THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS
Ewen Montagu
EVANS BROTHERS Ltd, London, 1953
The 1st edition, 1st printing of The Man Who Never Was, Ewen Montagu's classic account of Operation Mincemeat. Complete with the beautifully designed original dust jacket. Ewen Montagu was one of the key figures in the planning of Operation Mincemeat, and his book formed the basis for the 1956 film The Man Who Never Was, starring Clifton Webb and Gloria Grahame. Further cinema, TV, and theatrical productions have included the highly successful musical Operation Mincemeat, which opened in 2019, transferred to the West End in 2023, and opened on Broadway in 2025. In 2014 a BBC television miniseries, Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond, dramatised aspects of Operation Mincemeat, and Ian Fleming's connection to the operation. In 2021 the film Operation Mincemeat was released, starring Colin Firth as Montagu and Matthew Macfadyen as Cholmondeley.
Operation Mincemeat was a top-secret deception operation carried out by British Intelligence to fool the Germans regarding the true target for the Allied invasion of Sicily. The plan involved the dead body of a 'British Officer' being planted just off the coast of Spain. This body - supposedly a Staff officer who had drowned after his aircraft was shot down - would be carrying secret documents which purported to reveal that the targets for the forthcoming invasion would be Greece and Sardinia, with Sicily only intended as a feint. To ensure that the Germans swallowed the deception, it was necessary to create a detailed false identity for the body, which was that of a homeless labourer who had died after swallowing rat poison.
The secret operation involved dressing this corpse as a Major in the Royal Marines and giving it the false identity of ‘William Martin’. Appropriate identification documents and other papers would give the body a credible personality and background. These included a photograph of Major Martin’s fiancée, a receipt for an engagement ring, a theatre ticket stub, naval identity cards, and other evidence. Early on 30 April 1943, the body of ‘Major Martin’ was launched into the sea from the British submarine HMS Seraph and left to drift just over a mile off the southern Spanish coast. Once recovered by the Spanish authorities, the ‘secret’ documents carried on the body were covertly opened, photographed and passed via Nazi sympathisers to German Abwehr intelligence officers in Spain. The Germans acted swiftly on the false information by doubling the number of troops sent to Sardinia, while additional German divisions were also transferred to Greece and the Balkans. The Allied invasion of Sicily was launched on 9 July 1943 and, exactly as the creators of Operation Mincemeat had intended, proved a huge surprise to the German defenders. In just over a month the island was captured by the Allies, with the lack of enemy reinforcements proving to be a deciding factor in the success of the invasion.
Ewen Montagu (1901-1985) was a British judge, Naval intelligence officer, and author. He is best known for his leading role in Operation Mincemeat, the critical military deception operation that misdirected German forces' attention away from the Allied invasion of Sicily ("Operation Husky"). He was educated at Westminster School before becoming a machine gun instructor during the First World War at a United States Naval Air Station. After the war he studied at Trinity College, Cambridge and at Harvard University. He was admitted to the Middle Temple in 1920 and was called to the bar in 1924. Montagu was a keen yachtsman, and enlisted in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in 1938. He was assigned to the Royal Navy's East Yorkshire headquarters at Hull as an assistant staff officer in intelligence. During WW2 Montagu served in the Naval Intelligence Division of the British Admiralty, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Commander RNVR. He was the Naval Representative on the secret intelligence XX Committee, which oversaw the running of double agents. Montagu has been portrayed on screen twice relating to Operation Mincemeat. In the 1956 film The Man Who Never Was, he was portrayed by Clifton Webb. In the 2021 film Operation Mincemeat, he was played by Colin Firth.
Condition:
In very good condition. The boards are in very good condition. The original dust jacket is in very good condition, with some minor wear, some marks to the inner flaps, and some marks at the base of the spine. The binding and hinges are very good and secure. The text and plates are in very good condition, with some marks to the endpapers.
Published: 1953 (1st edition, 1st printing)
Blue boards, gilt titling, with original dust jacket
Illustrated with photographic plates
Dimensions: 135mm x 200mm
Pages: 144
