The man who never was
by Ewen Montagu · first published 1953
5mentions
4recommended by
4HN commenters
2010–2020first – last mentioned
80% recommend20% critical
Describes how the Germans changed their Mediterranean defense plans after being misled by the Allies through an elaborate operation set up by the British.
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Easily my favorite spy story from WWII. For those interested, fantastic book on Operation Mincemeat: http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Never-Was-Counter-Intelligence...
on “The piece of paper that fooled Hitler” ↗Also note the original book on the subject, The Man Who Never Was by Ewen Montagu, I read it in the '70s and remember it to be a solid, basic account. Per Wikipedia: Duff Cooper was a diplomat who had held several top level posts during the war. In 1950, he published…
on “Operation Mincemeat: How a dead tramp fooled Hitler (2010)” ↗cryptonomicon by Neal Stehpens is a fiction but has a lot of this kind of thing in it. Not sure how accurate. Code book by Simon Singh. "The Man Who Never Was" is a boot I have never read but should because it's great ww2 espionage story. I'm sure others will kick in some suggestions.
on “Factoring may be easier than we think” ↗Mixing it in with the release is clever opsec. I have always loved stories like that since I read “the man who never was” when I was 11 or so.
on “The Vampire Ship: The seizure of Europe's largest heroin shipment” ↗…(http://www.amazon.com/Deceivers-Allied-Military-Deception-Se...) which was first published in 2005 and it comments that a lot of its material was only recently declassified. Prior to it the only detailed history was the bit known as The Man Who Never Was: World War II's Boldest Counter-Intelligence Operation (http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Never-Was-Counter-Intelligence...) from the '50s, which wildly overstates the importance this particular bit of deception…
on “"Some German bombers landed at UK bases, believing they were back in Germany."” ↗