Operation Mincemeat

I was mainly interested in this subject because I read a novel based on it. Otherwise it's not really my cup of tea. That said, this book was really interesting and told a really interesting story from WWII. Macintyre meandered a bit with the story, going off on a number of tangents, but since I listened to the audiobook it didn't bother me as much as it might have if I were reading the physical copy. Overall a good book, but I don't know that I'll reread it, I'd rather reread the novel.

I've seen videos on YouTube that talk about the story of Operation Mincemeat but if it was to any extent, I'd forgotten the details. It was the Netflix movie that fully captured my attention. When I happened upon this book in a used bookstore shortly after, I knew I needed to pick it up.

Sometimes the craziest ideas are the ones that work. Such was the case with Operation Mincemeat which involved planting a deceased ‘soldier' carrying fake documents in enemy waters. Finding a corpse that met the criteria was a challenge of its own, never mind having to pull off such an incredible feat. In the day of modern technology in medicine, it's easy to think that this all would be impossible. Even in the early 1940s this deception was a huge risk, but miraculously, it worked.

The book discusses many sides of the operation such as the inventors of the idea, the coroner tasked with finding an unclaimed body, the secretaries involved, the spies, and ‘William Martin' himself. There are sections that drag on and occasionally feel irrelevant, but as a whole, the book is well-researched and fascinating.