during World War II as the Allies were about to drive the German - Italian forces out of North Africa, they had to consider what their next step would be. That next step was to be an assault on Sicily. Ewen Montagu, a reserve officer on active duty with the British Navy, conceived a brilliant plan to deceive the Axis about Allied intentions. This book tells the story of that plan. Montague obtained the body of a young man who had died from pneumonia. Montague and his team then proceeded to give the body the persona of a Royal Marine named Maj. William Martin. "Martin" was launched from a submarine onto the southern coast of Spain. He had in his briefcase letters from senior British officers that Indicated that the Allies would launch two attacks, one against Sardinia and one against Greece. These letters were recovered by the Spanish authorities and turned over to the Germans as Montague expected. The contents of the letters fooled German intelligence, the German high command and Hitler himself. The Germans diverted considerable resources, which might have been used to defend Sicily, to the defense of Sardinia and Greece. It is no exaggeration to say that Maj. Martin saved thousands of Allied lives.
In the mid-1950s Hollywood produced a movie by the same name starring Clifton Webb as Montague. The movie stays fairly close to the facts with one major exception. In the movie, the Germans hire an Irish spy to determine if Martin (and thus the contents of his briefcase) was real. In reality the Germans made no such check. The movie is first rate; but the book provides details absent in the movie. For example, the book provides the contents of the papers Martin was carrying as well as translations of pertinent German documents. Both the book and the movie are well worth the reader's (or viewer's) time.
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