Author Description

This is the true account of an operation which took place between 1942 and 1943, at a time when the Allies were planning to invade Italy through Sicily. In order to distract German attention from the Sicilian invasion, "Operation Mincemeat" was launched with the intention of feeding German intelligence with false information. This theory was clearly not new, but the idea of accomplishing this by washing a dead body up on Spanish shores, complete with highly confidential and sensitive correspondence was audacious and innovative.The Man Who Never Was provides an exciting, firsthand account of how this peculiar counter-intelligence scheme came into being, the many unpredictable and often amusing difficulties which the agents encountered when inventing a whole life and persona for their "body," and the ultimate and unforseen successes which the opreation gained. Written in a period of forty-eight hours by the originator and coordinator of the operation in order to dispel myths circulated in a novel on the same subject, this book gives a fascinating insight into one of the most daring wartime operations in military history. A new Introduction explains how "Operation Mincemeat" fits into the broader history of wartime intelligence and deception, still classified when the book was originally published.