On April 30 1943 the body of Major Martin, a Royal Marine, washed up on the shore of neutral Spain following an air crash, with a briefcase containing vital documents regarding Allied operations in the Mediterranean. The local German consul ensured the documents were copied and forwarded to Berlin before the body was released to the British for burial.
Forewarned of Allied intentions, the Germans moved reinforcements to the Balkans and Greece and as a result the Allied invasion of Sicily on July 10 went forward against weakened defences. It was one of the great strategic deceptions of the war, and such was its success that as the invasion fleet approached, the Italian admiral in charge of coastal defences was woken with news that an armada was in the Narrows. "Well," he said, "at least they aren't coming here," and went back to sleep.
Thaddeus Holt's The Deceivers provides the first thorough survey of western Allied military deception during the second world war, and traces its development in meticulous detail. Operation Mincemeat, or "The Man Who Never Was", as Major Martin became known, was only one part in a much larger scheme that had been building throughout 1943 called Operation Barclay. That in turn benefited from another long-term scheme to give German high command a false idea of Allied strength, enabling false threats to be credibly aimed at Greece and the Balkans.
The Deceivers is a monumental work and clearly a labour of love, which provides both its strength and its weakness. The lengthy, minutely detailed record of virtually every deception operation carried out by the Allies could bewilder someone without a solid previous knowledge of the war. Yet Holt is good on the personalities behind deception operations, in particular one little-known officer, Dudley Clarke.
When Clarke died in 1974, his obituary in the Times recalled that Field Marshal Earl Alexander of Tunis had publicly stated he had "done as much to win the war as any other officer". Such praise from one so eminent was unusual, given that Clarke attained no higher rank than brigadier, was never knighted and remained unknown to all but a few of his contemporaries. Holt's thorough research brings him out of the shadows for the first time, and this unusual character with his "merry blue eyes" deserves his place in history.
"In wartime," said Winston Churchill, "truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." Clarke also knew the lie was so precious that it should always be attended by a bodyguard of truths, and this made up at least 80% of the information that he fed to the enemy, whether it stemmed from dummy fleets and tanks or false divisional signs painted conspicuously where Allied troops were practically non-existent. Thus 80% of the material was confirmable by the Germans from other sources; the skill lay in changing the emphasis, so the confirmable truths added up to a picture so false as to help make possible the enemy's defeat.
Foremost among deception operations was Operation Bodyguard, covering the D-day invasion. It tied down in the Pas de Calais entire German armies - including one of 19 divisions - that might have destroyed the invasion on the beaches. It did so through false radio networks, displays of dummy equipment and double-agent reports. The origins, conduct and imposing logistics of this massive deception are scrupulously recorded.
However, it is in tracing the previous development of deception that the strength of the book lies. General Sir Archibald Wavell, commander in chief of the Middle East, summoned Clarke to join his staff in 1940 to form the first deception unit, "A" Force, and from here it grew to reach its zenith in Bodyguard.
As Clarke wrote in the foreword to his unpublished memoirs: "The secret war was waged rather to conserve than to destroy; the stakes were the lives of the frontline troops, and the organisation which fought it was able to count its gains from the number of casualties it could avert." Here at last is just tribute to his efforts.
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