Thread: Operation Mincemeat : The man who never was

This is possibly the best deception plan of WW2. I found a great Wikipedia article on it here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation Mincemeat

There was a also a book & film based on the operation. And it was also on UKTV History the other day in "Heroes of WW2". Fascinating stuff.

Link now works correctly after I put in the right web address. Doh

I remember seeing a full lengh documentry on the History Channel about this deception, truly amazing how it duped the Germans not to mention what an ingenious plan it was..

It's not until you begin to learn about these 'lesser known' operations that you realise how intricate and delicately balanced the War was. I'd never heard of this before, but my word, what a scam

Almost stranger than fiction isn't it?

There was a saying in the army... Bullshit baffles brains! And the Germans were certainly baffled.

The level of cunning involved is quite remarkable.

"Major William Martin" - Welsh alcoholic killed by rat poison? Or a drowned sailor ?? Either way he helped to save a lot of lives. Amazing story!

Mysterious cargo: - The casket packed with ice, as loaded aboard HMS Seraph:

ENLARGE

ENLARGE

HMS Seraph

ENLARGE

Surfacing only at night time, HMS Seraph took two weeks to sail from Holy Loch at Greenock in Scotland to south west Spain. They let ‘Major Martin’ drift ashore at the town of Huelva, where the Germans were known to have a very active agent. The crew then tossed the empty canister into the water, and an officer attempted to sink it by firing some 200 rounds from a Vickers gun and a .455 revolver into it. The canister did not sink. The crew hauled it out and attached plastic explosives to it inside and out. The submarine withdrew, the canister exploded and finally disappeared.
Operation Mincemeat’s planners knew that the supposedly neutral Spanish authorities would betray Major Martin’s false documents to their German friends.

Good info Dave ..

A lot of ammo to sink a canister ..

Sometimes i find it really hard to believe that the Germans were duped as often as they were..