which would rival the plot of his later creation, James Bond, agent 007.

Flemming's memo was uncovered months later by Lieutenant Commander Ewan Montague, Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and Flight Lieutenant Chalmondley of Royal Air Force Intelligence.

Together Montague and Chalmondley created the fictional Royal Marines Major William Martin. Martin's one and only mission was to carry secret plans to the German Military Intelligence to Brief Adolf Hitler as to the plans by the British and Americans to invade Greece and the Balkans in 1943.

The Histrory files: Operation Mincemeat

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