From “Operation Crossbow” (1965) to “The Enigma” (2002) to “The Imitation Game” (2014) to “Hacksaw Ridge” (2016), we’ve seen so many movies shining the spotlight on real-life heroes, many of them not hugely well-known, from World War II. Time and again, just when we think there can’t possibly be a made-for-Hollywood World War II story that’s yet to be told, we learn there are more. Many, many more.
Here’s one for you: Operation Mincemeat. That sounds like the title of a 1980s teen comedy about a school bully who threatens to make “mincemeat” out of our mild-mannered hero, but this was actually the code name for an absolutely insane, totally bonkers, no-chance-this-will-work, Hail Mary pass of a mission concocted by British Intelligence to dupe Hitler’s forces into believing Allied forces were about to invade Greece when in fact they were about to descend upon Sicily and seize it from the Axis powers.
