How Ian Fleming Masterminded The Invasion of Sicily

Daniel Mandel at the History News Network offers a piece on the role of Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, in the deception plan prior to the invasion of Sicily in World War II.

World War II abounds in gargantuan invasions, massive blunders, ferocious set-piece battles and scenes of hellish slaughter worthy of Hieronymus Bosch. The effort to avoid one such bloodbath originated Operation Mincemeat, one of the war's most celebrated and quirky intelligence efforts. Specifically, the conundrum for the Allies was: how to save the lives of thousands of soldiers to be landed in Europe on heavily-defended Axis beachheads?

The beaches in question were not those of Normandy on June 6, 1944, but of Sicily on July 9, 1943, seventy years ago today. British and American forces, fresh from having driven Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's panzer divisions from North Africa, were poised to assault what British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called “the soft underbelly of Europe.”

The target was Mussolini’s Italy, with Sicily the ideal -- but painfully obvious -- invasion point. How might the Germans be deflected from heavily reinforcing the island’s defenses? 

... With World War II, the idea was refined to planting false documents on a dead body. The idea stemmed from an obscure detective novel, The Milliner’s Hat Mystery (1937) by Sir Basil Thomson, the former head of London’s Criminal Investigation Department.

Largely and perhaps deservedly forgotten today, Thomson’s novels however were read by a certain Royal Navy intelligence officer by the name of Ian Fleming. The future creator of James Bond, Fleming was transfixed by the premise of The Milliner’s Hat Mystery: a body is found whose identity, reconstructed from his personal effects, turns out to be a complete fabrication.

In a top secret memo following the outbreak of war in September 1939, Fleming wrote to his superior, Admiral John Godfrey, the Director of Naval Intelligence (who served as the model for "M" in Fleming’s James Bond novels), suggesting numerous devices to deceive the Germans, one of which included an elaboration of Thomson’s premise: a corpse carrying fabricated documents would be dropped by parachute on a German-occupied coast. Godfrey had approved the idea.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://hnn.us/articles/how-ian-fleming-masterminded-invasion-sicily

You can also read an earlier post on 'Operation Mincemeat' via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2010/06/dead-man-floating-world-war-iis-oddest.html

And you can read my Counterterrorism magazine piece on Commander Ian Fleming's World War II intelligence-commando unit, the 30 Assault Unit, via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2011/11/look-back-at-30-assault-unit-british.html

Thanksgiving With Abe: A Brief History of Thanksgiving

Historian Thomas Fleming's Channeling George Washington series for George Mason University's History News Network offers a history of Thanksgiving, and a note of thanks to President Abraham Lincoln.

You can read the piece via the below link:

http://www.hnn.us/articles/133847.html

The U.S. *Has* Pulled Off Successful Embassy Recues Before

Dr Timothy R. Furnish at the History News Network refutes the idea that the United States have never rescued an American embassy under attack.

Attempting to strategically justify inaction, last week Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, when asked at a Department of Defense briefing why the U.S. did not send in more forces, said this: “the basic principle here…is that you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on; without having some real-time information about what's taking place.” And now the incessant criticism of the Obama administration on this issue has started to spark a backlash -- most notably, and ironically, by one of Fox News Channel’s own, Geraldo Rivera, who waxed indignant against his employer just this morning while discussing Benghazi, on “Fox & Friends:” “we have never, in the history of this republic, mounted a raid on [sic] the circumstance described here.” Both Panetta and Rivera in their positions betray a colossal ignorance of history -- despite the fact that both are educated men (attorneys); and in particular Secretary of Defense Panetta, with prior experience as a congressman, White House chief of staff and CIA director, should know better. 

... The claim that the U.S. has never staged a military rescue mission of a consulate or embassy under attack by indigenous forces is demonstrably wrong, as well. There are two twentieth century examples of this being done successfully. The first was in 1927 -- the so-called “Nanking [Nanjing] Incident,” in which Communist troops of the Chinese National Revolutionary Army sacked the American, British and Japanese embassies and civilian-living sectors, killing the American vice-president of Nanking University in the process. American and British warships were dispatched and, after shelling the city, sent troops in to evacuate the embassy staffs and other civilian personnel. The other was in Vietnam in 1968 when, at the onset of the Tet offensive, Viet Cong forces besieged the U.S. embassy in Saigon. The ranking commander -- Lieutenant General Fred Weyand—ordered his forces simply “to secure the U.S. embassy,” and a rifle team from the 101st Airborne did so, even though the captain in charge “was not given any maps or aerial photos of the embassy, nor intelligence beyond the fact that the Viet Cong were there.”

You can read the rest of this intersting piece via the below link:

http://hnn.us/articles/us-has-pulled-successful-embassy-rescues

The Bad Things Presidents And Would-Be-Presidents Have Said About Each Other

 

Think the Obama-Romney presidential race is nasty?

Well, Thomas Fleming, the noted historian and author, offers a look back at some of the bad things our presidents and would-be-presidents said about each other at the History News Network.

Recently I went to a dinner party at which several guests wondered aloud if the 2012 presidential election was setting some sort of record for nastiness. The two candidates and their spokesmen were calling each other a startling range of names from liar to crook to weakling to would be dictator. I agreed that the rancor was growing intense -- but I assured them that other candidates for and holders of the nation’s highest office had compiled a record that equaled and often exceeded the current epithets.

Enraged by President George Washington’s refusal to support the French Revolution, Thomas Jefferson said he was "a Samson who had allowed himself to be shorn by the harlot, England." Around the same time, an ardent Jefferson supporter, journalist James Thomson Callender, offered a toast at a public dinner "to the speedy death of President Washington."

A few years later, President John Adams, defeated for re-election by Mr. Jefferson, accused him of having "a mean thirst for popularity, an inordinate ambition and a want of sincerity." Adams shuddered at "the calamities" that Jefferson’s policies would soon inflict on the country. 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link;

http://hnn.us/articles/bad-things-presidents-and-would-be-presidents-have-said-about-each-other

Channelling George Washington: A Look Back At Milovan Dijilas' 'The New Class' And Communist China's Coming Failure

Noted historian and author Thomas Fleming continues his Channelling George Washington series for the History News Network. In his latest piece, George Washington talks about Milovan Dijilas and his book, The New Class.  

“I just talked to a ghost who’s haunting China.”
“Does he, she, or it have a name?”

“Milovan Djilas. He wrote a book that played a crucial role in destroying the Soviet Union -- The New Class. I think it will eventually do the same thing to the People's Republic of China.”

“Fascinating stuff. Please tell us more.”

“No doubt you’ve read about the huge scandal surrounding the corrupt rule of the of the Chinese provincial boss, Bo Xilai, and his even more corrupt wife -- including the murder of the British businessman, Neil Heywood. The whole world is now aware that what Djilas wrote about the Soviet Union -- the blather about revolutionary heroism -- was a cover for a new ruling class to seize power and exploit and dominate the people more ruthlessly than the capitalists ever dreamt of doing.”

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://hnn.us/articles/channelling-george-washington-end-chinas-new-class

Elementary: Sherlock Holmes Is Back In A Big Way

Bruce Chadwick at the History News Network reports on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic fictional character Sherlock Holmes' past and how he is back in a big way.

English fictional detective Sherlock Holmes solved his first case in 1887. He became a literary sensation in Great Britain and then, accompanied by his inveterate sidekick, Dr. John Watson, a superstar in the United States. Now, 125 years later, the nineteenth-century detective is not only back, he's bigger than ever. He's returned to theater, film and television, the world’s greatest sleuth once again, trudging through the fog filled streets of London, deerstalker cap comfortable on his head, pipe in the corner of his mouth and his trusty violin tucked under his arm. 

He's back in different theaters in numerous plays. He's back on the silver screen in two movies starring Robert Downey Jr., Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011). And he's back on television in another season of the BBC's Sherlock, which just began last weekend in America.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://hnn.us/articles/elementary-sherlock-holmes-back-big-way

Tim Weiner's 'Enemies' Wears Its Anti-FBI Agenda On Its Sleeve

Susan Rosenfeld, the FBI's first official historian is critical of Tim Weiner's Enemies: A History of the FBI. She offers a detailed look at Weiner's book at the History News Network.

This book is not an objective study of FBI history. Instead it selects examples that bolster the contention that the FBI put its wars against anarchists, Communists, the New Left, and foreign and domestic terrorists ahead of any consideration for the Bill of Rights. Weiner concedes that proponents from all these groups actually committed acts of espionage or violence. But for the most part, he features perpetrators who were never punished.

Weiner also oversells the role that surveillance played in J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI and beyond. As former foreign counterintelligence (FCI) agent Robert Lamphere noted in The FBI-KGB War, “only a small fraction of the New York field office [in the 1940s]—fifty or sixty men out of a thousand—was concerned with Soviet espionage and few agents outside the squad really knew or cared much about Soviet spies.”   

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://hnn.us/articles/tim-weiners-enemies-wears-its-anti-fbi-agenda-its-sleeve

Note: The piece offers a link to a rebuttal by Tim Weiner, but I was unable to link to that piece.

Does Anybody Remember The Battle Of An Loc?

As we withdrawl from Iraq and Afghanistan, Thomas Fleming, the noted historian and novelist, reminds us of the 1972 Battle of An Loc during the Vietnam War.

Can we prevent a similar massacre of our friends in Afghanistan and Iraq when American forces withdrawl?

...South Vietnam's tragic fate should make us resolve to prevent another terrible blot on America's honor."

You can read the rest of this important piece via the below link to the History News Network:

http://hnn.us/articles/does-anybody-remember-battle-loc

Channelling George Washington: The Revolution That Changed The World

Thomas Fleming, a noted historian and historical novelist, offers his latest in a series of articles on channelling the late George Washington on issues of American history and current affairs.

The series of articles appear in George Mason University's History News Network.

The latest has General George Washington, our first and perhaps our greatest president, speaking about the American Revolution and how that revolution changed the world.

You can read the article via the below link:

http://hnn.us/articles/140325.html

Channelling George Washington: Don't Let Afghanistan Turn Into Another South Vietnam

Noted historian and novelist Thomas Fleming offers another piece in his series of "interviews" with the late George Washington.

With Thomas' vast knowledge of our first, and in my view, our greatest, president, he imagines what Washington would think of current and historical events.

The clever and insightful series appears on George Mason University's History News Network.

In his latest piece, Washington warns against abandoning Afghanistan after so much American sacrifice, which is what we did in Vietnam in the 1970s.

Washington tells us about the rarely reported brutal aftermath of the Communist victory and how harshly the South Vietnamese were treated by the North Vietnamese.

I played a minor role in the Vietnam War, having served as a teenage sailor on the USS Kitty Hawk in 1970 and 1971 as the aircraft carrier performed combat operations on "Yankee Station" off the coast of Vietnam.

(Check out my look back at the USS Kitty Hawk in the Vietnam War at http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2010/05/look-back-at-aircraft-carrier-uss-kitty.html).

I, like most Vietnam veterans, and most Americans, was outraged when the Democratic Congress cut off funds to support the South Vietnamese government and allowed the Communist North Vietnamese to invade and capture the South after the United States withdrew combat troops.

(For the record, the North Vietnamese defeated the South Vietnamese troops, not U.S. troops. There were no U.S. combat troops in South Vietnam in 1975, only support troops. The North Vietnamese never won a battle over company strenth during the entire Vietnam War). 

This was a dark day in American history.

I truly hope that we do not do abandon Afghanistan like we did South Vietnam.

You can read General George Washington's view of the subject via the below link:

http://hnn.us/articles/139846.html

In the DoD photo above by Pfc. Justin A. Young, U.S. Army Spc. Joseph Wilhelm of HHC Scouts, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Battalion, 101st Airborne Division, patrols through a grape vineyard during Operation Mountain Cougar, Char Shaka, Afghanistan, April 28, 2011. Operation Mountain Cougar is intended to disrupt and reduce Taliban activity.

Channelling George Washington: What Bin Laden's Death Means

Thomas Fleming, a noted historian, offers another interesting piece in his series Channelling George Washington for the George Mason University's History News Network.

This piece has Fleming discussing the death of Osama bin Laden with our first and perhaps greatest president.

You can read the piece via the below link:

http://hnn.us/articles/139078.html  

The Late Film Director Sidney Lumet's Career In Clips

The Guardian's web site offers a series of video clips from the films of director Sidney Lumet, who died Saturday.

The video clips include The Hill, starring Sean Connery (seen in the above photo), Network, Serpico and Lumet's last film, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.

You can view the video clips via the below link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/apr/10/sidney-lumet-career-director-clips  

You can also read an earlier post on Sidney Lumet, which included his obituary in The Los Angeles Times, via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2011/04/prince-of-city-himself-new-york-film.html

You've Seen The True Grit Movies, Now Read Charles Portis' Novel

My hope is that as a result of the debate over which True Grit film is better, the new Joel and Ethan Coen version starring Jeff Bridges, or the 1969 Henry Hathaway version starring John Wayne, film goers will go to the source material - the 1968 novel by Charles Portis.

After watching the original film with the Duke as Rooster Cogburn in 1969, I went out and bought the novel and quickly read it. I thought it was a fine novel.

Jim Cullen at the History News network offers a review of Portis' novel True Grit.

You can read the review of the novel via the link below:

http://www.hnn.us/roundup/entries/136335.html

Channelling George Washington: Roosevelt v. Roosevelt

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Thomas Fleming, the noted author and historian, offers another installment of his Channelling George Washington series at the History News Network.

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His latest concerns President George Washington's comparison of two fellow former presidents named Roosevelt, Theodore and Franklin D.

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You can read the clever and informative piece via the below link:

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http://www.hnn.us/articles/137018.html

Channeling George Washington: First In Their Hearts

Historian and novelist Thomas Fleming wrote another interesting piece in his series Channeling George Washington at the History News Network.

You can read the piece via the below link:

http://www.hnn.us/articles/136006.html

Why The Civil War Happened

Historian and novelist Thomas Fleming explains why the Civil War happened in an interesting piece for George Mason University's History News Network.

"As we approach the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Civil War, various people are rushing into print to declare that the real cause of the war was slavery," Fleming writes in the piece. "Their triumphant tone indicates they think they are scoring points against Southerners who maintain the real reason was states rights. They are both wrong."

You can read the piece via the below link:

http://www.hnn.us/articles/135102.html

The Lessons of the Vietnam War's Tet Offensive for the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

George Mason University's History News Network offers an interesting piece by James S. Robbins on the lessons of the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War for our ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Robbins, the author of This Time We Win: Revisiting the Tet Offensive, sets the record straight on one of the commonly held misconceptions from the Vietnam War.

You can read the piece via the below link:

http://www.hnn.us/articles/133486.html

You can also read a review of the book in The Washington Times by Gary L. Larson via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/10/the-truth-about-tet/

How Not to Fight a War: Good Advice From Our First President to the Current One - Thomas Fleming Channels George Washington

George Mason University's History News Network has historian Thomas Fleming channeling our nation's indispensable man, George Washington.

Fleming (seen in the below photo) interviews President Washington about the war in Afghanistan.

You can read the interesting piece via the below link:

http://www.hnn.us/articles/130042.html