OPERATION
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 (Acting Major) 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.
Part of the wider Operation Barclay, Mincemeat was based on the 1939 Trout memo, written by Rear Admiral John Godfrey, the director of the Naval Intelligence Division, and his personal assistant, Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming. With the approval of the British prime minister, Winston Churchill, and the American military commander in the Mediterranean, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the plan began by transporting the body to the southern coast of Spain by submarine and releasing it close to shore, where it was picked up the following morning by a Spanish fisherman. The nominally neutral Spanish government shared copies of the documents with the Abwehr, the German military intelligence organisation, before returning the originals to the British. Forensic examination showed they had been read and Ultra decrypts of German messages showed that the Germans fell for the ruse. German reinforcements were shifted to Greece and Sardinia before and during the invasion of Sicily; Sicily received none.
The full effect of Operation Mincemeat is not known, but Sicily was liberated more quickly than anticipated and losses were lower than predicted. The events were depicted in Operation Heartbreak, a 1950 novel by the former cabinet minister Duff Cooper, before one of the intelligence officers who planned and carried out Mincemeat, Ewen Montagu, wrote a history in 1953. Montagu's book formed the basis for the 1956 British film The Man Who Never Was. A second British film was released in 2021, titled Operation Mincemeat. The story has also has been adapted into a musical.
Also referenced in the video is OPERATION Barclay
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 goal was to deceive the Axis powers as to the location of the Allies' assault across the Mediterranean and to divert the Axis military command's attention and resources. Operation Barclay used bogus troop movements, radio traffic, recruitment of Greek interpreters, and acquisition of Greek maps to indicate an invasion through the Balkans.[1]
Operation Barclay created a sham army in the eastern Mediterranean: the Twelfth Army consisting of 12 fictitious divisions. Adolf Hitler suspected that the Allies would invade Europe through the Balkans, and Barclay served to reinforce this.[1]
As part of Barclay the British also launched Operation Mincemeat, where faked documents were planted via Spain, and Operation Waterfall, in which a decoy invasion force was assembled in Cyrenaica.[2] To reinforce the impression that an Allied invasion was imminent the Special Operations Executive (SOE), in co-operation with the Greek andartes, mounted Operation Animals, a series of attacks on rail and road networks.[3]
The deception was successful. The German High Command concluded there was a greater concentration of Allied forces in the eastern Mediterranean than was the case and held to this assessment, making subsequent deceptions more credible. German forces in the Balkans were reinforced from 8 to 18 divisions, and the Italian fleet was diverted into the Adriatic Sea. The Allied invasion of Sicily thus achieved total surprise.[1]
The greatly increased number of German occupying forces in Greece and whole Balkans resulted in negative consequences for the Greek Resistance and Yugoslav Resistance. Wide-ranging counterguerrilla operations were carried out, culminating in mass reprisals such as the Massacre of Kalavryta and the Distomo massacre.
Now a popular boardgame....
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As part of OPERATION Barclay, we have OPERATION Waterfall
Operation Waterfall was part of Operation Barclay, which was a deception to try to trick the Germans into thinking the Allies would land elsewhere in the Mediterranean other than Sicily, where they were going to land. It involved creating a decoy army in the eastern Mediterranean to make it look like they were targeting the Balkans. The Anglo-American force also created some dummy inflatable tanks and vehicles.[1][2]
I have previously written about why anyone would believe these OPERATIONS.
https://dirtybennywrites.blogspot.com/2023/11/selective-beliefthe-achilles-heel-of.html
As I wrote...
Great summary at the end. The grand purpose is to hide who we really are, and where we really are now in the skin of the avatar. There would be no other reason for the deceptions you listed.
ReplyDeleteVery much agree. Thank you for your comment. best regards, db
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