The Man Who Never Was is a 1953 book by Ewen Montagu about the World War II Operation Mincemeat. Montagu played a leading role in the 1943 scheme to deceive the Germans about the planned Allied invasion of Sicily. The scheme entailed releasing a dead body just off the coast of Spain, where strong currents caused it to drift ashore in an area where a skilled German secret agent was known to operate. The corpse was to appear to be the victim of an airplane crash, the non-existent Royal Marine Captain (Acting Major) William Martin, who had letters in a briefcase that hinted at a forthcoming Allied invasion of Greece and Sardinia, rather than the obvious target of Sicily.
Montagu's work formed the basis for a 1956 film by the same title.
In 1950 Duff Cooper, a former cabinet minister who had been briefed on the operation in March 1943, published the spy novel Operation Heartbreak, which contained the plot device of a corpse – with papers naming him as William Maryngton – being floated off the coast of Spain with false documents to deceive the Germans. [1] The British security services decided that the best response was to publish the story of Mincemeat. Over the course of a weekend Montagu wrote The Man Who Never Was (1953), which sold two million copies and formed the basis for a 1956 film. [2] [3] The security services did not give Montagu complete freedom to reveal operational details, and he was careful not to mention the role played by signals intelligence to confirm that the operation had been successful. He was also careful to obscure "the idea of an organised programme of strategic deception ... with Mincemeat being presented as a 'wild' one-off caper". [4] In 1977 Montagu published Beyond Top Secret U, his wartime autobiography, which gave further details of Mincemeat, among other operations. [2]
Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British writer, best known for his postwar James Bond series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., and his father was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Henley from 1910 until his death on the Western Front in 1917. Educated at Eton, Sandhurst, and, briefly, the universities of Munich and Geneva, Fleming moved through several jobs before he started writing.
The Allied invasion of Sicily, also known as the Battle of Sicily and Operation Husky, was a major campaign of World War II in which the Allied forces invaded the island of Sicily in July 1943 and took it from the Axis powers. It began with a large amphibious and airborne operation, followed by a six-week land campaign, and initiated the Italian campaign.
Operation Barclay was a World War II deception by the Allies in support of Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943.
The Twelfth Army was a British Army formation during the Second World War. The Twelfth Army denotation was actually used twice; firstly, in 1943, for a fictional formation and secondly, in 1944/45, in Burma.
Operation Mincemeat was a successful British deception operation of the Second World War to disguise the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily. Two members of British intelligence obtained the body of Glyndwr Michael, a tramp who died from eating rat poison, dressed him as an officer of the Royal Marines and placed personal items on him identifying him as the fictitious Captain William Martin. Correspondence between two British generals that suggested that the Allies planned to invade Greece and Sardinia, with Sicily as merely the target of a feint, was also placed on the body.
The Man Who Never Was is a 1956 British espionage thriller film produced by André Hakim and directed by Ronald Neame. It stars Clifton Webb and Gloria Grahame and features Robert Flemyng, Josephine Griffin and Stephen Boyd. It is based on the book of the same name by Lt. Cmdr. Ewen Montagu and chronicles Operation Mincemeat, a 1943 British intelligence plan to deceive the Axis powers into thinking the Allied invasion of Sicily would take place elsewhere in the Mediterranean.
Operation Goldeneye was an Allied stay-behind plan during the Second World War to monitor Spain after a possible alliance between Francisco Franco and the Axis powers, and to undertake sabotage operations. The plan was formed by Commander Ian Fleming of the Naval Intelligence Division (NID). No German takeover of Spain took place, nor an invasion of Gibraltar, and the plan was shelved in 1943. Fleming later used the name for his Jamaican home where he wrote the James Bond stories.
Ewen Edward Samuel Montagu was a British judge, Naval intelligence officer, and author.
Major William Martin was a persona invented by British Military Intelligence for Operation Mincemeat, the Second World War deception plan that lured German forces to Greece prior to the Allied invasion of Sicily. Also known as "the man who never was", Martin's personal details were created to lend credence to the scheme, which involved a body, dressed as a British officer and carrying secret documents, to wash up on shores of neutral Spain, apparently the victim of an air crash. It was intended that these documents, containing information that suggested an Allied assault on Greece was planned, should fall into the hands of German intelligence.
HMS Seraph was an S-class submarine built for the Royal Navy during the Second World War. Completed in 1942, she carried out multiple intelligence and special operations activities during World War II, the most notable of which was Operation Mincemeat.
Ivor Goldsmid Samuel Montagu was an English filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, film critic, writer, table tennis player, and Communist activist and spy in the 1930s. He helped to develop a lively intellectual film culture in Britain during the interwar years, and was also the founder of the International Table Tennis Federation.
Benedict Richard Pierce Macintyre is a British author, reviewer and columnist for The Times newspaper. His columns range from current affairs to historical controversies.
Captain Alan Hugh Hillgarth (1899–1978) was a British adventure novelist and member of the intelligence services, perhaps best known for his activities in Spain during and after the Spanish Civil War. Hillgarth appears as one of the actual historical figures in C. J. Sansom's 2006 novel, Winter in Madrid, and also in María Dueñas's 2009 novel, El tiempo entre costuras.
The Trout memo, written in 1939, is a document comparing the deception of an enemy in wartime with fly fishing. Issued under the name of Admiral John Godfrey, Britain's director of naval intelligence, according to the historian Ben Macintyre it bore the hallmarks of having been written by Godfrey's assistant Ian Fleming, who later created the James Bond series of spy novels.
Ronald Thomas Reed was a BBC radio engineer who became an MI5 officer in 1940, and ran double agents during World War II.
Captain Norman "Bill" Limbury Auchinleck Jewell MBE DSC was an officer in the Royal Navy.
Alexis Freiherr von Rönne was a German Army colonel and senior intelligence analyst. He became one of Hitler's favoured officers in the Abwehr, despite secretly being of anti-Nazi persuasion.
Operation Mincemeat is a 2021 war drama film directed by John Madden. It is based upon Ben Macintyre's book on the British Operation Mincemeat during the Second World War. The film stars Colin Firth, Kelly Macdonald, Matthew Macfadyen, Penelope Wilton, Johnny Flynn and Jason Isaacs. This was Paul Ritter's final film appearance, and was dedicated to his memory.
Charles Cholmondeley was a British intelligence officer known for his leading role in Operation Mincemeat, a critical military deception operation which misdirected German forces' attention away from the Allied Invasion of Sicily in Operation Husky.
Operation Mincemeat is a musical comedy with book, music and lyrics by David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson and Zoë Roberts. The plot is based on the Operation Mincemeat, a Second World War British deception operation.