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'''Operation Mincemeat''' was the codename for a plan created and carried out by a small number of British intelligence officers during [[World War II]], with the intent of convincing the [[Third Reich|German]] High Command - through false documents deliberately passed to them - that an Allied invasion into southern Europe through [[Greece]] would take place in mid-1943. Extremely successful, Mincemeat would cause the Germans to remove a significant amount of troops and armor from [[France]], the eastern front against the [[Soviet Union]], and the island of [[Sicily]] to bolster their forces in Greece and the [[Balkans]]; their acceptance of the ruse allowed for complete Allied victory in [[Operation Husky]], in which the real target of invasion was Sicily. The success of Mincemeat was further guaranteed by the macabre element central to the plan: the documents were in a briefcase chained to a dead man - with a false identity - who was set adrift at sea.
'''Operation Mincemeat''' was the codename for a plan created and carried out by a small number of British intelligence officers during [[World War II]], with the intent of convincing the [[Third Reich|German]] High Command - through false documents deliberately passed to them - that an Allied invasion into southern Europe through [[Greece]] would take place in mid-1943. Extremely successful, Mincemeat would cause the Germans to remove a significant amount of troops and armor from [[France]], the eastern front against the [[Soviet Union]], and the island of [[Sicily]] to bolster their forces in Greece and the [[Balkans]]; their acceptance of the ruse allowed for complete Allied victory in [[Operation Husky]], in which the real target of invasion was Sicily. The success of Mincemeat was further guaranteed by the macabre element central to the plan: the documents were in a briefcase chained to a dead man - with a false identity - who was set adrift at sea.
==Prelude==
The idea of using a corpse as an agent to deliver false information had its roots in a novel. In 1937, Basil Thompson wrote a book entitled ''The Milliner’s Hat Mystery'' in which a dead man is discovered with a false identity, courtesy of the many forged papers and documents found with him. The tenth in a series of detective novels featuring his Inspector Richardson character, it was not a good seller at the time, but it was picked up and read avidly by a British naval officer who happened to have loved the series, Lieutenant-Commander [[Ian Fleming]].
Fleming was responsible for the creation of a top-secret memo shortly after war was declared in September, 1939; the memo listed 51 ideas that could be carried out against the Germans using deception, false information, and so on; number 28, as Fleming wrote it...
:''"A suggestion (not a very nice one). The following suggestion is used in a book by Basil Thomson: a corpse dressed as an airman, with dispatches in his pockets, could be dropped on the coast, supposedly from a parachute that had failed. I understand there is no difficulty in obtaining corpses at the Naval Hospital, but, of course, it would have to be a fresh one."
Admiral John Godfrey, the Director of Naval Intelligence and Fleming's immediate boss, approved and signed the memo for later action.<ref>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6986831.ece</ref><ref>http://www.annoticoreport.com/2010/06/book-operation-mincemeat-hoax-allies.html</ref>
===Assembling the plan===
==References==
<small><references/></small>
[[Category:World War II]]
[[Category:World War II]]