Operation Mincemeat

by Ben MacIntyre

  German intelligence was quite unable to tell the high command where or when the main attack would come. Confusion and hesitation reigned as the Germans struggled to see through the murk of deception and their own flawed and limited sources of intelligence. The list of possible landing sites included not only Sardinia and Greece but also Corsica, southern France, and even Spain, while Hitler’s fear for the Balkans colored his every strategic move. In Sardinia, which the Japanese chargé d’affaires in Rome reported “was still regarded as the favourite47 target,” troop strength was doubled to more than ten thousand men by the end of June and bolstered with additional fighter aircraft. At the critical moment in the Kursk tank battle on the eastern front in July, two more German armored divisions were placed on alert to go to the Balkans. German torpedo boats were ordered from Sicily to the Aegean; shore batteries were installed in Greece, and three new minefields were laid off its coasts. Between March and July 1943, the number of German divisions in the Balkans was increased from eight to eighteen, while the forces defending Greece increased from one division to eight. Despite Italian intelligence warnings that an attack on Sicily was coming, and urgent Italian calls for German reinforcements, “no measures were taken to reinforce the island.”48 As the official assessment of Operation Mincemeat later noted, “it was never possible for the Germans49 to cease reinforcements and fortifications of Sicily altogether, as we might have changed our plans and it was always too vulnerable a target.” Yet the Germans clearly continued to believe that Sicily, if it were attacked at all, would not face a full Allied onslaught. At the end of May, an Ultra intercept from Kesselring’s quartermaster revealed how woefully underprepared the German forces were: rations for just three months and less than nine thousand tons of fuel. Confidence that Mincemeat was doing its job rose higher still. “Compared with the forces employed50 in Tunisia, this was a tiny garrison,” one historian has written. Four days before the invasion, Kesselring reported that his troops in Sicily had “only half the supplies they needed.”51 Eisenhower’s fears of meeting “well armed and fully organised52 German forces” on the shores of Sicily were unfounded. Germany simply did not know what was coming, or where, and by the time it became clear that Sicily was the real target after all, it was too late.

  The Allies, by contrast, had a clear-cut idea of Sicily’s defenses and the Axis failure to reinforce them. The British and American invaders would face some three hundred thousand enemy troops defending six hundred miles of coastline. More than two thirds of the defenders were Italian, poorly equipped, and ill trained. Many were Sicilian conscripts, men with little stomach for this fight, old, unfit, unenthusiastic, and, in some cases, armed with ancient weapons dating back to the previous war. The Italian coastal defense troops, according to one Allied intelligence report, suffered from “an almost unbelievably53 low standard of morale, training and discipline.” The German forces, some forty thousand men in two divisions, were made of more resilient material. The newly rebuilt Hermann Göring Armored Division, three battalions of infantry, had seen hard fighting in Tunisia and was transferred to Sicily by Kesselring after the seizure of Pantelleria. The Fifteenth Panzer Grenadier Division was a battle-scarred, war-toughened unit with 160 tanks and 140 field artillery guns. The Italian defenders would probably put up little resistance, it was predicted, but the Germans would be “hot mustard,”54 as one officer put it. Montgomery predicted with cold realism: “It will be a hard and very bloody55 fight. We must expect heavy losses.” Bill Darby was also expecting the worst, and rather looking forward to it: “If casualties are high,56 it will not be a reflection of your leadership,” the Ranger commander told his officers. “May God be with you.”57

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  A Nice Cup of Tea

  THE WEATHER FORECAST was grim and the weather deteriorating as the great invasion force set sail. In Malta, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, naval commander in the Mediterranean and the recipient of the second Mincemeat letter, received the news that the flotilla had set off with more resignation than hope. The admiral had recorded a message for the troops, to be broadcast on loudspeakers once the task force was under way: “We are about to embark1 on the most momentous enterprise of the war, striking for the first time at the enemy in his own land.” The upbeat tone contrasted with Cunningham’s gloomy feelings as the flotilla set off into “all the winds of heaven,”2 with every possibility that the entire force might perish at sea. “The die was cast.3 We were committed to the assault. There was nothing more we could do for the time being.” Over dinner in the Malta headquarters, Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, the signatory of two Mincemeat letters, was even more direct: “It doesn’t look too good.”4

  The weather steadily deteriorated, and the wind began to bellow, creeping up to gale force 7. The troop ships lurched and bucked through the “breakers and boiling surf,5 whipped into needle spray.” Landing craft tore free of their davits and smashed into the decks. Cables snapped. The gale—some called it “Mussolini’s wind”—screamed louder. Some soldiers prayed or cursed, but most “lay in their hammocks, green and groaning,”6 surrounded by the stench of vomit and fear.

  While all around him retched, Major Derrick Leverton of the Twelfth Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment of the Royal Artillery, jovial heir to a long line of British undertakers, played another hand of bridge with himself in the officers’ mess and happily munched the latest rations: “We are now getting Cadbury’s filled blocks,”7 he told his mother. “I had a Peppermint Crème and a Caramello—very nice.” Derrick, known to all as Drick, was thoroughly enjoying “the show,” as he referred to the invasion. He would have been happier still had he known of the small but important part played by his brother Ivor in paving the way for the invasion by ferrying a dead body to Hackney Mortuary in the middle of the night. Like Ivor, Drick had an irrepressible talent for looking on the bright side of everything, the consequence of being brought up in a family dedicated to dealing with death. “It was a most excellent cruise,”8 he wrote, describing the hellish trip to Sicily. “Once we were clear of land, everyone was told the whole plan: date, time and everything. We had maps, plans, models, a copy of A Soldier’s Guide to Sicily and a copy of Monty’s message each.” Drick was particularly impressed by the naval officer who briefed the troops on the strategic importance of Sicily. “He was excellent.9 He looked like a masculine edition of Noël Coward.” Major Leverton’s task would be to set up his field battery on the beach and shoot down any enemy planes attacking the invasion forces.

  Leverton could not sleep. “I went up on deck10 just before the sun set and could see the Sicilian mountains quite clearly in the distance.” The wind was now dropping. “The sea had been wickedly rough11 all afternoon, but it had now calmed down. I definitely believe it was a miracle.” The soldiers had already set to work with chalk on the landing craft, on which were scrawled a variety of joking messages: “Day Trips to the Continent”12 and “See Naples and Die.”13 Shortly before midnight, Leverton watched the heavy bombers passing overhead, followed by towed gliders packed with troops for the assault. “I was standing up on deck14 by myself then. I had previously often wondered what my feelings would be when the party started. I was disappointed to find that I had absolutely none. Although I was perfectly conscious that quite a lot of people I knew were about to be killed and that I might be just about to kick the bucket myself, I wasn’t really interested. I didn’t feel excited or heroic or anything like that. I seemed to be watching a play.” Drick trotted below for a final hand of bridge (“rather a nice small slam”15) and another Cadbury Caramello.

  At the same moment, just a few miles ahead in the darkness, Bill Jewell was setting the stage for the next act of the play. Submerged, the crew had heard the noise of the E-boat propellers fade as the torpedo attack vessel moved off. After twenty more minutes of listening, the Seraph cautiously resurfaced. The German boat was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps she was lying in wait for an ambush. If so, the two vessels would have to fight it out.
The deadline was now less than an hour away. “There could be no more diving16—this time the buoy had to be laid.” The wind had dropped, but the sea was still choppy, making Jewell’s task of dropping the homing buoy “three times as difficult as it should have been.”17 Just after midnight, the buoy was hauled back on deck for a second time and dropped at the precise spot indicated, one thousand yards offshore. Jewell now heard, for the first time, the low, thickening drone in the skies above, hitherto masked by the wind. “Unseen planes, hundreds of them,18 were roaring through the dark skies overhead. The vanguard of the invasion! ‘Invasion!’ That electrifying word.” For the first time, Jewell wondered if victory might finally be in sight: “The invasion of Sicily would be19 a long stride in the direction of Europe, and at least a short step on the road to Berlin,” he reflected. If it succeeded. The same thoughts were echoed among the assault troops. An American journalist sailing with the Fifth Division wrote: “Many of the men on this ship20 believe that the operation will determine whether this war will end in stalemate or whether it will be fought to a clear-cut decision.”

  Jewell heard a series of loud explosions, and looking back toward the land, he could see “great fires springing up in every direction.”21 Those paratroopers who had survived the flight and the drop were now at work. At the same time, above the echo of detonations and the drone of aircraft, Jewell picked up another noise. The wind had now dropped completely, as it often does in the Mediterranean, and he could hear “the faint throb of approaching engines.”22 Italian coastal radar had also picked up the advancing fleet. Seconds later, a battery of searchlights from the shore turned night to day, and the British submarine found herself in the limelight. “Their blindingly brilliant beams23 cut across the water and blended into a dazzling ball of light concentrated on Seraph.” In normal circumstances, this would have been the cue to dive, but Jewell’s orders were to stay put until the flotilla arrived. The shore guns opened fire, and for the next ten minutes—“a nerve-tightening, shell-packed eternity”24—the Seraph sat immobile as hell exploded all around her. The cook, crouched behind the three-inch gun, cursed eloquently. Each shell sent up a plume of water, and the lookouts huddled into the sides of the conning tower, “as much to avoid the cascading water25 as to find protection from flying shrapnel.” Between explosions, the “throbbing beat”26 grew louder.

  Wilhelm Leissner, alias Gustav Lenz, code name “Heidelberg,” head of German military intelligence in Spain.

  Lieutenant Colonel Alexis Baron von Roenne, chief German intelligence analyst and anti-Nazi conspirator.

  Adolf Clauss, butterfly collector and the senior Abwehr officer in Huelva.

  Alan Hillgarth: spy-master in Madrid (above), gold-hunter in South America (below), novelist in his spare time, and, in the words of Ian Fleming, a “war-winner.”

  Francis Haselden, Britain’s vice consul in Huelva.

  Two photographs taken by the Spanish police of Lieutenant Colonel Dudley Wrangel Clarke, the officer in command of deception for Operation Husky. Clarke was arrested in women’s clothes in Madrid. He was then allowed to change into more conventional attire before being photographed again.

  Juan Pujol García, Agent Garbo, the most celebrated double agent of the Second World War.

  Colonel José López Barrón Cerruti, the Spanish security chief who played a key role in obtaining the documents.

  Lieutenant Mariano Pascual del Pobil Bensusan, the Spanish naval officer and acting judge in Huelva.

  Dr. Eduardo Fernández del Torno, the Spanish pathologist who carried out the autopsy.

  Lieutenant Bill Jewell, commander of the Seraph.

  Rosemary Galloway, fiancée of Bill Jewell.

  Churchill and his senior officers plan the invasion of Sicily at the George Hotel in Algiers. Admiral Andrew Cunningham and General Sir Harold Alexander, the two intended “recipients” of the Mincemeat letters, are standing behind Churchill, center and right; the addressee of the third letter, General Dwight Eisenhower, is seated, right. General Bernard Montgomery is standing, far right.

  General Sir Harold Alexander, the commander of Allied ground forces, who usually looked “as if he had just had a steam bath, a massage, a good breakfast, and a letter from home.”

  Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the formidable chief of the Abwehr, German military intelligence.

  Derrick Leverton, undertaker, gunnery officer, and unsung hero of the Sicilian invasion.

  The invasion flotilla steaming toward Sicily.

  The tanks roll ashore on the south coast of Sicily.

  British soldiers pass shells ashore.

  Sicilians greet the Allied invaders as liberators.

  Alexis von Roenne on trial before the Nazi People’s Court, accused of plotting against Hitler. He was found guilty, inevitably, and hanged in Berlin-Plötzensee prison on October 11, 1944.

  Charles Cholmondeley hunting locusts in the Middle East in Bedouin costume.

  A still from the 1956 film The Man Who Never Was: Ewen Montagu, right, plays an air vice marshal; the American actor Clifton Webb, left, plays Montagu.

  Then, out of the gloom, came “a flicker of light from27 the leading destroyer of the mighty invasion fleet.” Moments later the ships took on form, as “dark shapes emerged slowly28 from the shadows.” Forgetting the shells dropping around him, Jewell thought he had never seen anything so lovely. “The English language needs a new descriptive29 noun to replace the hackneyed word armada,” he wrote. “As far as my night glasses would carry, I saw hundreds of ships following in orderly fashion.” The destroyer searchlights now picked out the gun emplacements on shore, “like footlights on a stage,”30 and opened fire. “Shells whistled high overhead.”31 Enemy planes screamed over, dropping flares to aid the onshore gunners.

  Out at sea, Derrick Leverton admired the flak pouring into the sky “with different coloured tracer”32 and the shimmering light in the sky as the dry wheat fields above the beaches ignited. It was horribly beautiful. “With flares, searchlights and blazing fires,33 plus the vivid chromatic effects of bomb bursts and shell explosions, all of Sicily so far as the eye could reach was like nothing in the world so much as a huge pyrotechnical show.” The first destroyer passed the Seraph, her American crew “cheering the stubborn little submarine.”34 Moments later, a small landing craft approached with an American naval captain standing in the stern. Above the noise, he shouted: “Ahoy Seraph.35 The Admiral has sent me over to thank you for a great job of work.” Jewell gave what he later admitted was “a slightly astonished salute.”36 But the captain had not finished his peroration. “You know those boys37 who landed are going to remember for a long time how you guided ’em in.”

  This was the moment for the Seraph to “slide warily back into the protective darkness.”38 Jewell took a last look back at the shore, where “tiny, darting flashes marked the progress39 of the assault force as the tommy-guns blazed a path through the defenders.” Bill Darby’s U.S. Army Rangers had hit the beach at Gela. Jewell “hoped the friendly, ever-joking colonel40 would do nothing foolhardy.”

  Leading from the front, since he knew no other place to lead from, Bill Darby stormed up the beach like a man possessed, which he was, through the defenses, and straight on to the town of Gela, much of which had already been demolished by the naval guns. Italian troops of the Livorno Division attempted to make a stand at the cathedral and were swiftly overwhelmed by the Rangers. Darby personally held off an Italian counterattack by light Renault tanks, armed only with a .30-caliber machine gun mounted on his jeep. Realizing that something more substantial was needed, he ran back to the beach, obtained a 37 mm antitank gun, opened its ammunition box with an ax, and then, with the help of a captain, used it to blow up another Italian tank as it bore down on his command post. For good measure, he popped a grenade on the tank hatch, and its terrified Italian crew immediately surrendered. Some twelve hours into the invasion, Darby took a rolled-up American flag from his backpack and nailed it to the door of the Fasci
st Party headquarters in Gela’s main square. After the battle of Gela, Patton awarded Darby the Distinguished Service Cross and a promotion to full colonel. He accepted the medal and turned down the promotion, again. “Darby is really a great soldier,”41 marveled Patton.

  To the east, Major Derrick Leverton was taking the invasion at a more leisurely pace. Having “wished my chaps good luck42 … all perfectly normal and matter-of-fact,” the undertaker waited on deck to be called to the landing craft. “As there was still a bit of time in hand,43 I went to sleep.” Leverton holds the distinction of being the only man to doze off in the middle of the biggest seaborne invasion man had yet staged. There was, he recalled, “quite a bit of banging about44 going on in the background,” but Derrick had no problem dropping off. As acts of heroism go, this very nearly compares to the exploits of Colonel Darby.

  “It was getting close to dawn,45 and the hills could just be seen in silhouette” when Leverton clambered into the landing craft. In a few minutes he was ashore, after wading through the wreckage of gliders that had made “slightly premature landings.”46 Two dead paratroopers lay on the beach. Leverton was the last man to be upset by the sight of dead bodies. “The first thing I was conscious47 of,” he said later, “was the delicious smell of crushed thyme.” He and his men headed to the spot chosen for the gun emplacement, straight through a minefield. “Occasional mines went off,48 making a hell of a row and a lot of black smoke.” While his guns were unloaded, Leverton decided it was time for a cup of tea. His rations, he was delighted to find, contained “tea-sugar-and-milk powder,”49 which could be brewed simply by adding hot water. “Most nourishing, appetising and intelligent,”50 thought Drick. Then he was dive-bombed.