Hartley trained in Africa for landing in Sicily (Newnan, Ga.) Times-Herald A veteran of the invasion of Sicily remembers the fighting.
Their Vilest Hour New York Times Nicholson Baker takes a radically different look at the run-up to World War II.
Franco and Hitler: Spain, Germany and World War II by Stanley G Payne Times Online Spain's non-participation in World War II was a strictly pragmatic decision for Franco.
April 30, 2008
Armchair historians can argue ad nauseum about how particular elements turned the tide in World War II - be it V2 rockets, the musette bag or Lana Turner - but for at least one major Allied victory, the credit goes entirely to misinformation.
Operation Mincemeat, launched 65 years ago, came in the midst of a rather difficult period for the British. They had held off a German invasion of the homeland, but Hitler controlled the Continent, and any serious effort to turn them back required establishing a beachhead in the Mediterranean. Sicily was the obvious strategic choice. Hitler knew that as well as the Allies and reinforced the island to a fault. Chances for a British invasion looked grim at best.
"Anyone but a bloody fool would know it was Sicily," grumbled Winston Churchill.
Until a junior officer came up with the idea of making the Germans think the British planned to invade elsewhere. Hence was born Operation Mincemeat, which was eventually refined into thus:
The British Navy would jettison a corpse done up as a mid-level officer carrying plans for an entirely fictitious British invasion via Sardinia and the Balkans. After a supposed plane crash at sea, the corpse would wash up on the shore of German-sympathetic Spain, The Germans would think they'd scored a major intelligence coup and redeploy their troops, leaving Sicily wide open.
Such trickery hangs on the details. British military intelligence left nothing to chance, wrote co-planner Lt. Ewen Montagu in his book "The Man Who Never Was." After securing a corpse of appropriate age and condition, they invented the identity of Maj. William Martin of the Royal Marines, complete with a star-crossed love affair, financial troubles, and a certain level of clumsiness. They even made him a Catholic, to prevent a post-discovery autopsy.
The submarine HMS Seraph was entrusted to jettison the body, outfitted with a briefcase containing all manner of fake documents. After a brief recitation of the 39th Psalm, the deed was done at 4:30 a.m. on April 30, 1943, off the coast of Huelva, Spain. The body was found five hours later by a fisherman, who bought it into port and to the attention of a cooperative German spy.
Within a few weeks, and with the help of some urgent British telegrams demanding the return of the briefcase, the documents were in the hands of the German high command, which decided they were genuine. (The inclusion of theater ticket stubs dated a day before the supposed plane crash reportedly clinched it for Hitler).
"You can forget about Sicily. We know it's Greece," proclaimed German Supreme Commander Gen. Alfred Jodl.
German troops were diverted to Sardinia and Athens, ships previously guarding Sicily were sent elsewhere, and the new standing order was that any apparent British operation on Sicily was to be considered a distracting feint. Winston Churchill was advised by telegram: "Mincemeat Swallowed Whole."
The British moved quickly. The began their attack on Sicily on July 9. The Germans insisted for two full weeks that it was a ruse. This allowed Patton and Montogmery to take over the island in one month, setting the stage for an Allied invasion of Italy and the downfall of Mussolini.
And what of the noble bearer of the Mincemeat plans? The body lies in a Huelva cemetry with a marker feting the fictious Maj. Martin. The actual identity of the corpse was to remain a mystery, at the request of the family. It took more than four decades of amateur sleuthing before an apparently definitive identification was made. The body that's buried is believed to be that of Glyndwr Michael, a Welsh alcoholic and vagrant who died from consuming rat poison (whether by accident or suicide is not known), thus providing the fluid-filled lungs necessary for the ruse to work.
Or not. Subsequent investigators pinned the corpse as that of John Melville, a Britisjh sailor killed in the explosion of the HMS Dasher, a theory endorsed by the Royal Navy in a brief memorial ceremony a few years ago.
History continues to remind us that a clever mind anchored with purpose is still the best weapon in any battle.
The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 PopMatters Journalist Rick Atkinson reconstructs the battle for Italy.
The homeowner who never was Affordable Housing Institute A slightly stretched analogy to the sub-prime lending crisis.
HMS Dasher, Mincemeat, and Jack Melville Secret Scotland The alternate theory of Maj. Williams' identity.
What was the greatest act of military trickery?
17% 67% 8% 8%
Well, as Mei Yaochen used to say "Without deception you cannot carry out strategy, without strategy you cannot control your opponent" Taken from "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu. It was valid two thousand years ago and still rings true today.
Good examples of clever minds with a purpose are Sun Tzu (The Art of War) and Odysseus (the Trojan Horse).
During WW2 there's a great story from the O.S.S. in North Africa. The Germans would intentionally drive through camel dung on the roads then make those not deemed worthy of Master Race status clean the dung out of the treads. The O.S.S. had an agent named Carlton Coons (an anthropologist who had lived among North African tribes for years) who devised an explosive to look like dung. This stuff was dropped at random on the roads. The Germans would drive over the new "dung" and it would explode damaging vehicles and killing them.
Did Ollie North have a "clever" mind when he cooked up the Iran-Contra cash for missiles caper? He told Congress he thought it was a "nifty" idea. Nifty? Yes. Clever? No comment at this time.
I've heard Coons may have been a source for the character Indiana Jones.
The poll on the side mentions Saddam making us think he had all those WMD as a possible "greatest act of military trickery". I'll add one more: Our government convincing themselves Saddam did have WMD. A very "nifty" trick, to quote Ollie, but not a very "clever" trick" in hindsight.
By the way, my Mother used to make mincemeat pies at Christmas, so there will be no comments allowed about mincemeat....(HaHa)
Hey, I love mincemeat pie! It reminds me of Christmas with my Granpa!
Shortly before the Battle of Midway, didn't the U.S. forces determine whether the Japanese had broken their code by sending out a bogus report about faulty water pumps (or something to that effect)? My history is a little hazy on that one but it seems like another great example.
To: LaDonna,
No only my Mother, but my grandmother made mincemeat pie when I was a child in England. She made small tarts out of the mincemeat, too. They were a favorite of mine.
I used to like Irish fruitcake (not the English one). There was a company in Texas that made a fruitcake that's similar to the Irish one. Very moist. They used to ship it by mail order. Perhaps they still do.
I keep extra English fruit cakes in my work shed in case I have to repair brick wall.
To: DreadPirateRoberts,
You're right.
Google "Battle of Midway + codes. You'll find a site named nsa.gov that has an interesting article on the subject.
To: Expat,
Would this possibly be in your work shed!?!
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To: LaDonna,
THANK YOU!
The Collin Street Bakery is the company I used to order the fruit cakes from in Texas. It's been several years since I did that and I'd lost the name and address. They also have those delicious pecan cakes I like.
I'll order a fruit cake and a pecan cake today!
These will never be in my work shed because you can actually eat a fruit cake from Collin's. They're as good, if not better, than my grandmother's Irish fruit cake. The English one's were very dry and hard. My Irish Grandfather, who was a mason/bricklayer, used to take the English ones he got as gifts to his job sites in case he ran out of real bricks. His English co-workers didn't quite get the joke.
Again, thank you, LaDonna
To: Expat,
You are so very welcome!
Just a thought that is bothering me . . . . . . With the premise that “a clever mind anchored with purpose is still the best weapon in any battle (which I still agree with as I commented earlier), how scary is that in light of the wars that are now being fought where some forces do not value the lives of their own citizens, nor their own mortal soul? By this I mean the “strategic”/barbaric practice of fortifying themselves behind the human shields of their countrymen and the seemingly dramatic increase in the use of suicide bombers (which I know is not a new concept). Is it possible in these situations to have the cleverest mind that is anchored with a “moral/noble purpose” triumph over a foe who prizes victory at any cost??
Side Note:
Today in 1945: Hitler Commets Suicide
"Adolf Hitler and his wife for one day, Eva Braun, committed suicide today. . Early newspaper reports stated Hitler was thought to have been slain by the Russians or to have died of a stroke, but no mention was made of suicide. It was not until almost two months later that newspapers revealed the couple had made a suicide pact.
"Hitler shot himself through the temple, the chauffer said, while Eva Braun sent a bullet through her heart. Both died almost instantly. The source of this information apparently clarifying the mystery of Hitler's end as overlord of Europe was Erich Kempke, his driver since 1936," reported The Port Arthur News on June 21, 1945. "The bodies of Hitler and his bride were taken out into the chancellory garden, Kempke said, soaked with gasoline and burned."
NOTE: Reports revealed that Hitler and his wife shot themselves while simultaneously biting into a cyanide capsule. Though some remains were discovered, many still believe that Hitler may have faked his death and gone into hiding, and that the remains are inauthentic."
Spinner said...
Definitely not into military history, but a clever and devious mind works well in other venues than on the battle field: chess, football, basketball, soccer, I guess most any sport of that type. It seems to pop up a good bit in politics as well... Also, as I remember, Bill Gates had a great idea early on that software itself would be a good seller rather than Steve Jobs' idea that you had to have the hardware as well to go with it. Seems that was a pretty clever and devious mind at work. So that attitude works well in a lot of life situations.
So our list of non-discussion topics is:
Pocahontas
mince meat
Okay, I'll keep that in mind. By the way, the Trappist Monks in New Haven, KY, make a really mean fruit cake that can be ordered via the web. My mother used to buy cheap A&P fruit cakes and inject them with bourbon with a syringe..
to ExPat:
Here's how my weird mind works. I have this image in my head of all the bizarro street preachers from the Speakers' Corner of Hyde Park arguing with each other in your work shed. After all, you said you keep extra English fruit cakes there.
to South-Side John:
You are quite right about how disturbing the use of human shields is. And, of course, you are right that it is not remotely a new concept. I'm sure it wasn't new when I first heard about it either. The "chicks up front" strategy (as my father used to call it) practised by the Viet Cong. Young women would march in front of armed soldiers. If a Yank killed one of them, then he had the stigma of killing unarmed women. Strap a bomb to the back of a two-year old and point him in the direction of a U.S. camp. If a Yank killed shot him (and saved the lives of his own company in the process), then he was a baby murderer. No wonder so many American soldiers spent their lives in therapy after such tactics were foisted upon them.
To: DreadPirateRoberts,
I thought the voices were in my head......I'll check the shed tonight, it could be the English fruit cakes talking! Thanks
Speaking as a Vietnam veteran (1969-70), you are right-on about the "chicks up front" strategy of the Viet Cong. It is the tactic of cowards and people with no sense of right and wrong, even in a war.
to DreadPirateRoberts,
The English Fruitcakes in the shed image would absolutely make Douglas Adams laugh and be proud! Well envisioned!
It strikes me that only civilized people have a sense of right and wrong. Once you are in a war, you become uncivilized very quickly. We can debate what civilized means, and should. It's the becoming uncivilized that has always bothered me, but it's a hidden gene in human beings.
Spinner said...
My father was a psychiatrist. Very much ahead of his time. He believed very firmly that a sense of morality was indeed a human trait. What other animal demonstrates such a tendency? We had this conversation years ago when I came into contact with some individuals that seemed to demonstrate a lack of any understanding of morality, of "right and wrong". He felt this was indeed some sort of mutation that basically caused a breakdown in some biochemical reaction in our brain that prevented this concept to be understood. I have just lately spoken to a young psychiatrist doing research on this very thing and apparently there is strong evidence to suggest this is so. So maybe we could take this to another level of abstraction and speculate that the stresses of war and living in a violent culture would breakdown this basic biochemical pathway. Remember? My background is medical (genetic) research, so this is the way I tend to look at the world.
Yes, Mr. Peterman, just what is "civilized"? I am sure some cultures teach that the "moral" thing to do is fight for your opinion no matter the consequences. The individual is not important, only the culture as a whole. And remember that we are one of the first country's (culture?) that espoused that the rights of the individual are paramount. Does this mean that those that put the culture as a whole first are "uncivilized"? We are definitely learning that to try to self righteously impose "democracy" on a culture that has no background to accept it simply doesn't work. Why do we have such arrogance to assume that our way of governance is the "only" way? Obviously, many consider our approach "uncivilized".
As far as I think 'civilised' goes - or at least, as far as my opinion is concerned - it means, in today's day, any person who conforms, loosely, to the culture of the day. Obviously any person who acts like a maniac would be labelled 'uncivilised'; while those who eat with a fork and knife, and who go see movies and keep quiet during them, those who sleep at night and work during the day, are labelled 'civilised'. And with every strange thing that a person might do, a notch of uncivilised-ness is added to their stick, until they are such a cultural deformity that they are institutionalised and taught how to be 'civilised' again. We've done it before: Pocahontas, from yesterday, was an uncivilised Indian woman, and she was civilised by John Rolfe and England. But Indians weren't - and aren't - uncivilised: they're simply different. Any anomaly in the system is purged by civilised society, civilised culture, and civilised people. America, being the big power in the world, has the authority to define 'civilised', and there you go. That's why we're all over the world, "self righteously impos[ing] "democracy" on a culture that has no background to accept it". Thank you, Spinner; I couldn't have put it better myself.
Well Spinner and One at the Desk, civilized is like beauty, it's in the eyes of the beholder.
to Spinner:
Your father was absolutely right in his understanding that morality is an inherent human trait. Long before such a notion was articulated, it was implied in our language. When people do horrible things to each other, when they rape and murder, one of the first adjectives we use to describe such behavior is “inhuman”. Coincidence? I think not.
In the classic miniseries, HOLOCAUST, there is a great moment in which the Jewish doctor (played by Fritz Weaver) asks an S.S. officer (Michael Moriarty), “In the name of humanity, what more can you do to us?” Every audience member is clearly expected to think “In the name of humanity, nothing. But these people do not operate in the name of humanity.”
If you examine the classic movie, JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG (also a work of fiction but based on very important history), you can see the philosophy “The individual doesn’t matter, only the culture as a whole” in action. Ernst Janning, the Nazi judge who convicted many people whom he knew to be innocent, genuinely believed he was doing the right thing for the majority of the citizens in modern German culture. The fact that a few individuals had to suffer for it didn’t matter if the culture as a whole benefited. This was also the fundamental philosophy of Lenin and his protégé, Stalin, and the individuals who suffered in the Gulags for the alleged benefit of the culture as a whole learned the lesson all too well. And Mao Tse Tung, the most notorious of all those who put the culture as a whole first, has 35 million victims to his name. If you have a better definition of “uncivilized” than that, I’m all ears.
The importance of the individual (without which there is no such thing as culture) is crucially fundamental to the notion of morality. Civilization isn’t dependent on the individual because our nation introduced the concept. Rather, it is the other way around; our founding fathers introduced the concept because they were wise enough to recognize the fundamentals.
As for our “self-righteous imposition of democracy around the world”, it is doomed to failure because it is an oxymoronic effort. If you try to impose democracy, you will fail because democracy cannot be imposed. By definition, it must be voluntary. If it’s not voluntary, it’s not democracy.