In the pre-dawn darkness of April 30, 1943, a body disguised as a Royal Marine Major washed ashore on the coast of Spain, carrying false documents indicating that the Allies were set to launch an attack on Greece, rather than Sicily. Immortalized in the film The Man Who Never Was , Operation Mincemeat is renowned as the most spectacular episode in the annals of deception. In this accurate and in-depth retelling of the story, Denis Smyth draws on a vast collection of previously unavailable documentary sources to provide many key details overlooked in other accounts of Mincemeat. He reveals how the architects of the plan navigated a maze of medical, technical, and logistical issues to deceive the enemy at the highest strategic levels. Before planting the corpse in the Spanish coastal waters via a stealthy submarine operation, the planners not only gave their dead messenger a new military identity, but also a private one--as the fiancé of an attractive young woman named "Pam." Nazi intelligence was fooled, falling for a ruse which ultimately saved thousands of American lives. *Starred Review* This superlative and almost unexpurgated account of Operation Mincemeat will enthrall serious students of WWII. Ewen Montague told the tale first in The Man Who Never Was (1953), the classic account of planting deceptive documents on a dead body and releasing it off the Spanish coast in 1943 so they would fall into German hands and mislead them about the planned invasion of Sicily. He appears here as a vital creative and coordinating force, but he was not the only vital member of a large cast, all portrayed with a novelist’s skill and a narrative historian’s eye for the context of their roles. We find RAF officers, submarine captains, forensic pathologists, coroners, two female intelligence officers simulating the deceased’s fiancée, a racing driver who carried the body across Britain, and higher-ups including Lord Mountbatten and the vice chief of the Imperial General Staff. Then there is the whole network of British agents and diplomats in Spain, who steered the documents around pro-Allied elements in the Spanish navy into hands that would pass them along to Hitler. After that come British and Greek saboteurs, who made sure that German troops deployed to Greece to meet the imagined invasion stayed there! Finally, there is the indigent Welshman, whose body was presented as Major William Martin. Readers are likely to find this book impossible to put down once started and impossible to forget once finished. --Roland Green "Smyth completes the story...He presents the complex processes of the false information's evaluation by German intelligence, the high command, and Hitler himself. Second, he describes the painstaking method by which the British verified Mincemeat's progress. And third, he relates the vital achievement of Allied intelligence to convince the military commanders to undertake the deception. As a strategic success, Mincemeat has few rivals and no superiors."-- Publishers Weekly "This fascinating story is told with new thoroughness. Recommended for all studying World War II intelligence activities."-- Library Journal "What comes through most clearly in Smyth's book is the incredible complexity of the undertaking...It is fascinating stuff, much like a police procedural on television, and more than a little ghoulish."-- HistoryNet.com "Readers are likely to find this book impossible to put down once started and impossible to forget once finished."-- Booklist This accurate and in-depth account draws on a vast collection of previously unavailable documentary sources to provide many key details overlooked in other accounts of Mincemeat Denis Smyth is Professor of History at the University of Toronto. New Mint Condition Dispatch same day for order received before 12 noon Guaranteed packaging No quibbles returns