Operation Mincemeat was a successful British deception operation of the Second World War to disguise the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily .

Part of the wider Operation Barclay , Mincemeat was based on the 1939 Trout memo , written by Rear Admiral John Godfrey , the Director of the Naval Intelligence Division and his personal assistant , Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming .

The effect of Operation Mincemeat is unknown , although Sicily was liberated more quickly than anticipated and losses Earnings_and_losses were lower than predicted .

The events were depicted Create_artwork in `` Operation Heartbreak '' , a 1950 novel by the former cabinet minister Duff Cooper , before one of the agents who planned Arranging and carried out Action Mincemeat , Ewen Montagu , wrote Writing a history in 1953 .