The Man Who Never Was

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My reading of this, Ewen Montagu’s account [the man who commanded Operation Mincemeat], suggests that Ewen Montagu had NO sense of the dramatic. If anything, as is true of many of those who stood tall in the days of need [Captain Alexander Hill, Sir Paul Dukes, and others], Ewen Montagu comes over as staid and humble.

I'm glad that, for whatever reason, I kept the book for all these years ... and finally read it. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys (either) military history or spy/espionage fiction. (Frankly, it's crazier, and, at a minimum, less conventional, than most spy fiction I've read over the years.) Again, it's a remarkable story and an informative, entertaining period piece. After the war Jean Leslie married, Cholmondeley chased locusts and intelligence in Arabia, Hillgarth planted trees in Ireland. Montagu became a pillar of Anglo-Jewish society, was raised to the bench and became notorious for terrorising his court. In a characteristically deft addition, Macintyre quotes the judgment of the appeal court in the case of one of his victims: "Discourtesy, even gross discourtesy, to counsel, however regrettable, could not be a ground for quashing a conviction." In January 1943, with Allied victory in North Africa fast approaching, Allied planners decided on the Italian island of Sicily as the next target for operations, with the invasion earmarked for no later than July that year. However, Sicily was an obvious target and so British intelligence set about deceiving Hitler and Nazi High Command into thinking that the next Allied targets were Greece and the islands of Sardinia and Corsica. The tale of Major MartinIn the summer of 1943, the Allies were planning to invade Sicily. The job of the British counterintelligence division was to convince Germany that they weren't. The idea of "Operation Mincemeat" was born out of a long-shot idea that slowly turned into a plausible and ultimately successful con of the highest levels of the German miliary.

The German Abwehr (military intelligence) learnt of the briefcase and, despite Spanish reluctance, conspired to discover its contents. German secret agents photographed the contents of the briefcase, careful scrutiny of which showed that the Allied forces in North Africa were preparing to invade Greece and the Italian island of Sardinia in the summer of 1943. Side note: apparently, the story is retold, at three times the length (so, presumably, in more detail), in a 2010 book titled: Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory ... but I haven't read that (and, frankly, there's a certain joy in reading Montagu's sparse, tight, yet, almost light and airy, autobiographical retelling of the tale with more than a fair share of modesty and self-congratulation, all of which seemed both fully justified and, surprisingly, endearing). Operation Mincemeat? Great name, huh? The bare bones of the idea: get a dead man and plant some papers on him that hopefully the Germans will end up having access to and be convinced of some "secret strategic plans," thus moving the German army AWAY from Sicily to somewhere else. Further, the less obvious results of MINCEMEAT were very modestly treated in the film. The post war evaluations of the actual German beliefs and responses to it, e.g., Romell being sent to Greece along with tons of armor and artillery as well as Seaborne reconnaissance assets from Sicily to the Aegean, etc, could certainly have been included with minimal effort and shown the multiple accomplishments beyond protecting HUSKY. Taylor Downing continues his series on great war movies by reviewing a vintage classic about a masterpiece of deception.The plan, known as ‘Operation Mincemeat’, was full of risks. Would the Spanish realise the body had not died by drowning but had died of other causes some time before? Would they hand over the documents to the Germans? If they did, would the Germans take the bait and believe the documents were authentic? William Martin was born on 23 March 1907 to John Glyndwr Martin and Antonia Martin, of Cardiff, Wales. In the few days before his death he had been in London on leave, staying in the Naval and Military Club in St. James's Square. He had recently bought a diamond engagement ring from Bond Street for his fiancée Pam, a new shirt from Savile Row, and attended a show in the West End. Montagu led a small group of ingenious British planners who managed to put false documents on a corpse (“the man who never was”) that drifted ashore in southern Spain and gave the Germans every good reason to think that the phony invasion plans were real. However, the man laid to rest in Huelva Roman Catholic Cemetery was not Major Martin. Major Martin never existed. William Martin, along with the documents he carried were an elaborate forgery, a fiction conjured up in the minds of British Intelligence operatives including then Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming, the later creator of James Bond. Who was the real Major Martin?

Admiral Lord West (16 April 2022). "The double deception behind Operation Mincemeat". The Telegraph. Nor did he; and, as we have seen, historians have been speculating ever since. Even if we discount the rat poison and accept the facts as he gives them – as surely we must – we are still no nearer to the truth. Welsh tramps can easily die of ‘pneumonia after exposure’; so can young naval officers after disasters such as that suffered by the Dasher; so – given the right circumstances – can almost anybody. When Mr Montagu died in July 1985 he took the secret with him; and I for one am very glad that he did. Flight-Lieutenant Charles Cholmondeley was a lanky eccentric with a wax moustache and a member of the top-secret Twenty Committee consisting of representatives of the armed services, MI5, and MI6. He suggested the idea of depositing a dead body on the Spanish coast. With the body would be a briefcase containing elaborate plans that would deceive the enemy into thinking the Allies were about to land in Greece and Sardinia and to by-pass Sicily. Planting a corpseGlyndwr Michael is buried at Heulva Roman Catholic Cemetery in Spain in a grave also marked by the name of his alter-ego, Major William Martin. Was Operation Mincemeat successful? Montagu himself expresses, seemingly in typical British unemotional remarks, how wildly happy he and his crew were that Operation Mincemeat was a spectacular success. Lots of Allied veterans who fought on Sicily, and their families, can be thankful for that. O’Reilly is still uncertain about whether Martin is real or not and the film heads to its dramatic climax. Montagu was happy with this entirely invented aspect of the story because although it did not take place, he claimed ‘it might well have happened’. The full story Smyth, Denis (16 June 2010). Deathly Deception: The Real Story of Operation Mincemeat. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-161364-7– via Google Books.

Ewen Montagu, the author of The Man Who Never Was, quotes this adage as he describes British efforts to misdirect the German military from the Allies’ invasion of Sicily during the Second World War. The Man Who Never Was is a simply written account that reports the meticulous planning and the insightful intelligence assessments of how the Germans would react to the false documents planted on the corpse.A first edition, first printing published by Evans in 1953. A very good book without inscriptions. In a very good unclipped wrapper with some spotting to the front panel. With chipping to the spine tips and to the corners. Accompanied by Agent Zigzag and Operation Mincemeat published by Bloomsbury in 2010. A near fine book in like wrapper. "The Man Who Never Was" is a non-fiction book by Ewen Montagu, published in 1953. It recounts a daring World War II intelligence operation, codenamed "Operation Mincemeat." The book details how British authorities created a fictional persona, Major Martin, complete with a fabricated identity, personal effects, and false documents. They then used a corpse carrying these materials, placing it off the coast of Spain, which was under Nazi influence. The goal was to deceive the Germans about the Allied invasion of Southern Europe, ultimately diverting German forces from the real target: Sicily. Montagu's book masterfully unveils the intricate planning and execution of this ingenious deception, highlighting the ingenuity and audacity of wartime intelligence operations. What touched me most in these books was the tombstone at Nostra Senora de la Soledad cemetery in Huelva, hurriedly laid by Hillgarth to prevent the Germans digging the body up. In 1997, the British government finally made amends and added this sentence at the base: "Glyndwr Michael, served as Major William Martin, RM." Macintyre also suggests that Ewen Montagu’s account is incomplete, written at the behest of the Government, conceals facts, and is deliberately misleading.