Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Operation Mincemeat: The True Spy Story that Changed the Course of World War II Paperback – Big Book, 22 September 2016

Being a fan of everything to do with World War Two and studying History in school this book obviously appealed to me for many reasons! I love reading about stories throughout the war and stories about deception truly captivate me. I am very glad I picked this book and dove right in!!This story is not an untold story, it is about the transformation of an "unknown" corpse into the fictitious Captain William Martin, whose body turns into a body with a reinvented past life (love letters, hobbies and theatre life) then becomes the carrier of misleading information on the forthcoming invasion of Sicily, was deployed, apparently drowned, into the sea off Spain in 1943 as a "Trojan horse" to find its way back to German intelligence. In this story, the body of the homeless Welsh vagrant, Glyndwr Michael, proved so much more worthwhile in death rather than in life. This part of the story alone is fascinating but further more the book is about strange men, and the strange world they inhabited, behind the planning. In this world there was rivalry and ego which was found in abundance in Whitehall in those days. It is safe to say their egos may have got the better of them if it was not for the shared common enemy.You need to get this book for yourself to understand just how great it is, you will not be able to put it down.Please click on the “Yes” button below if this review has been helpful thank you

I recall watching the film 'The Man Who Never Was' years ago, although memories of it were limited to a general appreciation of the story line. This book not only refreshed that recall but did so by providing a comprehensive telling of the facts. A genuinely interesting account of an episode that help reduce the costs of invading Sicily. Well worth the reading.

By itself this was quite an interesting story. However, viewed in the present time it assumed caricature dimensions.The 'bamboozle' and 'demoralise' narratives is today as ever outsourced to the Brits as the Americans have no imagination. I can read in the German press every day 'the British Secret Service announces re Ukraine war' with a narrative often straight out the 1945 playbook. sigh (Germans are not buying it either).Another book to reinforce the British sense of global relevance. then: yes, today: no. (non-European writing here).

This book is superbly written and detailed and is an absolute must for anybody interested in the Second World War and the British Secret Service of the time. Potential readers should be aware there is much about the dead and decomposing body of Glyndwr Michael, the story of whom is in itself very sad, which may cause upset but the overall fascinating story can also, by the very nature of its covertness, be quite humourous at times. Perhaps equally importantly, the story of Mincemeat and its related Operations highlights well the cunning and ingenuity of those involved and which was typical of Allied wartime operations whereas the Germans, albeit efficient in their own way, were gullible to unreliable agents who were only interested in gaining Hitler's favour and to their own, then, perceived racial and intellectual superiority as drummed into them, with monotonous regularity, by the Nazi leadership. The book further gives an insight into the situation with the supposedly neutral Spanish during the period of Mincemeat.

I always suspected the full story would turn out in a different way, I lived in Rothesay as a curious 11 year old lad. EG. How did they ever think a tramp who did not die from impact/burning/drowning would pass his last 'medical' supervised by expert pathologists? Why use a 'suspect' body when there were so many easily available in the Firth of Clyde - Drowned, burnt bodies. Nearly 400 bodies were around when HMS Dasher burned and sank in the Firth and the disaster occurred and the date was convenient..The Official Secrets Act prevented disclosure for many years afterwards but some of us knew what had happened, we lived nearby. Damaged ships were being brought in to Port Bannatyne for salvage or repair and many bodies were buried in mass graves. The Submarine left from Holy Loch and that isn't far away.. For an alternative view look for books on HMS Dasher - a sad story which we never talked about, there was a War on.