Operation Mincemeat

How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory

By: Ben Macintyre

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

Ben Macintyre’s Agent Zigzag was hailed as “rollicking, spellbinding” (New York Times), “wildly improbable but entirely true” (Entertainment Weekly), and, quite simply, “the best book ever written” (Boston Globe). In his new book, Operation Mincemeat, he tells an extraordinary story that will delight his legions of fans.

In 1943, from a windowless basement office in London, two brilliant intelligence officers conceived a plan that was both simple and complicated - Operation Mincemeat. The purpose? To deceive the Nazis into thinking that Allied forces were planning to attack Southern Europe by way of Greece or Sardinia, rather than Sicily, as the Nazis had assumed, and the Allies ultimately chose. Charles Cholmondeley of MI5 and the British naval intelligence officer Ewen Montagu could not have been more different. Cholmondeley was a dreamer seeking adventure. Montagu was an aristocratic, detail-oriented barrister. But together they were the perfect team and created an ingenious plan: Get a corpse, equip it with secret (but false and misleading) papers concerning the invasion, then drop it off the coast of Spain where German spies would, they hoped, take the bait. The idea was approved by British intelligence officials, including Ian Fleming (creator of James Bond). Winston Churchill believed it might ring true to the Axis and help bring victory to the Allies.

Filled with spies, double agents, rogues, fearless heroes, and one very important corpse, the story of Operation Mincemeat reads like an international thriller.

Unveiling never-before-released material, Ben Macintyre brings the listener right into the minds of intelligence officers, their moles, and spies, and the German Abwehr agents who suffered the “twin frailties of wishfulness and yesmanship”. He weaves together the eccentric personalities of Cholmondeley and Montagu and their near-impossible feats into a riveting adventure that not only saved thousands of lives but paved the way for a pivotal battle in Sicily and, ultimately, Allied success in the war.

©2001 Ewen Montagu (P)2010 Random House

Critic reviews

"Students of the second world war have been familiar with Mincemeat for many years, but Macintyre offers a mass of new detail, and enchanting pen portraits of the British, Spanish and German participants. His book is a rollicking read for all those who enjoy a spy story so fanciful that Ian Fleming, himself an officer in Montagu's wartime department, would never have dared to invent it." ( The Sunday Times, London)

One Heck of a Good Story

Ben McIntyre tells a great story in this amazing and funny detailing of WWII history. To think that free civilization owes its continued existence in part to a corpse!

Great Story!

This a very engaging and exciting story, and very well told. It includes many details without getting bogged down in them.

Incredible story beautifully performed

Bravo to Ben M on this absolute gem of a spy story. Can’t get snot of his books!! Also brilliantly narrated.

Espionage at its finest

The old line, "you can't make this stuff up" is certainly true of Mincemeat. I appreciate the gentleness and honor with which MacIntyre writes of the man who washed ashore.
The narrator does a fine job of reading. The accents are true enough. And, I prefer MacIntyre voice. It took me a chapter or two to hear MacIntyre's writing voice through this reader.
Overall, I highly recommend.

good ww2 spy story

excellent storytelling behind the Sicilian operation in ww2. well worth the listen. writer weaves a spy story into a drama .

Highly Edible

An amazing story, artfully written and told with the distinctive rhythms of British English by a narrator wearing an ascot and nursing a brandy. John Lee's voice and delivery are engrossing although his mastery of Spanish and German accents can only be rivaled by Sean Connery's.

The deception (centered around a slowly decomposing corpse) which contributed to the spectacular German blunder in allowing a relatively unimpeded invasion of Sicily in 1943 is laid out clearly with style and humor.

This book is a great exploration of the world of espionage in 1943, of the personalities involved in this small chapter of the conflict, and of a few of the war's major players.

A great book and a great narration.

Adding to the narrative

This book is a rattling story well worth your time. Over the years much has been written, filmed and speculated around this operation in WW2. Where this book stands out from the crowd is the way it builds context and texture around the individuals involved, whilst adding to the historical record. It also underlines and places the operation within the tide of WW2 nicely. It takes information from both the Allied and Axis records basing itself in the firmly facts and also points out where other tellings sway from the truth and why.
Macintyre goes beyond Operation Mincemeat and touches on the other activities of those involved before and after the operation. This provides satisfying bookends around the history for the listener as you become so involved in the story (despite knowing the outcome) and the people involved you really find yourself wanting to know what happens to them after the operation.
John Lee provides the perfect tone to take you to the period.
Highly recommended for people who think they know the story - you don't - and those who did not know of Operation Mincement before now.

Boys Own Adventure come to life

Firstly, I thought this succeeded admirably as an audiobook, both as History and adventure yarn.

I have noticed review complaints about John Lee's narration, an particularly about his 'foreign' accents, but, frankly, unless you are highly-sensitive in these matters - you just couldn't accept Sean Connery as a Russian naval captain, for instance, and returned to the ticket booth to demand a refund - frankly, I wouldn't let it worry you. Personally, I found Lee's narration to be both clear and pleasurable.

As for the story itself - truth is proven, yet again, considerably stranger than fiction; and, indeed, I was left with the impression that the whole improbable tale really had no right whatsoever to succeed! If viewed as a fictional plot-line the story crosses over well into the territory of the flatly-incredible. Without wishing to provide any spoilers, one can't help but wonder just how many Germans in the intelligence services secretly despised Hitler and Nazism, or just wanted to get the inevitable defeat over and done with...

I was pleased that the unfortunate Glyndwr Michael - the man who was the 'mincemeat' - was dealt with respectfully in the narrative, having previously been exposed to high-handed notions that he was an essentially worthless fellow whose only worldly contribution was as a corpse.

My testimony to the ultimate success of this work? Even though I knew perfectly well that the plot had to succeed I was still on the edge of my seat willing it to do so. You can't ask more of a story than that.

Amazing Operation

Finally, a book that goes in-depth into one of the most important operations of WW II that probably saved over 100,000 lives. Regrettably the British had to keep this secret along with things like the Enigma for over 50 years while egomaniacs like Montgomery and his Army of spin doctors gave the British people the impression he won the war single handedly.

The British developed brilliant pieces of technical equipment, broke unbreakable codes, designed the Merlin engine that took us to Germany and developed unbelievably complex operations that we are just now hearing about.

This is just one of them that I doubt 1 in 100 Americans have even heard about

A brilliant piece of work.

A Secret Turning Point

A story filled with what must be almost all the minute details of what finally turned the tide for the Allies in World War II. Most of the time, the story urged me to come back to listening. At times though, the voice droned on with unending facts of this or that. I like to listen to books again, if they are good. So I expect to do the same with this one too. The drama of the story iis compelling enough to keep the reader's interest, most of the time. Beyond the story, it is interesting to see how important and pivotal this action was to the outcome of the war, and that it put another nail in Hitler's coffin and sealing his fate.