Operation Mincemeat
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Search complete. 38 mentions across 15 episodes found for "Operation Mincemeat".
Oct 26, 2026
speaker_0HOST
And miraculously, nobody died.
speaker_0HOST
Operation Mincemeat.
speaker_0HOST
The Allies planted a dead body with fake battle plans to trick the Germans into thinking that the Allies were going to attack Sardinia when they were in fact going to attack Sicily.
speaker_0HOST
They built an entire life for this dead, fake military man, dumped him in the ocean, and successfully distracted the Germans.
Juan NaulaNARRATOR
They knew they'd have to start by invading the island of Sicily, which was heavily guarded by Axis troops.
Juan NaulaNARRATOR
So the Brits came up with Operation Mincemeat, an ingenious plan to weaken Sicily's defenses without using any physical force.
Juan NaulaNARRATOR
To set the plan in motion, British intelligence took the body of a deceased homeless man called Glendore Michael and forged documents to make it look like he was a fictional Royal Navy officer called William Martin.
Juan NaulaNARRATOR
They dressed him in uniform and filled his pockets with fake letters to family members, a picture of a fictional fiance, and detailed plans for a fake Allied invasion of Greece.
Juan NaulaNARRATOR
So they moved their troops from Sicily to defend Greece instead, which allowed the Allies to invade the island and take it in just 38 days.
Juan NaulaNARRATOR
Then they used it as a jumping off point to attack the mainland, forcing Italy to promptly surrender and starting a year and a half long invasion that took the country from Germany and directly contributed to the end of the war in Europe.
Juan NaulaNARRATOR
Yep, Operation Mincemeat is possibly the greatest trick pulled in history.
Juan NaulaNARRATOR
Deceiving the enemy could tip a single battle, quietly harvesting their secrets could shape the entire war, and Britain had a surprisingly hospitable way of doing it.
speaker_2NARRATOR
The real target was Sicily.
speaker_2NARRATOR
The plan was called Operation Mincemeat.
speaker_2NARRATOR
The Germans obtained copies of the documents in the case.
speaker_2NARRATOR
The National World War II Museum quotes the historian Michael Howard, calling it perhaps the most successful single deception of the Second World War.
speaker_5ADVERTISER
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Mark EllisonHOST
Welcome back! Question 1, name the Wabi-Watu, British deception using a corpse with fake invasion plans, answer Operation Mincemeat.
Mark EllisonHOST
Staged in 1943, the ruse involved a body given the identity Major William Martin, Royal Marines, whose documents helped mask the real target, Sicily, Operation Husky.
Mark EllisonHOST
It's one of the most famous deception operations of the war.
Jim MoraHOST
Ben Macintyre writes spy stories that are true.
Jim MoraHOST
Agent Zigzag, Agent Sonya, The Spy and the Traitor, Operation Mincemeat, the British World War II military deception operation that used a disguised dead body to trick Nazi Germany into believing the Allies would invade Greece and Sardinia instead of Sicily.
Jim MoraHOST
Several of Ben's books have been made into films and TV series, and Operation Mincemeat actually into a Broadway musical.
Jim MoraHOST
The books themselves have sold millions of copies.
Jim MoraHOST
Ben is also the associate editor of The Times newspaper, and he's coming here next month.
speaker_1NARRATOR
They destroyed a confirmed one.
speaker_1NARRATOR
That is the mechanism that made Operation Mincemeat work, where a hundred simpler deceptions would have failed.
speaker_1NARRATOR
A spy who walks in and says, the attack is in Greece, can be doubted, dismissed, interrogated.
speaker_1NARRATOR
But a dead officer, washing ashore by accident, carrying private correspondence that the enemy was never meant to read, correspondence that explicitly apologetically acknowledges that the Sicily chatter was theater, that is something else entirely.
speaker_1NARRATOR
The strategy is documented.
speaker_1NARRATOR
The outcome is documented.
speaker_1NARRATOR
Ewen Montagu and Charles Cholmondeley, the two British intelligence officers who designed and executed Operation Mincemeat, were promoted.
speaker_1NARRATOR
They wrote about it.
Michael FeinbergHOST
The overwhelming majority of your books are about various intelligence skirmishes during World War II and during the Cold War.
Michael FeinbergHOST
And I don't mean this as a slight because I think they're the best telling of it, but at least some of your early books, I'm thinking of Agent Zigzag, of Operation Mincemeat, and of Double Cross, were grand retellings with more nuance than previous ones of stories that were already somewhat in the public eye.
Michael FeinbergHOST
There was...
Michael FeinbergHOST
The sort of mastermind, no pun intended when I say his real name, but the mastermind of the double-cross system, J.C. Masterman wrote his own account of the events.
12 MINS LATER
Ben MacintyreGUEST
I think he's absolutely superb actor, Matthew.
Ben MacintyreGUEST
And he was actually in the adaptation of one of my books as well.
Ben MacintyreGUEST
And he played the part brilliantly in Operation Mincemeat.
Ben MacintyreGUEST
So I have great hopes for that.
Rick SheppersonGUEST
Yes.
Matthew CollinsHOST
And was this the operation that was disguised by Operation Mincemeat?
Rick SheppersonGUEST
Yes, it is.
Matthew CollinsHOST
Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Rick SheppersonGUEST
I can.
Rick SheppersonGUEST
I can summarize it quite simply that if it wasn't for Operation Mincemeat, I probably wouldn't be sitting here because my dad was on the first wave of landings on Gela Beach on July, the, the early morning of July the 10th.
Rick SheppersonGUEST
And in his notebook, which I have, his navigation officer's notebook, it says, "Landed troops against virtually no opposition."
Matthew CollinsHOST
Right.
Brad GrahamHOST
I'm Brad Graham, the co-owner of the bookstore, along with my wife, Lissa Muscatine, and we are absolutely delighted to be hosting, uh, Ben Macintyre, who's here to talk about his, uh, terrific new book, Redwood: The Untold Story of the Cold War's Most Extraordinary Spy.
Brad GrahamHOST
Now, we all know Ben as the popular and much acclaimed author of 15 previous nonfiction books about war and espionage, written with his characteristic novelistic flair, uh, including volumes on British spies Kim Philby and Eddie Chapman, Soviet agent Ursula Kuczynski, known as Sonya, Soviet double agent Oleg Gordievsky, the Na- Nazi POW camp Colditz, Britain's, uh, Operation Mincemeat, which disguised the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily, and a dramatic hostage crisis in 1980, not in Iran, but in the Iranian embassy in London.
Brad GrahamHOST
With, uh, Redwood, uh, Ben has once again delved into the annals of international intrigue, and drawing on interviews with former officers of, uh, MI6, KG- uh, KGB, uh, and the CIA.
Brad GrahamHOST
He's come up with a propulsive nonfiction thriller.
39 MINS LATER
Ben MacintyreGUEST
They, they do happen.
Ben MacintyreGUEST
Bletchley Park is a good example.
Ben MacintyreGUEST
Um, Operation Mincemeat that you mentioned earlier.
Ben MacintyreGUEST
Without that deception plan, the invasion of Sicily might well have been an absolute disaster.
Matthew CollinsHOST
So that's Italy.
Matthew CollinsHOST
That's Operation Husky, Operation Mincemeat, the duplicity, the successful tricking of the Germans.
Matthew CollinsHOST
Then your dad went to India, I think, didn't he?
Rick SheppersonGUEST
Yeah.
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