Comment

Double Cross

the True Story of the D-Day Spies
rb3221
Sep 25, 2015rb3221 rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
This is a story about the five key double cross spies (and about the mysterious sixth spy) who spent years deceiving the Germans into believing the D-Day invasion would take place at the Pas-de-Calais and Norway and not at Normandy. Truly an intricate, strong and eventually successful web of deception. Macintyre outlines how this very unusual crop of spies controlled and manipulated every single German agent and were turned by MI5 into double agents. In Churchill's own words it was "tangle within tangle, plot and counter-plot, ruse and false agent, cross and double-cross, true agent, false agent ... all woven into a texture so intricate as to be incredible and yet true." This sting, called Operation Fortitude, was truly ingenious even though the Aberwhr itself was riddled with incompetence, corruption and anti-Hitler sentiment. Perhaps that is one very valid reason why the spies were so successful. The agents were at times very unprofessional and perhaps even a threat to D-Day but somehow their covers were not blown and in the author's view they saved thousands of lives, especially since as many as 22 German divisions remained at the Pas-de Calais even as the Normandy invasion was occurring. This is a well written, easy to read non-fiction book that reads like fiction. I enjoyed it very much.