WI Operation Mincemeat a failure in 1944?

WI Operation Mincemeat a failure in 1943?

In 1944 British launched Operation "Mincemeat" in order to deceive Germans and make them believe that allies would attack Sardinia and Greece. They took a corpse dressed it as a British Major put in his pockets fake letters and maps of the alleged invasion and let it to be found by Germans near Spain. As a result Hitler was so convinced of the veracity of the bogus documents that he disagreed with Mussolini that Sicily would be the most likely invasion point, insisting that any incursion against the island should be regarded as a feint. Hitler ordered the reinforcement of Sardinia and Corsica and sent Fieldmarshal Rommel to Athens to form an Army Group. Even patrol boats, minesweepers and minelayers intended for the defence of Sicily were diverted. Perhaps the most critical move of all was diverting two panzer divisions to Greece from the Eastern Front where they were most needed, especially when the Germans were preparing to engage the Russians in Kursk. This major effect on the Eastern Front was not intended or foreseen by the British originators of the plan, concerned mainly with their own part of the war.
WI Germans didnt believed that? Would the Allied assault was called off?
How is this altering History? Any thoughts?
 
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If the Germans send huge reinforcements to Sicily they will probably lose the bulk of them as they did at Tunis

As it was, what they had there (Hermann Goering etc) fought well, but IIRC was small enough to be evacuated

Of course, I might NOT remember correctly !

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
German Reinforcement

If the Germans send huge reinforcements to Sicily they will probably lose the bulk of them as they did at Tunis

As it was, what they had there (Hermann Goering etc) fought well, but IIRC was small enough to be evacuated

Of course, I might NOT remember correctly !

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Evacuation of Tunis was much more complicated. Required the Italian Navy to take on the Allied Fleet to protect large numbers of large transports across the Med. They hadn t been successful with this at all up to this point. The evacuation across the straights of Messina was treated as a major river crossing by the Germans. They used ferries and small ships to move major equipment across the straights without much if any interference from the allies. The major contribution of mincemeat (in 1943 BTW) was the movement of troops slated for the East and attention diverted to Greece and Sardinia. Had these same troops been available to the defense of Sicily It might have been treated more as a continuing campaign by the axis instead of a fighting withdrawal which it turned into once the allies established themselves on the Island. In the end the allies could have taken more substantial losses in Sicily. When compared to later amphibious ops it was small in comparison.
Just my thoughts, but the outcome of mincemeat was of great use to the allies.
 
Evacuation of Tunis was much more complicated. Required the Italian Navy to take on the Allied Fleet to protect large numbers of large transports across the Med. They hadn t been successful with this at all up to this point. The evacuation across the straights of Messina was treated as a major river crossing by the Germans. They used ferries and small ships to move major equipment across the straights without much if any interference from the allies. The major contribution of mincemeat (in 1943 BTW) was the movement of troops slated for the East and attention diverted to Greece and Sardinia. Had these same troops been available to the defense of Sicily It might have been treated more as a continuing campaign by the axis instead of a fighting withdrawal which it turned into once the allies established themselves on the Island. In the end the allies could have taken more substantial losses in Sicily. When compared to later amphibious ops it was small in comparison.
Just my thoughts, but the outcome of mincemeat was of great use to the allies.

If Allies saw that Germans dont "buy" the decoy they call off the attack in Sicily or they switch Sicily with Greece?
 
If Allies saw that Germans dont "buy" the decoy they call off the attack in Sicily or they switch Sicily with Greece?


They (allies) could do that but then go where.
Italy would not be threatened as much and time would have allowed Italian armements industry to play catch up.
On the up side, drive through Italy was a defensive winfall for the Germans. Defence could be anchored on either flank with mountains in the middle. Greece - Albania - YugoSlavia Route would take More German troops in the defense, and would be considered a direct threat to the Rumanian OIL. I think politically knocking Italy out of the war was more part of the plan. Again just what I think.
 
Although the Americans were impressed with British support for Greece in 1941, they were even less in favour of any 'adventures' in the Eastern Mediterean than in the Western.

If the codebreakers at Bletchly Park were able to see German forces going to Sicilly rather than from it, IMO two options, either the invasion date is delayed for the 'softening up' of the defences to continue; or they choose Sardinia instead.
Sardinia had advantages - it points via Corsica to the South of France, yet it still gives options for landings on the Italian mainland. However, the big advantage that Scilly had was the space for airfields.
The problem the Allies gave themselves, was not where to go, but where to go next, and when. They needed to be able to land on the mainland before the Sicilly campaign was over, not after. Too many Germans were able to cross the Straits of Messina - with their equipment.
 

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What about Romania oil? This puts the oil fields within striking distance of a fighter escort and Hungary to boot. This also changes Yalta, and though it has the same issues that the Italian campaign does, there is more room to maneuver and changes the post war world. And it helps Stalin more directly as well as the partisans in Yugoslavia. I think that would have been a better deal for the Allies in the long run, despite leaving Italy in the war. She was tottering on collapse anyway, as the Italians were dissastified with the war and their allies. Besides, in Greece and the Balkans there was a large network of partisans to draw on. More than the supposed French resistance, where miraculously everyone was in the resistance the moment they were liberated. Imagine a Balkan nation in the Nato sphere in the cold war....
 
What about Romania oil? This puts the oil fields within striking distance of a fighter escort and Hungary to boot. This also changes Yalta, and though it has the same issues that the Italian campaign does, there is more room to maneuver and changes the post war world. And it helps Stalin more directly as well as the partisans in Yugoslavia. I think that would have been a better deal for the Allies in the long run, despite leaving Italy in the war. She was tottering on collapse anyway, as the Italians were dissastified with the war and their allies. Besides, in Greece and the Balkans there was a large network of partisans to draw on. More than the supposed French resistance, where miraculously everyone was in the resistance the moment they were liberated. Imagine a Balkan nation in the Nato sphere in the cold war....

Aren't the oilfields (even Baku) already reachable from Cyprus already?
Also, the later in WWII we get, the more advanced the bombers will become and the less issue range is (although still important).
 
Aren't the oilfields (even Baku) already reachable from Cyprus already?
Also, the later in WWII we get, the more advanced the bombers will become and the less issue range is (although still important).

Nope... Oil fields in Romania (in Ploesti if i recall correctly) were too far for British fighters launching from Cyprus... If Allies had captured Peloponese and Athens oil fields would be a "sitting duck" target for them...
 
oil

Ploesti Oil was very important. The fields and more importantly the refineries where vital. The allies where reaching these areas via B24 from
North africa already but still only slowing production. The threat to the Axis would be a ground occupation and direct attack into Rumania possibly removing them also from the war WITH the oil.
Baku was controlled by the soviets, so why does it matter if we can reach those fields, unless Im misunderstanding. Either way the object in the Mincemeat plan was a distraction to Husky, Sicily operations and further to the Italian mainland. And it is correct that Sicily was important for airfields for combat support aircraft in Italy operations and fighter escort to the bomber campains into Austria, Rumania, Germany.
 
I think that by occupation of south greece allies would have cut off Italians resupply bases in eastern mediterranean... also Germans in Crete and the islands would be isolated too...
I dont know if Allies had the manpower to deliver a double attack in Peloponese and Sicily simultaneously though...
 
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