Cinema: “The Ruse” of the English secret services during the Second World War

1943, to reverse the course of the war, the Allies prepare to land in Sicily, where the Germans await them firmly. So to deceive the enemy on the place of the landing, the British secret services will imagine an incredible stratagem. Their weapon: a corpse disguised as an English officer whose plane would have abyss at sea and carrier false information. The film Cunningin cinemas on Wednesday April 27, recounts the meticulous preparations. From this corpse, originally that of a homeless man, he is invented an identity, a life, a fiancée and, on him, supposedly top secret documents intended to deceive the Nazis.

The real body was transported by submarine, thrown into the water off Spain, where it failed a few hours later. And the Germans took the bait, they lightened their defenses in Sicily, where the Allies landed in July 1943. They encountered little resistance there. Thousands of soldiers’ lives were thus spared thanks to this ruse imagined in 1939 by a young officer of the Royal Navy, a certain Ian flemingthe father of James Bond.