Call number
940.54 MAC
Collection
Genres
Publication
Broadway Books (2013), Edition: Reprint, 399 pages
Description
History. Military. Nonfiction. HTML:In Double Cross, New York Times bestselling author Ben Macintyre returns with the untold story of one of the greatest deceptions of World War II, and of the extraordinary spies who achieved it. On June 6, 1944, 150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy and suffered an astonishingly low rate of casualties. D-Day was a stunning military accomplishment, but it was also a masterpiece of trickery. Operation Fortitude, which protected and enabled the invasion, and the Double Cross system, which specialized in turning German spies into double agents, deceived the Nazis into believing that the Allies would attack at Calais and Norway rather than Normandy. It was the most sophisticated and successful deception operation ever carried out, ensuring Allied victory at the most pivotal point in the war. This epic event has never before been told from the perspective of the key individuals in the Double Cross system, until now. These include its director (a brilliant, urbane intelligence officer), a colorful assortment of MI5 handlers (as well as their counterparts in Nazi intelligence), and the five spies who formed Double Crossâ??s nucleus: a dashing Serbian playboy, a Polish fighter-pilot, a bisexual Peruvian party girl, a deeply eccentric Spaniard, and a volatile Frenchwoman. The D-Day spies were, without question, one of the oddest military units ever assembled, and their success depended on the delicate, dubious relationship between spy and spymaster, both German and British. Their enterprise was saved from catastrophe by a shadowy sixth spy whose heroic sacrifice is revealed here for the first time. With the same depth of research, eye for the absurd and masterful storytelling that have made Ben Macintyre an international bestseller, Double Cross is a captivating narrative of the spies who wove a web so intricate it ensnared Hitlerâ??s army and carried thousands of D-Day troops across the Channel in s… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member Nodosaurus
Ultimately, this is the story of Operation Mincemeat, an effort to misdirect the Germans about the D-Day invasion. More-so, it is the story of the evolution and development of the English spy network from the first spy’s involvement through the operation and beyond the end of the war. The book
Information for the book includes data that was declassified not too long prior to the book’s writing, although it was implied that some related information was not declassified. This information was supplemented from written accounts by the spies and from what their relatives could supply. In some cases, information taken from the spies personal diaries was included, the author was good to note when this occurred allowing the reader to judge its value. The sources make some of the stories likely subject to embellishments, the author acknowledges this is a few points. Overall, I didn’t feel the way the stories were told gave much opportunity for embellishment or other deviations from the facts, although many of these facts are weak, themselves. The book did seem to make the German intelligence seem inadequate at best and largely incompetent.
The book maintains a very fast pace. Characters are introduced and events happen too quickly, I have difficulty keeping everything straight. The author could easily have added a lot of extra material, but it may have become several volumes rather than a single book.
If you have any interest in this portion of WWII history, this book is a good read.
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includes information from interrogations after the war and follows up on the lives of the spies when the war ended and they returned to somewhat normal lives. Information for the book includes data that was declassified not too long prior to the book’s writing, although it was implied that some related information was not declassified. This information was supplemented from written accounts by the spies and from what their relatives could supply. In some cases, information taken from the spies personal diaries was included, the author was good to note when this occurred allowing the reader to judge its value. The sources make some of the stories likely subject to embellishments, the author acknowledges this is a few points. Overall, I didn’t feel the way the stories were told gave much opportunity for embellishment or other deviations from the facts, although many of these facts are weak, themselves. The book did seem to make the German intelligence seem inadequate at best and largely incompetent.
The book maintains a very fast pace. Characters are introduced and events happen too quickly, I have difficulty keeping everything straight. The author could easily have added a lot of extra material, but it may have become several volumes rather than a single book.
If you have any interest in this portion of WWII history, this book is a good read.
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LibraryThing member jamespurcell
An unlikely gaggle of opportunists, turn double agent, participate in the an elaborate scheme to disguise the D Day landings. Well paid by the Germans and disdained by their "Oh So British" elitist handlers in MI 5 & 6; they sustain to the end and are quite successful. Well researched and told,
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this story demonstrates how some few people can play an important role in history. The spies for all their venality did a good job of obfuscation to the wonderment of their "toffee-nosed" British handlers. Show Less
LibraryThing member Carolinejyoung
I didn't finish this book. I started this book as it was on the Richard & Judy book list but, although it is cleverly written, it doesn't really interest me enough to continue reading it.
LibraryThing member Gwendydd
This is a fascinating look at the double agents in World War II who ultimately helped to convince Germany that the D-Day landing was going to be at a different place and different time than it actually was. This is very much a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story. The spies are a strange group of
The book does give the Nazis short shrift - it makes all of the Nazis look like fools, when actually their reasons for believing the spies were more complex. Nonetheless, this is a fun and fascinating story, and Macintyre tells it well.
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people, many of them strangely dysfunctional or delusional or utterly brilliant. It's amazing that Great Britain managed to capture or turn all of Germany's spies, and amazing that the Germans were convinced that the double agents were actually working for them.The book does give the Nazis short shrift - it makes all of the Nazis look like fools, when actually their reasons for believing the spies were more complex. Nonetheless, this is a fun and fascinating story, and Macintyre tells it well.
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LibraryThing member MaineColonial
A Serbian playboy, a melodramatic Pole, a bisexual Peruvian heiress to a guano fortune that was still insufficient to keep up with her gambling habit, a failed Spanish chicken farmer and a Frenchwoman of Russian heritage who would place her little white dog, Babs, above any other loyalty. What is
These five agents were the key players in Britain's Operation Double Cross. By March, 1943, Britain had captured 126 spies and had turned several into double agents. Some other German agents volunteered themselves to work for Britain. At first, the British used the double agents to give the Germans "chicken feed," but once British intelligence became convinced that they controlled every German spy in the country, they decided the network could be used to mislead the Germans on a large scale and affect the outcome of the war.
The plan was to use the Double Cross agents as part of a massive and elaborate plan to persuade the Germans that the D-Day invasion would take place, not at Normandy, but at Pas de Calais and via Norway. The espionage operation was carried out over many months, and involved all kinds of fakery to persuade Germany that vast armies were massing at the best spots in England and Scotland to invade at the false invasion points. The Double Cross agents passed on thousands of messages to advance this fakery, and other tidbits of false intelligence to further the plot.
The Germans wholeheartedly believed in "their" agents, showering them with fulsome praise, money, and even an Iron Cross in one case. It seems that though the Germans had a good deal of success capturing spies and resistance operatives in occupied territories, they were terrible at spotting double agents. I had to wonder if it had something to do with key differences in their culture and national psyche versus those of the British.
British intelligence reveled in the gamesmanship and double-dealing required for Double Cross. The war was, of course, deadly serious, but the British intelligence services almost gleefully embraced the most elaborate and absurd trickery in pursuit of its strategic goals. They hatched wild ploys, like breaking up Germany's homing pigeon communication network by infiltrating it with British pigeons, and spending weeks training an actor to impersonate the colorful Field Marshall Montgomery and appear in Gibraltar as the D-Day invasion approached, so that the Germans would be lulled into complacency.
The British intelligence services were filled with old school chums who played cricket at Eton and Harrow, Oxford and Cambridge, and enjoyed the Times crossword puzzle. All that practice learning to disguise the curve of a googly pitch and understand a cryptic crossword seems to have come in a lot more handy than the Germans' tradition of giving each other dueling scars.
Kudos to Ben MacIntyre, author of Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal and Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory, for bringing us another unique and stranger-than-fiction tale of the sometimes farcical, but always riveting, intelligence agents and operations that helped win World War II.
DISCLOSURE: I received a free review copy of this book.
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this, an espionage team or a cast list for a Monty Python sketch? Ben MacIntyre does it again; unearths the story of a highly improbable, but true, high-stakes World War II espionage caper, carried out by a team of supremely eccentric characters.These five agents were the key players in Britain's Operation Double Cross. By March, 1943, Britain had captured 126 spies and had turned several into double agents. Some other German agents volunteered themselves to work for Britain. At first, the British used the double agents to give the Germans "chicken feed," but once British intelligence became convinced that they controlled every German spy in the country, they decided the network could be used to mislead the Germans on a large scale and affect the outcome of the war.
The plan was to use the Double Cross agents as part of a massive and elaborate plan to persuade the Germans that the D-Day invasion would take place, not at Normandy, but at Pas de Calais and via Norway. The espionage operation was carried out over many months, and involved all kinds of fakery to persuade Germany that vast armies were massing at the best spots in England and Scotland to invade at the false invasion points. The Double Cross agents passed on thousands of messages to advance this fakery, and other tidbits of false intelligence to further the plot.
The Germans wholeheartedly believed in "their" agents, showering them with fulsome praise, money, and even an Iron Cross in one case. It seems that though the Germans had a good deal of success capturing spies and resistance operatives in occupied territories, they were terrible at spotting double agents. I had to wonder if it had something to do with key differences in their culture and national psyche versus those of the British.
British intelligence reveled in the gamesmanship and double-dealing required for Double Cross. The war was, of course, deadly serious, but the British intelligence services almost gleefully embraced the most elaborate and absurd trickery in pursuit of its strategic goals. They hatched wild ploys, like breaking up Germany's homing pigeon communication network by infiltrating it with British pigeons, and spending weeks training an actor to impersonate the colorful Field Marshall Montgomery and appear in Gibraltar as the D-Day invasion approached, so that the Germans would be lulled into complacency.
The British intelligence services were filled with old school chums who played cricket at Eton and Harrow, Oxford and Cambridge, and enjoyed the Times crossword puzzle. All that practice learning to disguise the curve of a googly pitch and understand a cryptic crossword seems to have come in a lot more handy than the Germans' tradition of giving each other dueling scars.
Kudos to Ben MacIntyre, author of Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal and Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory, for bringing us another unique and stranger-than-fiction tale of the sometimes farcical, but always riveting, intelligence agents and operations that helped win World War II.
DISCLOSURE: I received a free review copy of this book.
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LibraryThing member reader68
A thoroughly excellent tale of the D-Day spies. They may have started out working for the Germans but ended up working for the British. They sent deceptive information to the Germans to make them believe the D-Day invasion, the main thrust, was Calais and that Normandy was a diversion.
LibraryThing member cameling
Operation Fortitude, the British plan to keep the Germans from knowing their exact plans for D-Day and the storming of Normandy could not have been as successfully executed without the stable of double cross spies and their British spymasters.
In his inimitable style, Ben McIntyre offers us a window
It's not all nerve-wrecking tension in the book though. There are some moments of levity, such as the chapter where the author describes the homing pigeon strategies and the unforeseen end of the one and only heroic pigeon, Gustav, who carried a message back from Normandy to the British.
The difference between this and some of the author's other books is that there wasn't a continuous flow between the chapters. They read a little like index cards on individual agents or certain events. It took a little while to get used to the rather abrupt starts and ends to each chapter, but this did not in any way detract from my overall enjoyment of the book.
In his inimitable style, Ben McIntyre offers us a window
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into the minds of the some of the most creative military strategists on British soil. He offers us character studies into the heroic and indomitable spirits behind the Anti-Nazi men and women who had to keep their covers under dangerous situations, preventing their double identity being discovered by the Germans. The author also takes into the evaluation process of considering the suitability of converting German spies as double agents, why some are accepted and the characteristics that make others a bigger risk or completely unsuitable.It's not all nerve-wrecking tension in the book though. There are some moments of levity, such as the chapter where the author describes the homing pigeon strategies and the unforeseen end of the one and only heroic pigeon, Gustav, who carried a message back from Normandy to the British.
The difference between this and some of the author's other books is that there wasn't a continuous flow between the chapters. They read a little like index cards on individual agents or certain events. It took a little while to get used to the rather abrupt starts and ends to each chapter, but this did not in any way detract from my overall enjoyment of the book.
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LibraryThing member michigantrumpet
Feeling at a remove from the world of WWII-era black-and-white photos, kids these days might complacently feel the results of that vast conflict were a foregone conclusion. In truth, the Allied victory was not certain. Those same kids (if their forebears were not annihilated) came very close to
Ben McIntyre's Double Cross recounts the remarkable stories of a group of double agents working out of England. The Germans believed they were spying for them. In reality, they were part of an imaginative and calculated espionage effort out of England. This motley group of men and women busily provided disinformation, harmless true information and true yet untimely intelligence -- all in the effort to confuse the Axis powers. Their supreme efforts convinced Germany the Northern European assault would take place far from the beaches of Normandy.
Who were these people? What motivated them to become double agents? How did they pull off this enormous hoax? Based upon newly declassified and released records McIntyre tells a walloping good tale about a little known yet critically important part of the war effort.
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speaking German and celebrating Adolph Hitler Day. To win the war, the Allied forces had to land in Northern Europe. We knew it and the Germans knew it. The big question was where the assault would take place. If the Germans guessed right, they could mass their forces in the right place and hold off the Allies. If not, the Allies would gain a foothold to work their way to Berlin. Ben McIntyre's Double Cross recounts the remarkable stories of a group of double agents working out of England. The Germans believed they were spying for them. In reality, they were part of an imaginative and calculated espionage effort out of England. This motley group of men and women busily provided disinformation, harmless true information and true yet untimely intelligence -- all in the effort to confuse the Axis powers. Their supreme efforts convinced Germany the Northern European assault would take place far from the beaches of Normandy.
Who were these people? What motivated them to become double agents? How did they pull off this enormous hoax? Based upon newly declassified and released records McIntyre tells a walloping good tale about a little known yet critically important part of the war effort.
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LibraryThing member Alliebadger
Excellent read! The material is so thoroughly researched and still so well told. You forget it's true because it reads like a fascinating story. Great book, and definitely not the sort of thing I usually pick up. Thrilling for all.
LibraryThing member Bodagirl
While the subject matter was very interesting and the five or six main spies stood on their own, the cast of supporting characters were a bit of a blur.
LibraryThing member kvrfan
Wars aren't won by military strategy alone; strategists must rely on good intelligence. This book shows exactly that. Whereas the Allies in World War II (especially British intelligence) excelled at their game, the Nazis were burdened by incompetents and in some cases even dissenters and
The Allies had the advantage almost from the beginning in that, unbeknownst to the Germans, they possessed their coding machine, the Enigma, and had broken their code. Thus, they could read every intercepted Nazi message. But the British also had engineered a great counterintelligence operation comprised of a motley set of double agents who were feeding the Germans bogus information all the way up through D-Day. By the beginning of 1944, MI-5 could state with assurance that there was not a single German spy operating in the U.K. They had identified all who had come to spy, and had either turned them or locked them away (or secretly executed them). German intelligence believed they had an active network of agents in Britain, but every single one of them was working for the Allies. (The British took advantage of this arrangement in more ways than one--in addition to the obvious strategic advantage, they allowed the spies to keep drawing their income from the Germans, thereby sparing the MI-5 budget.)
Macintyre tells the story well, bringing life to all the characters and revealing a war story with which few people are familiar.
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resisters.The Allies had the advantage almost from the beginning in that, unbeknownst to the Germans, they possessed their coding machine, the Enigma, and had broken their code. Thus, they could read every intercepted Nazi message. But the British also had engineered a great counterintelligence operation comprised of a motley set of double agents who were feeding the Germans bogus information all the way up through D-Day. By the beginning of 1944, MI-5 could state with assurance that there was not a single German spy operating in the U.K. They had identified all who had come to spy, and had either turned them or locked them away (or secretly executed them). German intelligence believed they had an active network of agents in Britain, but every single one of them was working for the Allies. (The British took advantage of this arrangement in more ways than one--in addition to the obvious strategic advantage, they allowed the spies to keep drawing their income from the Germans, thereby sparing the MI-5 budget.)
Macintyre tells the story well, bringing life to all the characters and revealing a war story with which few people are familiar.
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LibraryThing member simchaboston
Entertaining though digressive follow-up to Macintyre's "Operation Mincemeat," a wickedly ingenious deception that helped mislead the Nazis during World War II. "Double Cross" ostensibly focuses on the five people who were feeding the Germans intelligence about Allied operations, and thus were in a
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position to help conceal the real target of D-Day. I say ostensibly because this book not only hops around from one double agent to the other (which is itself discombobulating), but contains so many personality sketches of too many supporting characters and even devotes more time than necessary to schemes involving pigeons (yes, pigeons) and to speculations about the Germans who were conspiring to assassinate Hitler. I also thought some of Macintyre's claims about various motivations and consequences aren't necessarily borne out by the available evidence (something I've become more sensitive too after reading Jill Lepore's carefully-researched histories). Still enjoyable as long as you keep looking up who's who and taking some of the grander assertions with a grain of salt. Show Less
LibraryThing member MaggieFlo
This is an extremely well researched historical story about the preparation for the invasion of Europe through France near the end of World war 2. In order to have the Germans believe that the invasion would take place near Calais rather than Normandy, a very elaborate scheme was set in motion to
Skills at acting, womanizing, spending money and living a duplicitous life. The build up to DDay is tense and suspenseful.
My problem with the story is at many times I lost track of who was who and who was doing what. The post DDay story is a bit of let down as the story ends quite abruptly with a summary of what happened to the main characters.
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turn German spies into British spies and feed false information to the enemy command. It was highly successful in part due to the gullibility of the Germans and the competence of the agents to lead a double life. The story centres around five spies in particular who are unique because of their other Skills at acting, womanizing, spending money and living a duplicitous life. The build up to DDay is tense and suspenseful.
My problem with the story is at many times I lost track of who was who and who was doing what. The post DDay story is a bit of let down as the story ends quite abruptly with a summary of what happened to the main characters.
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LibraryThing member Sandydog1
A truly great truth-stanger-than-fiction spy thriller. Like a Tolstoy novel with multi syllabic names and nicknames, it takes a while to get used to all the multi-syllabic names and aliases. Fascinating account of a very few spies who supported the D-day invasion and beyond, while sometimes getting
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showered with high pay and medals, from both sides. Show Less
LibraryThing member addunn3
The author describes in detail five double agents that fooled the Germans during WWII as to where the D-day assault would strike. A bit repetitive but a good read.
LibraryThing member DramMan
Forensic account of the double agents managed by MI5 during WWII, who succeeded in fooling the Nazis as to the expected location of the D Day landings. Great colour and detail, a remarkable and complex story of deception.
LibraryThing member weird_O
To read British books about World War II— well, okay, some British books—you get the sense that the Nazis were defeated thanks to the British alone. [Double Cross] by Ben Macintyre, long a correspondent for The Times of London, is one such. The "D-Day Spies" of the subtitle—The True Story of the
Between the title page and the text is a chart naming the names: Birthnames, spy (code) names, handler (case officer) names. Since spy each was working for both the Germans and the British, the chart has multiple spy names and multiple handler names. [I attached a Post-It flag to the page and referred back to it many times as I read.] The chart has only the five principal spies; the story involves many, many more, some of whom were fictions.
The primary spies were neither German nor British; rather, one was a Pole, another a Slav, a third a Spaniard. Each had a rationale for agreeing to spy, as Macintyre reports.
Lily Sergeyev, for example, was a Russian transplanted to France; her family were czarists—her grandfather the last czarist ambassador to Serbia; her father a government official in czarist Russia, a car salesman in Paris; an uncle was a commander in the Russian military during WWI, a purge victim in the late '30s. She considered herself French, but wanted to spy for Germany...well, until she was trained, dispatched to Madrid, then ignored by her case officer. The British intelligence operative in Madrid was more attentive and actually got her into England. From there, she transmitted all sorts of disinformation to the Germans, interspersed with just enough verifiable truth to keep them believing whatever she told them.
Lily, we learn, nurtured a variety of neuroses and hurts and grudges that imperiled the trust placed in her. In that, she was not unlike the others in the network. And, of course, the spies themselves couldn't trust their case officers unconditionally. Mistrust between case officers and between intelligence services occasionally surfaced, more frequently on the German side than the British. Surprisingly (to me) most of the spies in this narrative survived the war.
Though not an edge-of-your-seat read, [Double Cross] is engaging and informative. It gets a thumbs up from me.
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D-Day Spies—were all run by British intelligence. The "double cross" is simply that most of the spies we're introduced to were recruited by the Germans to spy on the Brits, but were turned by the British to spy on the Germans. A major part of their spying was to spread disinformation.Between the title page and the text is a chart naming the names: Birthnames, spy (code) names, handler (case officer) names. Since spy each was working for both the Germans and the British, the chart has multiple spy names and multiple handler names. [I attached a Post-It flag to the page and referred back to it many times as I read.] The chart has only the five principal spies; the story involves many, many more, some of whom were fictions.
The primary spies were neither German nor British; rather, one was a Pole, another a Slav, a third a Spaniard. Each had a rationale for agreeing to spy, as Macintyre reports.
Lily Sergeyev, for example, was a Russian transplanted to France; her family were czarists—her grandfather the last czarist ambassador to Serbia; her father a government official in czarist Russia, a car salesman in Paris; an uncle was a commander in the Russian military during WWI, a purge victim in the late '30s. She considered herself French, but wanted to spy for Germany...well, until she was trained, dispatched to Madrid, then ignored by her case officer. The British intelligence operative in Madrid was more attentive and actually got her into England. From there, she transmitted all sorts of disinformation to the Germans, interspersed with just enough verifiable truth to keep them believing whatever she told them.
Lily, we learn, nurtured a variety of neuroses and hurts and grudges that imperiled the trust placed in her. In that, she was not unlike the others in the network. And, of course, the spies themselves couldn't trust their case officers unconditionally. Mistrust between case officers and between intelligence services occasionally surfaced, more frequently on the German side than the British. Surprisingly (to me) most of the spies in this narrative survived the war.
Though not an edge-of-your-seat read, [Double Cross] is engaging and informative. It gets a thumbs up from me.
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LibraryThing member sweetiegherkin
This is an excellent work of nonfiction about the civilian spies working for the Allied troops to help make D-Day a success. I read this book several years ago and am constantly recommending it to people because of how well done it was. The audiobook narrator was fine, but there were so many names
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to keep track of (e.g., a person's actual, their code name, their handler's name, etc.) that I would recommend reading this one in print over audio. Show Less
LibraryThing member PilgrimJess
"In wartime, the truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." Winston Churchill
Double Cross centres on the murky world of espionage during WWII and in particular recounts the tale of a quintet of double agents and their handlers attempts to fool the German High
Now I must admit that I rather enjoyed reading about an aspect of WWII that I know very little about but ultimately struggled to see quite what genre and target audience that this book was aimed at. There were too many facts to make it feel fictional but too little real depth to make it truly historical. In the end I couldn't help feel that perhaps the author had ultimately been taken in by these spies tales of bravado as much as the Germans were. Personally I find it very hard to believe that the Germans were as gullible or the British so smart as the author would have us believe. Whilst I have little doubt that Operation Fortitude did save Allied lives and that its success certainly led to the beginning of the end of the war, the reality is that the Germans had lost the war in the air, were having to commit ever larger numbers to the Eastern Front to fight Russian forces, Britain and her allies had had a massive influx of combatants join them from America all meant that even the German hierarchy believed that they had lost the war, as evidenced by the plot to assassinate Hitler. Added all together I struggled to believe that the success of the plan was as pivotal as the author would have the reader believe.
Overall I found this an interesting but rather fluffy, flawed read that may give its readers a very distorted view of the ongoing events of the time and perhaps underplay the deeds of those who actually did the fighting on both sides of the battle.
Double Cross centres on the murky world of espionage during WWII and in particular recounts the tale of a quintet of double agents and their handlers attempts to fool the German High
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Command into believing that the D-Day landings of 1944 would take place along the coastline around Pas de Calais and by the fictitious “First United States Army Group”, , far away from than the real objectives of Normandy. The quintet of double agents were an unlikely bunch and comprised of “a bisexual Peruvian playgirl, a tiny Polish fighter pilot, a mercurial Frenchwoman, a Serbian seducer and a Spaniard with a diploma in chicken farming.” If they were successful, they would delay the arrival of crack reinforcements in Normandy potentially saving thousands of Allied lives. Fortunately, for the Allies at least, the Germans were totally taken in by the ruse and Operation Fortitude proved a complete success.Now I must admit that I rather enjoyed reading about an aspect of WWII that I know very little about but ultimately struggled to see quite what genre and target audience that this book was aimed at. There were too many facts to make it feel fictional but too little real depth to make it truly historical. In the end I couldn't help feel that perhaps the author had ultimately been taken in by these spies tales of bravado as much as the Germans were. Personally I find it very hard to believe that the Germans were as gullible or the British so smart as the author would have us believe. Whilst I have little doubt that Operation Fortitude did save Allied lives and that its success certainly led to the beginning of the end of the war, the reality is that the Germans had lost the war in the air, were having to commit ever larger numbers to the Eastern Front to fight Russian forces, Britain and her allies had had a massive influx of combatants join them from America all meant that even the German hierarchy believed that they had lost the war, as evidenced by the plot to assassinate Hitler. Added all together I struggled to believe that the success of the plan was as pivotal as the author would have the reader believe.
Overall I found this an interesting but rather fluffy, flawed read that may give its readers a very distorted view of the ongoing events of the time and perhaps underplay the deeds of those who actually did the fighting on both sides of the battle.
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LibraryThing member Skybalon
Even if you did not know anything about WWII this would be a fun and worthwhile read. If you do know some facts, this will be even better. And if you think you know everything about WWII, you'll still be surprised. There is so much going on that it is easy to get people confused, but it is so
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entertaining that you won't even mind. Highly recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member PDCRead
D Day. The beginning of the end of the Second World War. But for this massive operation to succeed the Allies had to do every trick in the book to convince the Nazis that the invasion was going to take place in a different location.
So was conceived Operation Fortitude, an audacious plan of lies,
But it so nearly wasn't. Macintyre brings alive the tension as the web of deceit was spun, from the near misses as agents were arrested, to the appalling handling of agent Treasure, over petty amounts of money. He describes their character, flaws and ultimately courage of the job that they performed. Macintyre must have sifted through hundreds of secret documents to shine a light on these people, and their handlers, who probably saved thousands of lives on both sides as the allies got a foothold in France.
As will all of his history books he reveals the lives of those who lived in the shadows and smoke of the espionage game, people who most would have never heard of, and the key roles they played in changing European and World history. Well written as usual, there are points where it reads like a spy thriller, even though it was really life.
So was conceived Operation Fortitude, an audacious plan of lies,
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deception and misinformation to persuade the military that the invasion was going to take place in Norway and Calais. This team of double agents, Bronx, Brutus, Treasure, Tricycle and Garbo fed back to their German masters this picture of troop movements and build of arms and materiel. Even though there were some doubters in the German echelons, this story dreamt up by a team in London was swallowed hook line and sinker.But it so nearly wasn't. Macintyre brings alive the tension as the web of deceit was spun, from the near misses as agents were arrested, to the appalling handling of agent Treasure, over petty amounts of money. He describes their character, flaws and ultimately courage of the job that they performed. Macintyre must have sifted through hundreds of secret documents to shine a light on these people, and their handlers, who probably saved thousands of lives on both sides as the allies got a foothold in France.
As will all of his history books he reveals the lives of those who lived in the shadows and smoke of the espionage game, people who most would have never heard of, and the key roles they played in changing European and World history. Well written as usual, there are points where it reads like a spy thriller, even though it was really life.
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LibraryThing member KurtWombat
Contemplating the stirs and eddies of history, it's easy to assume inevitable the currents that carried events one way or another. That Hitler's reach exceeded his grasp seems obvious now but had he been afforded a little more time, advancements in his nuclear program and the implementation of his
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V-2 rockets might have dramatically changed the course of things. Time is largely why the D-Day landing at Normandy became the hinge upon which the history of the 20th century swung. Should it have failed, the Allied cause might have been stalled for years. Among the many factors that contributed to the ultimate success of the landings was the use of spies to pepper the German intelligence command with half-truths and outright deceit. Virtually every spy the Germans sent to England was either killed, captured or turned. It is those who were turned who are the focus Ben Macintyre's DOUBLE CROSS a very well done real life spy thriller that I enjoyed more for the spies than the thrills. The origins, motivations and dubious characters of the central group of spies is all unfolded quite well and captivated me for the first half of the book. Each uniquely skilled and monstrously flawed double agent was so self absorbed that the thought of actually being caught was unimaginable. Recreated here with a deft hand for detail, I was quite often surprised by the turns each spy's life took. The book balances the stories of the spies with their British MI5 handlers who on good days had to satisfy diva spies and on bad days had to worry about being triple crossed and all their work vanishing in a sudden flash. As much as I enjoyed the first half of the book, there is a significant portion just past midway where the book seems to be treading water--as if the author were determined to get every bit of research into the book at the expense of momentum. The pace picks up again once the D-Day landing is underway and all the double agent's efforts are aimed in the same direction. As with any spy story, it is often difficult to directly link cause A with effect B, which does make some of the payoff from the spies activities a tad tepid, but generally there seems to be enough justification to credit the double agents with at least making the D-Day landing easier and possibly with making the landing possible at all. Show Less
LibraryThing member jandm
Gave up part-way through as there were too many characters and names to keep track of.
LibraryThing member swmproblems
Read this book a while ago when I was over at G-G's, maybe just getting there when I read it. That part a couple times, about halfway through, I justified to myself why it would be ok to just quit reading it and go on to another book. This book right here showed me just how powerful my O.C.D. is
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over my rational mind. I thought I was going to enjoy it since it was about Katrina and my love for history, fascination with natural disasters and being someone who went through it and experienced it (although it was a lot different from what others were going through. I did lose my piece of shit damaged car, and that was like the only thing at that point that I owned and was mine. It did knock me out of college (and of course solely this) and prevented me from becoming the pompous, high-brow vegan with a lot of gay friends and the famous writer or intellectual that I was so obviously meant to be)...all those things make me think I would at least not hate this book. Wrong. I actually hated it. And I know it's probably not healthy to have such strong negative feelings towards a book I just read, but it's definitely like that. The premise behind the story could have probably been much more interesting if she did not explain her entire outfit and her friends husband who is some rich, sleazy wh0 happens to be in a current, high profile lawsuit, but whatever. I do love how she gives a nod to her son and his life when she throws in there that she helped her son and his partner move into their apartment, and that information had no relevance to anything else that she was talking about but she did it so her son would know he was accepted and I think that's really cool. I don't know how the dad felt about this particular subject, on his monthly fishing trip with the guys the old fashions were piling up and someone says something off-putting about your son, so you catch him one time in the right eye and put him down, because he's gotta show the guys that his son didn't get any of that punk shit from him. And all of that could have been avoided without exposing the child for your own self-satisfaction. Other than that it was just bland and ok. t doesn't matter at all to what I'm about to say...I loved this book and it got me into other Ben Macintyre books, all on the subject of espionage, which I happen to find fascinating. I still remember parts of this book and individuals who were characters in the book unlike I do for most books I read, which that sounds kind of sad like I can't comprehend what I'm reading, it's just that I read a lot of books and a lot of them are about roughly the same thing. I would say this is his best book without having read all of them just because I'm that confident of how hard he brought it. Since reading the book, I've seen many things on television, podcasts, other books I've read refer to the Double Cross system in ww2 and I still find that entire system as fascinating as the first time I read about it in this book. I've even wanted to read a book on the other individuals in Double Cross that went on to some notoriety (or at least a book written about them which I think is pretty cool) because Ben Macintyre makes these people seem so interesting. Names like Tricycle and Zigzag (Ben Macintyre also wrote a book titled "Agent Zigzag" and I own a copy of it but for some reason I began reading it but distinctively remember not finishing it for whatever reason, it must have been an important one because I would love the ability to put down a shitty book and move onto the next. I think I'll try that but I can't get trigger happy and jump the gun on every instance that I question a book or had higher expectations. I plan to use it only when it's a must) Show Less
LibraryThing member aadyer
A good read, but strangely not as involving as Operation Mincemeat. Perhaps the author could have concentrated on just one or two of th spies rather than five. Very good @ revealing the role of the sixth spy vital to this deception
Awards
Edgar Award (Nominee — Fact Crime — 2013)
Agatha Award (Nominee — Non-Fiction — 2012)
Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year (Nonfiction — 2012)
San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year (Nonfiction — 2012)
Pages
399
ISBN
0307888770 / 9780307888778
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