Book description
D-Day, 6 June 1944, the turning point of the Second World War, was a
victory of arms. But it was also a triumph for a different kind of
operation: one of deceit, aimed at convincing the Nazis that Calais and
Norway, not Normandy, were the targets of the 150,000-strong invasion force.
The deception involved every branch of Allied wartime intelligence - the
Bletchley Park code-breakers, MI5, MI6, SOE, Scientific Intelligence,
the FBI and the French Resistance. But at its heart was the 'Double
Cross System', a team of double agents controlled by the secret Twenty
Committee, so named because twenty in Roman numerals forms a double cross.
The key D-Day spies were just five in number, and one of the oddest
military units ever assembled: a bisexual Peruvian playgirl, a tiny
Polish fighter pilot, a Serbian seducer, a wildly imaginative Spaniard
with a diploma in chicken farming, and a hysterical Frenchwoman whose
obsessive love for her pet dog very nearly wrecked the entire deception.
Their enterprise was saved from catastrophe by a shadowy sixth spy whose
heroic sacrifice is here revealed for the first time. Under the
direction of an eccentric but brilliant intelligence officer in tartan
trousers, working from a smoky lair in St James's, these spies would
weave a web of deception so intricate that it ensnared Hitler's army and
helped to carry thousands of troops across the Channel in safety.
These double agents were, variously, brave, treacherous, fickle, greedy
and inspired. They were not conventional warriors, but their masterpiece
of deceit saved countless lives. Their codenames were Bronx, Brutus,
Treasure, Tricycle and Garbo. This is their story. Entertaining
Ben Macintyre is a columnist and Associate Editor on The Times.
He has worked as the newspaper s correspondent in New York, Paris and
Washington. He is the author of eight previous books including Agent
Zigzag,
shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and the Galaxy British Book
Award for Biography of the Year 2008,
and the no. 1 bestseller Operation Mincemeat
. He lives in London with his wife and three children.
