Sunday, February 4, 2018
Operation Mincemeat and its Significance
In April of 1943, the Nazis found a corpse floating in southern Spain. The man had paperwork identifying him as Major William Martin of the Royal Marines, and a briefcase was found attached to his dead body. Inside of the case, the Nazis found war plans describing a future attack where the Allied forces would cross the Mediterranean and attack Greece, which at the time was occupied by Nazi Germany. As a result, Hitler sent many troops from France to Greece, fearing a large invasion. However, the identification and war plans were fake, an intentional trick by the British to catch the German army by surprise. Instead of attacking Greece, almost 200,000 Allies invaded Sicily. This was significant in the downfall of Italian dictator Mussolini. Gaining control of Italy helped to swing the war in Europe to the Allies' favor. How would the war have been different if Operation Mincemeat never took place?
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Operation Mincemeat was one of the many ways that the Americans executed their Deception Plan before the D-Day Raid. I think that the creativity of american generals were very creative in their plans of making the germans totally unsure of what was going on. Throughout the entirety of the war, the Americans seemed to be a step ahead of the Germans.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that Operation Mincemeat was not a rarity at all in the scope of World War II. While it was a clear example of utilizing deception in war, it was certainly not the only use. World War II was when behind-the-scenes war began to escalate. Not all of the fighting was done on the front line, but now also in code breaking, deception, and other mental battles.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that WWII extended far past just fighting. It took a lot of brainpower to ensure victory, and strategy was the key to winning. Operation Mincemeat was probably one of many deception plans that the Americans used to establish dominance over the enemy.
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