Yes, Operation Mincemeat was very much a real mission \u2013 and has often been hailed as one of the most successful deception operations in military history.<\/p>\n
As is depicted in the film, the operation saw two members of the British intelligence services \u2013 Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew Macfadyen) and Ewen Montagu (Colin Firth) \u2013 obtain a dead body that would be used to trick their German adversaries into believing an Allied attack on Greece was imminent.<\/p>\n
After creating an entire persona for a fictional captain, they dressed the body as an officer of the Royal Marines and placed personal items on him that would identify him as an officer, including a letter that made reference to the fictitious attack.<\/p>\n
After transporting him to the southern coast of Spain by submarine, they then ensured the body \u2013 and as such the letter \u2013 would fall into the hands of German intelligence, such that the enemy would reposition their troops to Greece and allow the Allies to go ahead with their planned Sicilian campaign with minimal resistance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the deceivers had to do was to try to persuade the Germans that black was white and white was black,\u201d explains Ben MacIntyre, who wrote the bestselling non-fiction book on which the film is based<\/a>. \u201cAnd they did this in the most extraordinary way. It now sounds like it comes straight out of fiction, which is exactly where it came from.\u201d<\/p>\n As for how much of an impact the operation had, screenwriter Michelle Ashford says that it \u201cchanged the course of the war\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the Allies had not been able to access Europe, they would have been sunk,\u201d she explains. \u201cAt that time, Europe was very heavily defended by the Germans. If the British had not been successful with Operation Mincemeat, there would have been a ghastly bloodbath. Without that brilliant plot, there is no way they would have won the war.\u201d<\/p>\n Major William Martin was the name given to the fictional soldier invented for the operation, but no such person actually existed in real life \u2013 he was entirely fabricated by British intelligence services.<\/p>\n The body that supposedly belonged to Major Martin was actually the corpse of Glyndwr Michael, a man who had become homeless after moving to London from Wales \u2013 and whose real identity was only publicly revealed in 1996.\u00a0 Michael died at the age of 34 shortly after he had ingested\u00a0rat poison\u00a0that contained\u00a0phosphorus.<\/p>\n The scene in the film in which Michael\u2019s sister arrives and confronts the intelligence officers about using the body appears to have been fictionalised \u2013 Ben Macintyre earlier explained that no known relatives were ever found.<\/p>\n One of the subplots that plays a prominent part in the film is the love triangle that develops between Jean Leslie (Kelly Macdonald), Montagu, and Cholmondeley \u2013 the latter two of whom both fall in love with Jean.<\/p>\n \u201cA huge affection develops between these two men,\u201d explains Colin Firth. \u201cBut they are both in love with Jean. Jean cares for both of them, so it becomes this very, very complex tussle of unresolved and unexpressed emotions, which is fed by the very high stakes they are operating in and this tiny, compressed, cloistered environment. They are thrown so closely together in a common cause.\u201d<\/p>\n There is no firm evidence that this love triangle is based on fact \u2013 but Macintyre has hinted that Montagu and Jean could well have developed real feelings for each other over the course of the operation.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether the imagined courtship between \u2018Bill\u2019 and \u2018Pam\u2019 was ever more than merely flirtatious banter is unknown, and likely to remain that way,\u201d he previously explained. \u201cCertainly Ewen was \u2018smitten\u2019 with Jean (her word), and they both played along with their allotted roles.<\/p>\n \u201cWartime Britain was filled with fear and danger, but for those in the spying game, it was also a time of great excitement and romance,\u201d he added. \u201cIf the imagined love affair overlapped with reality, that would fit with the story, in which the framers invented a deception so real they began to believe it themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n While it\u2019s possible that there was some truth to these sections of the film, then, it seems that the romance angle has been embellished for dramatic effect.<\/p>\n Another key subplot concerns John Godfrey\u2019s (Jason Isaacs) accusations that Montagu\u2019s brother Ivor (Mark Gatiss) was a Russian agent \u2013 with the Rear Admiral enlisting Charles Cholmondeley to spy on Montagu during the operation.<\/p>\n The eccentric Ivor \u2013 who, as mentioned in the film, was the founder of the International Table Tennis Federation \u2013 was indeed a committed communist who briefly worked as a Russian agent, although it\u2019s believed his impact was relatively limited.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also true that MI5 was deeply suspicious of Ivor \u2013 believing his table tennis interests to be a cover \u2013 and even went so far as to tap his phone.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no evidence, however, that Cholmondeley was spying on Montagu during Operation Mincemeat, and so it appears that this element of the film was created for dramatic purposes.<\/p>\n Yes, James Bond author Ian Fleming (Johnny Flynn), who was then a Lieutenant Commander, really did have a role in the operation \u2013 even coming up with the inspiration for the plot before it was further developed by Cholmondeley and Montagu.<\/p>\n According to Macintyre, \u201cthe plot\u2026 came originally from a novel by a man called Basil Thompson. No one reads Thompson anymore. But someone who did was Ian Fleming.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was the assistant to Admiral Godfrey, who was the head of Naval Intelligence during the war and later became the model for M in the James Bond stories,\u201d he adds. \u201cFleming proposed the idea from Thompson\u2019s novel to Godfrey. And so this idea was born almost entirely out of fiction. It came from novels.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIan Fleming is pivotal to the whole story of Operation Mincemeat,\u201d explains producer Emile Sherman. \u201cHe is our narrator, but he is also in real life the person who put together the original Trout Memo.<\/p>\n \u201cWithin the memo was the idea of deceiving Hitler through the use of a dead body carrying papers, which is picked up and run with by the characters in our story. It\u2019s incredibly fun to see a pre-Bond Ian Fleming, living his life and being part of the war effort with all the weight of what he was going to become.\u201d<\/p>\n Operation Mincemeat is in UK cinemas now. Visit our<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Film<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>hub for more news, interviews and features, or find something to watch now with our<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>TV Guide<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n The latest issue of Radio Times is on sale now \u2013\u00a0subscribe now<\/a>\u00a0to get each issue delivered to your door. For more from the biggest stars in TV, l<\/strong>isten to the\u00a0Radio Times podcast<\/a>\u00a0with Jane Garvey.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section><\/body><\/html>\n By Patrick Cremona Published: Friday, 15 April 2022 at 12:00 am A new film is released in UK cinemas this week that tells the true story of Operation Mincemeat \u2013 a hugely successful World War Two deception mission that played a crucial role in turning the tide of the war. Several aspects of the plot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":13937,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/04\/is-operation-mincemeat-based-on-a-true-story-scaled.jpg",2560,1707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/04\/is-operation-mincemeat-based-on-a-true-story-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/04\/is-operation-mincemeat-based-on-a-true-story-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/04\/is-operation-mincemeat-based-on-a-true-story-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/04\/is-operation-mincemeat-based-on-a-true-story-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/04\/is-operation-mincemeat-based-on-a-true-story-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/04\/is-operation-mincemeat-based-on-a-true-story-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Patrick Cremona Published: Friday, 15 April 2022 at 12:00 am A new film is released in UK cinemas this week that tells the true story of Operation Mincemeat \u2013 a hugely successful World War Two deception mission that played a crucial role in turning the tide of the war. Several aspects of the plot…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/13936"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Who was Major William Martin in Operation Mincemeat?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Is the Operation Mincemeat love triangle based on fact?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Was Ewen Montagu\u2019s brother really a Russian spy?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Was Ian Fleming really involved with Operation Mincemeat?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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