Contents
In the first chapter of “The Art of War,” Sun Tzu writes that all warfare is based on deception. If you are able to attack, you should appear unable. If you are near, you should seem far away. Rarely has this idea been put into practice as literally as in a British operation in 1943 whose central figure was a dead man. It shows how Deception works when your own objective is actually obvious.
An objective anyone can guess
Situation
In early 1943, the Allies are planning the leap from North Africa to Europe. The next objective is to be Sicily. The island lies so obviously on the way that the German leadership has to anticipate it too. The landing is planned for July. Until then, the Germans would have enough time to defend Sicily strongly.
Link to the principle
An obvious objective cannot be hidden. So you have to offer the opponent another, credible explanation. Here, deception does not mean making something invisible. It means building a second truth so convincingly that the opponent aligns their forces with it.
A major who never existed
Situation
The idea goes back to a Royal Navy memo circulated under the name of Admiral John Godfrey. In the assessment of the historian Ben Macintyre, it bears the hallmarks of Godfrey’s assistant, Ian Fleming. The RAF officer Charles Cholmondeley and the naval officer and lawyer Ewen Montagu work out the plan. They obtain the body of Glyndwr Michael, a homeless Welshman who had died of rat poison. The pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury advises them. The dead man becomes Major William Martin of the Royal Marines. His pockets hold personal items meant to suggest a real life. Michael’s true identity is made public only in 1996, by an amateur historian.
Link to the principle
Credibility comes from details that seem incidental. An opponent checks not only the document that interests them. They also check whether the person behind it seems real. If you want to deceive, you have to build the seemingly unimportant as carefully as the important.
Letters meant to be found
Situation
The major’s briefcase contains a letter from General Sir Archibald Nye to General Sir Harold Alexander. It suggests that the real attack is aimed at Greece and that Sicily is only a diversion. A second letter, from Lord Louis Mountbatten, hints at Sardinia with a joke about sardines. The submarine HMS Seraph carries the body off the Spanish coast in a canister packed with dry ice. The crew believes it contains a weather instrument. In the early morning of April 30, 1943, the crew releases the dead man into the water off Huelva, and a few hours later a fisherman finds him. Huelva was chosen because a very active agent of the Abwehr, German military intelligence, had good contacts with Spanish officials there. The Spanish take out the letters and photograph them; by May 8, their contents are in German hands. On May 11, they return the briefcase to the British naval attaché. Examinations in London show that the letters had been unfolded and read.
Link to the principle
Good deception lets the opponent find for themselves what they are meant to believe. People value what they have worked hard to capture more than what they are told. The British claimed nothing. They made a find possible.
The opponent deploys wrongly
Situation
On May 14, 1943, after a conversation with Adolf Hitler, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz records that Hitler does not share Mussolini’s assessment that Sicily is the most likely target. The papers that were found, he notes, confirm that the attacks are aimed mainly at Sardinia and the Peloponnese. The 1st Panzer Division is moved from France to Greece. On Sardinia, German troops double to about 10,000 men by the end of June. When the Allies land on Sicily on July 9 and 10, 1943, Hitler continues for some time to consider an attack on the Balkans imminent.
Link to the principle
That is exactly what the principle means: the opponent distributes their forces according to a false picture. The success of a deception does not show in whether the other side believes it. It shows in what they then do. Every division in Greece was missing on Sicily.
What the deception did not achieve
Situation
Mincemeat was part of a larger deception plan for the Mediterranean. Even so, the fighting on Sicily lasted about five weeks, and many German troops were able to withdraw across the Strait of Messina to the mainland in August. The historian Sir Michael Howard calls Mincemeat perhaps the most successful single deception of the entire war. At the same time, he believes that Hitler’s long-standing fixation on the Balkans did more than the body at Huelva. How much of the troop movements can be attributed to the deception alone therefore remains disputed.
Link to the principle
Deception shifts forces; it does not replace them. It creates an advantage that you still have to exploit. If you rely on the ruse alone, you mistake a favorable starting point for victory.
Key takeaways
Key lessons
- If your objective is obvious, do not hide it; offer another credible explanation.
- Credibility lies in small things that no one thinks are important.
- Let the other side find for themselves what they are meant to believe.
- Measure the success of a deception by what the other side does.
- An advantage gained through a ruse still has to be exploited.
Summary
Operation Mincemeat shows deception in its pure form. The British could not hide their objective, Sicily. So they built a second, credible truth: a dead major with letters that pointed to Greece and Sardinia. The German leadership found the papers itself, believed them and moved troops. The ruse did not replace the battle for Sicily, but it changed the starting position.
Sources
- The National WWII Museum: Secret Agents, Secret Armies: Operation Mincemeat
- Wikipedia: Operation Mincemeat
- Ben Macintyre: Operation Mincemeat. London: Bloomsbury 2010.
- Ewen Montagu: The Man Who Never Was. 1953.
- Sun Tzu: The Art of War, Chapter 1. China, c. 5th century BC.
