Operation Mincemeat: The Shadow Catalyst for CIA's Dark Age The Why Files

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The video starts by talking about an operation to throw the Germans off the actual landing beach in Spain instead of Greece during WW2. Some of the characters who were involved later became quite famous.

So the first part is about subversive acts to throw an enemy of the tracks of what you are actually doing and ends up with the formation of the CIA and some of the things we have all heard they have done in the past.

Not as good as some Why Files yet worth a listen IMO.

On April 30, 1943, in the middle of World War II, a body washed up on the shore of Huelva, Spain. The deceased man was wearing a British military uniform. There was a briefcase strapped to his body containing British and American military secrets.

The man was Major William Martin, a British Royal Marine who was the single victim of a fatal plane crash at sea.

He had just returned from temporary leave in London, where he had gone to the theater and purchased an engagement ring for his fiancee, Pam.

But there was something very strange about Major William Martin.

He didn’t exist.

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a reply to: 727Sky

A film was made about the story

originally posted by: 727Sky
The video starts by talking about an operation to throw the Germans off the actual landing beach in Spain instead of Greece during WW2.

Clarification - Operation Mincemeat was to fool the Germans into thinking the allies would land in Greece rather than Italy (Sicily). I think you prob missed a bit by mistake.

Only the Brits would be as sneaky and imaginative to create such a deception.

British intelligence basically won the war through such ruses and by cracking the enigma code of the Germans while the Americans had the codes of the Japanese. This is also how we knew Pearl Harbor would be attacked but a few old battleships was felt a reasonable cost to enter WW 2. Without access to the Axis plans the Allies would not have been able to allocate resources to continue the war. The battle of Britain would have been lost and with it the 2-front war. The Normandy landings would have resulted in a repeat of Dieppe. Barbarossa would have to wait one more year until England was subdued and Russia would have lost. WW 2 was a much closer run war than people think.

a reply to: Asktheanimals

It was Polish code breakers and mathematicians who cracked the Enigma code - they fled first to France then to England with their knowledge of how to crack code

As for the Japanese, the US cracked the diplomatic PURPLE code and were able to build a machine to decode transmissions made by Japanese diplomats

The operation Naval code, JN25 was finally cracked in early 1942 after Pearl Harbor do to efforts by groups at Pearl Harbor, Australia and Philippines. This was just in time for the US Navy to confront Japanese thrusts in the Coral Sea and at Midway

Us did not have any clear warning for the upcoming Pearl Harbor attack from the Purple code

a reply to: firerescue
It's interesting that the enigma code machine was shared by the Germans with the Japanese. Sounds to me like betrayal from inside the Reich since the Allies had broken the codes and the Axis powers weren't aware of it. I didn't know about a Pole cracking the code who the took the results to Britain.

a reply to: Asktheanimals

The Purple machine was totally different than Enigma - it used telephone stepping switches while Enigma used series of rotor wheels to encode data

originally posted by: firerescue
a reply to: Asktheanimals

It was Polish code breakers and mathematicians who cracked the Enigma code - they fled first to France then to England with their knowledge of how to crack code

As for the Japanese, the US cracked the diplomatic PURPLE code and were able to build a machine to decode transmissions made by Japanese diplomats

The operation Naval code, JN25 was finally cracked in early 1942 after Pearl Harbor do to efforts by groups at Pearl Harbor, Australia and Philippines. This was just in time for the US Navy to confront Japanese thrusts in the Coral Sea and at Midway

Us did not have any clear warning for the upcoming Pearl Harbor attack from the Purple code

Ha! I’m a retired FF/Paramedic and was coming to make the same reply Re: the Polish cracking Enigma. Great minds think alike, eh?