The Man Who Never Was is a 1956 Second World War film, based on the book of the same name by Lt. Cmdr. Ewen Montagu and dramatising actual events, it is about which 1943 British Intelligence plan to deceive the Axis powers into thinking Operation "Husky", the Allied invasion of Sicily, would take place elsewhere, a successful British disinformation strategy?
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The Man Who Never Was The Man Who Never Was is a 1956 Second World War film, based on the book of the same name by Lt. Cmdr. Ewen Montagu and dramatising actual events. The film was directed by Ronald Neame and starred Clifton Webb, Gloria Grahame and Robert Flemyng. It is about Operation "Mincemeat", a 1943 British Intelligence plan to deceive the Axis powers into thinking Operation "Husky", the Allied invasion of Sicily, would take place elsewhere.
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Operation Mincemeat Operation Mincemeat was a successful British disinformation strategy used during the Second World War. As a deception intended to cover the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily, two members of British intelligence obtained the body of Glyndwr Michael, a homeless man who died from eating rat poison, dressed him as an officer of the Royal Marines and placed personal items on him identifying him as Captain (Acting Major) William Martin. Correspondence between two British generals which suggested that the Allies planned to invade Greece and Sardinia, with Sicily as merely the target of a feint, was also placed on the body.
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Operation Gladio Operation Gladio is the codename for a clandestine North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) "stay-behind" operation in Italy during the Cold War. Its purpose was to prepare for, and implement, armed resistance in the event of a Warsaw Pact invasion and conquest. The name "Gladio" is the Italian form of "gladius", a type of Roman shortsword. Although Gladio specifically refers to the Italian branch of the NATO stay-behind organizations, "Operation Gladio" is used as an informal name for all of them. Stay-behind operations were prepared in many NATO member countries, and some neutral countries.
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Operation Fustian Operation Fustian was an airborne forces operation undertaken during the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943 in the Second World War. The operation was carried out by Brigadier Gerald Lathbury's 1st Parachute Brigade, part of the British 1st Airborne Division. Their objective was the Primosole Bridge across the Simeto River. The intention was for the brigade, with glider-borne forces in support, to land on both sides of the river. They would then capture the bridge and secure the surrounding area until relieved by the advance of British XIII Corps, which had landed on the south eastern coast three days previously. Because the bridge was the only crossing on the river and would give the British Eighth Army access to the Catania plain, its capture was expected to speed the advance and lead to the defeat of the Axis forces in Sicily.
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Operation Typical Operation Typical was the name of the first World War II British mission fully assigned to Yugoslav partisans HQ and Marshall Tito organised by the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The six soldiers flew from Derna airfield on 27 May 1943 and parachuted to Black Lake in Montenegro at the height of a large German offensive Operation Schwarz which aimed to destroy the partisan forces. The group was led by Col William Deakin and Capt William F Stuart, together with the two radio operators, Sgts Walter Wroughton and . Canadian-Yugoslav Ivan ('John') Starčević acted as a translator and Sgt John Campbell (RM) was a cipher clerk, and bodyguard.
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Rommel: The Desert Fox Young had served in North Africa in the Indian Army and was once taken prisoner by Rommel's troops. Young extensively interviewed Rommel's widow and collaborated with several individuals who had been close to Rommel, including Hans Speidel, with the support of British journalist and historian Basil Liddell Hart. Speidel, Rommel's former chief of staff, had already written in 1946 that he planned to turn Rommel into "the hero of the German people" and a role model for them. Rommel was a suitable candidate, since his suicide following the failed 20 July plot had led to the assumption that he had opposed Nazism. Young subscribed to this view, subtly conveying that Rommel served the regime but was not part of it.
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Operation Baytown Operation Baytown was an Allied amphibious landing on the mainland of Italy that took place on 3 September 1943, part of the Allied invasion of Italy, itself part of the Italian Campaign, during the Second World War.
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Operation Bittern Operation Bittern (Norwegian: "Bittern-ekspedisjonen" , known as Bitern in the oldest sources) was a military operation in occupied Norway planned and carried out in 1942 by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the Norwegian government-in-exile in London.
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Operation Bolero Operation Bolero was the commonly used reference for the code name of the United States military troop buildup in the United Kingdom during World War II in preparation for the initial cross-channel invasion plan known as Operation Roundup, to be implemented in mid-1943, or for its lesser contingency alternative, Operation Sledgehammer, to be executed in the fall of 1942 in the event of German setbacks or to ease Axis pressure on the Eastern Front. ("Bolero" was the code name used in official communications to stand in for "United Kingdom" when describing the theater or movements.) What later became the Bolero plan – the buildup of a strategic air force in Great Britain in preparation for Roundup – was first submitted by Commanding General of the U.S. Army Air Forces, Henry H. Arnold, to General George Marshall, the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, on April 12, 1942, and set in motion a huge movement of men and material that laid the groundwork for Operation Overlord.
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Werwolf Werwolf (] , German for "werewolf") was a Nazi plan, which began development in 1944, to create a resistance force which would operate behind enemy lines as the Allies advanced through Germany. However "Werwolf's" propaganda value far outweighed its actual achievements.
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Casablanca directive The Casablanca directive was approved by the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCOS) of the Western Allies at their 65th meeting on 21 January 1943 and issued to the appropriate the Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces commanders on 4 February 1943. It remained in force until 17 April 1944, when the Allied strategic bomber commands based in Britain were directed to help with preparations for Operation Overlord.
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Operation Tigerfish Operation Tigerfish was the military code name in World War II for the air raid on Freiburg in the evening of 27 November 1944 by the Royal Air Force with about 2,800 dead.
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Operation Autonomous Operation Autonomous was a clandestine operation carried out on the territory of Romania by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) set up by Churchill for the duration of the war to assist local Resistance movements.
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Operation Battleaxe Operation Battleaxe was a British Army operation during the Second World War in June 1941, to clear eastern Cyrenaica of German and Italian forces and raise the Siege of Tobruk. It was the first time during the war that a significant German force fought on the defensive but the operation failed as British forces attacked strong defensive positions created by German General Erwin Rommel. The British lost over half of their tanks on the first day and only one of the three attacks succeeded.
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Operation Reservist Operation Reservist was an Allied military operation during the Second World War. Part of Operation Torch (the Allied invasion of North Africa), it was an attempted landing of troops directly into the harbour at Oran in Algeria.
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Operation Hardboiled Operation Hardboiled was a Second World War military deception. Undertaken by the Allies in 1942, it was the first attempt at deception by the London Controlling Section (LCS) and was designed to convince the Axis powers that the Allies would soon invade German-occupied Norway. The LCS had recently been established to plan deception across all theatres, but had struggled for support from the unenthusiastic military establishment. The LCS had little guidance in strategic deception, an activity pioneered by Dudley Clarke the previous year, and was unaware of the extensive double agent system controlled by MI5. As a result, Hardboiled was planned as a real operation rather than a fictional one. Clarke had already found this approach to be wasteful in time and resources, preferring to present a "story" using agents and wireless traffic.
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Victor Jones (British Army officer) Lieutenant Colonel Victor Harry Jones OBE was a British intelligence officer and "visual deception" expert during the Second World War. First serving with the 14th/20th King's Hussars during the North African Campaign, he made a name for himself using dummy tanks (and other fake vehicles) to mislead the enemy. In 1941 he was transferred to A Force in Cairo, under Dudley Clarke, to continue deception operations on a larger scale. Toward the end of the war he was invalided home to Broadway, Worcestershire.
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Dunkirk evacuation The Dunkirk evacuation, code-named Operation Dynamo and also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, was the evacuation of Allied soldiers during World War II from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the north of France, between 26 May and 4 June 1940.
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Normandy landings The Normandy landings (codenamed Operation Neptune) were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 (termed D-Day) of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. The largest seaborne invasion in history, the operation began the liberation of German-occupied northwestern Europe from Nazi control, and contributed to the Allied victory on the Western Front.
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Italian invasion of Egypt The Italian invasion of Egypt ("Operazione E") was an Italian offensive against British, Commonwealth and Free French forces during the Western Desert Campaign (1940–1943) of the Second World War. The goal of the offensive was to seize the Suez Canal; the Italian forces in Libya would have to advance along the coast, across northern Egypt to the canal. After numerous delays, the aim of the offensive was reduced to an advance into Egypt, as far as Sidi Barrani and attacks on any British forces in the area.
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Operation Deep Cut Operation Deep Cut was a raid by British Commandos during the Second World War.
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The Hardest Day The Hardest Day is a name given to a Second World War air battle fought during the Battle of Britain on 18 August 1940 between the German Luftwaffe and British Royal Air Force (RAF). By June 1940, the Allies had been defeated in Western Europe and Scandinavia. Britain rejected overtures for a negotiated peace. Consequently, Adolf Hitler issued the German armed forces ("Wehrmacht") Directive No. 16 ordering the invasion of the United Kingdom.