Operation Mincemeat

Operation Mincemeat

The most audacious deception operation of WWII. On the 30th of April, 1943, the corpse of a 'Major Martin' washed up near the Spanish city of Huelva. On his body, Spanish officials found secret documents detailing an upcoming Allied invasion of Greece. This was the moment that the Axis powers had been waiting for, and the Germans began redirecting much-needed divisions to Greece and the Balkans. They would discover only too late that this was all an elaborate feint, conceived by British Intelligence to obscure the Allies' real target - Sicily. By mid-July, the Allies had landed in southern Italy and the liberation of Nazi-occupied Europe was well underway.


So how exactly did its architects create this complex web of misdirection and misinformation? And can it really be true that the success of the Sicily invasion came down to this one act of deception? In this Explainer episode, Dan takes us through the twists and turns of this audacious and unorthodox act of subterfuge.


Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore.


Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world-renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW. Download the app or sign up here.


We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at ds.hh@historyhit.com.


You can take part in our listener survey here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Avsnitt(1492)

Richard III: How to find a Lost King

Richard III: How to find a Lost King

In August 1485, King Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth. In 2012, having been lost for over 500 years, the remains of King Richard III were discovered beneath a car park in Leicester.Joi...

25 Aug 202227min

Witches

Witches

What comes to your mind when you think of a witch? Broomsticks? Black cats? Warts?Early modern witchcraft expert, John Callow, is Betwixt the Sheets with Kate to explain the history behind the stereot...

24 Aug 202249min

The Revolution of The Chinese Script

The Revolution of The Chinese Script

What does it take to reinvent the world's oldest living language? China today is one of the world's most powerful nations, yet just a century ago it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for t...

23 Aug 202221min

The Voyage That Kickstarted Globalisation

The Voyage That Kickstarted Globalisation

In February 1882 the SS Dunedin departed New Zealand on a voyage that would revolutionise the way we eat and kickstart the globalisation of the world's food supply chain. Aboard were thousands of mutt...

22 Aug 202226min

100 Years of British Political Nightmares

100 Years of British Political Nightmares

Over Britain’s first century of mass democracy, from the Great Depression to the pandemic, politics has lurched from crisis to crisis. How does this history of political agony illuminate our current a...

21 Aug 202229min

Warships

Warships

Today we are talking warships: from the revolutionary Tudor ships to modern aircraft carriers, and all the innovations along the way.In this episode of Patented: History of Inventions Dan, a self-conf...

18 Aug 202231min

What happened to the bones of the Waterloo battlefield?

What happened to the bones of the Waterloo battlefield?

In June 1815 the French army under the command of Napoleon was decisively beaten by an allied army led by Britain and Prussia at Waterloo in what is now Belgium. This titanic clash took a terrible tol...

17 Aug 202239min

Walter Purdy: The Traitor of Colditz

Walter Purdy: The Traitor of Colditz

In the Second World War, the Germans liked to boast that there was 'no escape' from the infamous fortress and POW camp Colditz. However, the elite British officers imprisoned there were determined to ...

16 Aug 202232min

Populärt inom Historia

motiv
kod-katastrof
massmordarpodden
historiska-brott
p3-historia
olosta-mord
historiepodden-se
rss-brottsligt
rss-massmordarpodden
historianu-med-urban-lindstedt
rss-seriemordarpodden
konspirationsteorier
palmemordet
militarhistoriepodden
rss-arkiv-stieg
krigshistoriepodden
nu-blir-det-historia
rss-historien-om
harrisons-dramatiska-historia
bedragare