My Review Of Ben Macintyre's Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies

Counterterrorism magazine published my review of Ben Macintyre's Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies.

You can read my piece below:

Ben Macintyre's Double Cross: The True Story of the Day-Day Spies

Ben Macintyre appears in a video and introduces his new book, Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies (Bloomsbury).  

You can watch the video via the below link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtT8UGzrDfs

As Ben Macintyre notes in the video, Double Cross is the third book in his trilogy on World World II espionage.

The first book was Agent Zigzag and the second was Operation Mincemeat.

The first two books were outstanding and I look forward to reading Double Cross.

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

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2010/01/operation-mincemeat-true-story-that.html

You can also read my GreatHistory.com interview with Ben Macintyre about his book Agent Zigzag via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2009/12/agent-zigzag-story-of-one-of-world-war_11.html

Operation Mincemeat: Ben Macintyre On World War II"s Greatest Deception Plot Against The Nazis

The below link is to a BBC TV program that dramatized Operation Mincemeat, the greatest World War II deception.

Ben Macintyre, the author of Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man & a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured Allied Victory, hosts and narrates the BBC program.

The program offers a suspenseful, fascinating and compelling story of how British Naval Intelligence used a dead man to deceive Hitler and the Nazis into believing the allies planned to invade Greece rather than the true target, Sicily.

The plot was a "mad idea" originally conceived by Commander Ian Fleming (seen in the below photo), a British naval intelligence officer who would go on to write the James Bond thrillers after the war. 

You can watch the clever and entertaining program via the below link to Youtube.com:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5570fDdBOQ

You can also read about Macintyre's excellent book via the below link to an earlier post:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2010/01/operation-mincemeat-true-story-that.html

I interviewed Ben Macintyre about his earlier book on Eddie Chapman, a British crook who became one of World War II's most daring double agents.

You can read the interview at GreatHistory.com via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2009/12/agent-zigzag-story-of-one-of-world-war_11.html 

Dead Man Floating: World War II's oddest espionage and deception operation

I just heard an NPR All Things Considered interview with Ben Macintyre (seen in the below photo), the author of Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory.


The plan, which originated from an idea by Royal Navy Commander Ian Fleming (before he wrote the James Bond thrillers) and his boss, the Director of British Naval Intelligence, Admiral John Godfrey (the model for M in the James Bond stories), was to plant a corpse with an invented personal history as a Royal Marine officer on the Nazis during World War II.

The corpse, which had bogus classified papers on him indicating that the allies were about to attack Greece, rather than the true target, Sicily. The Nazis took the bait and reinforced Greece, taking vital defensive troops from Sicily.

This deception saved countless allied lives in the invasion of Sicily.

You can listen to the interview via the below link:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127742365

The below photos are of the planted corpse, "Major Martin," Commander Ian Fleming, Royal Air Force Major Charles Cholmondeley & Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu.

 

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

 

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2010/01/operation-mincemeat-true-story-that.html