Wiki article has additional context, and there is even a movie on netflix that is just great

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mincemeat

https://www.netflix.com/title/81428563

Also, one of the best written podcasts I've listened to is about this, highly recommended.

World's Greatest Con (first season) https://worldsgreatestcon.fireside.fm

RSS address: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/630fb274cbfa130012217d4...

Did that program have any actual effect on the war? I was a great story (I remember reading the book when I was a boy) but I never heard that it made a real difference.

I believe so. Even Euan Montague's hyped up original didn't say it was spectacular, but there's some evidence it at least delayed German reaction.

FUSAG on the other hand was spectacularly successful. But for a far higher input cost. Maybe this one's biggest effect was to help justify the investment in FUSAG?

The article states it caused substantial reduction in casualties. If forces were actually redirected, which it seems they were, any other conclusion is unlikely.

I know, I've seen this claim (it's in the book too) but never any corroborating evidence.

I knew what the story was about, directly from the title (I'm sicilian).

When I first read about the story when I was a teen, I believed without question that it made a huge difference.

Now, I'm not so sure. It's enough to look at a map to see that invading sardinia doesn't really give you much in terms of invading italy. Perhaps just a closer airbase. But they had north africa, malta, and not spain…

> It's enough to look at a map to see that invading sardinia doesn't really give you much in terms of invading italy.

Sardinia was an important air base for the Axis campaigns in North Africa, so it's invasion could have been interpreted by the Axis as way of degrading the Axis forces rather than a launch pad for an invasion of Italy.

Those small islands surprise me. Crete was an important airbase too (and a nazi propaganda film of a fleet taking off from Crete was the inspiration of the famous "Ride of the Valkyries" in "Apocalypse Now")

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the 2021 film about this program, Operation Mincemeat on Netflix.

It's a good watch, if you're into the Tinker Taylor sort of vibe.

"The Man Who Never Was" is a great film about this episode. It adds quite a few "embellishments", including dealing with a German spy sent to London to verify William Martin, and his encounter with the MI5 clerk posing as his fiancee. One of my favourite war films.

Interestingly, it is believed that Ian Fleming played a part in its planning too. Appropriately cloak & dagger.

How does one amend a gravestone that has been carved?

With carving tools.

Starting from scratch on the backside of the slab is easy, carving into current whitespace is easy and cheap, grinding away the current inscription and carving into the pristine layer below might be a good solution if the stone is thick enough and/or not all of the old inscription needs to be erased.

You can see the line where the new inscription was put in, above the inscription in the photos.

It look like it was whitespace there, given the height of the letters, but that's a lot of whitespace. I can't find earlier photos of it, though.

Having that much whitespace would make sense if they'd planned to add it later, though it would also be a tell.

So “written in stone” should not be taken so serious anymore.

You, of course, read the description of what it takes to make a change. "Written in stone" can be taken quite seriously. Next time your PM wants to make a feature change, hand 'em a grinder and a chisel, see how badly they want it. Contrast and compare with using meat stubs to hammer out a Jira ticket.

Obligatory Tom Scott video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lQtdhtw5eI

Reminds me of George P Burdell

Or Jara Cimrman, if we ignore the serious war background.