“Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive.”
High Point: Montagu’s account–rather than dry and clinical–is engaging and quite personal.
Low Point: It took years for the British government to identify and memorialize the individual whose body served as the decoy.
Author: Ewen Montagu
Publication Date: 1954
Genre: History
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive.”
Ewen Montagu, the author of The Man Who Never Was, quotes this adage as he describes British efforts to misdirect the German military from the Allies’ invasion of Sicily during the Second World War.
Montagu, charged with implementing the plot, could have been dry and clinical in his narrative. Instead, he utilizes a style that is conversational, engaging, and quite personal.
Montagu’s team developed a plan to plant phony invasion documents on a dead body for the Germans to find. Montagu is forthright about his challenges and concerns. His description of the construction of a fake history (including name and personal life) for their corpse messenger is fascinating—as is his admission to a growing attachment to the bogus personality they created.
The mission, of course, was successful. It likely saved Allied lives during the first few days of the invasion of Sicily by diverting German resources elsewhere. Over the last 80 years, numerous books and even a movie (Operation Mincemeat released in 2021) have been produced about the mission.
You should start with The Man Who Never Was.
Movie/TV Adaptation
The Man Who Never Was (1956); Operation Mincemeat (2021)
Sources For This Book
Free eBook (Project Gutenberg): Not available
Free Audiobook (LibriVox): Not available
Available to Purchase: AbeBooks, Biblio, Thriftbooks
