G. THE DECEPTION DOCUMENTS — ANALYSIS OF THE NYE LETTER
The Nye letter is the document at the center of Operation Mincemeat. Everything else — the identity, the personal effects, the route of delivery — existed to make this letter credible enough that its contents would be believed and acted upon.
The letter was written by General Sir Archibald Nye, the Vice Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and addressed to General Harold Alexander, the commander of the Allied ground forces in the Mediterranean, who was at the time in North Africa. The letter was dated April 23, 1943, and was supposed to have been written in London for dispatch by personal courier — Martin — to Alexander’s headquarters in North Africa.
The core deception in the letter was not stated directly. The letter did not say “we are not attacking Sicily.” Such a statement, in an official letter from the Vice Chief of the Imperial General Staff, would have been astonishing and immediately suspicious. The technique used was more sophisticated: the letter referred to the actual invasion target (Sicily) as if it were a cover for the real targets, which it named as Greece and Sardinia.
The relevant passage in the letter discussed the use of codenames for the invasion operations. The letter mentioned that “Operation Husky” — which was the actual codename for the Sicily invasion — was being used as a cover plan to mask the actual operations, codenamed “Brimstone” (Sardinia) and an operation targeting Greece via the Gulf of Araxos and the heel of Italy. It further mentioned, in the way of an aside, that the codename “Husky” was being used in a “deceptive role” for North Africa to mislead the enemy.