Mr Darcys make Mincemeat of the enemy

THE best of British, led by Colin Firth (right) and Matthew Macfadyen (left), are to tell the true tale of how four intelligence officers, seven secretaries, and a typist — working in ‘Room 13’, a basement in Whitehall — pulled off what has been hailed as ‘perhaps the most successful single deception of the war’.

Commander Ewan Montagu (Firth), a barrister-turned-Naval intelligence officer, and Flight Lieutenant Charles Cholmondeley (Macfadyen), from MI5, had the type of ‘corkscrew’ minds that could pull off what became known as Operation Mincemeat: a plan so outrageous it could only have come from the pages of a novel. In fact, the basic idea did just that. Ian Fleming, who would later pen the 007 novels, was also involved in the activities in Room 13 and remembered a similar idea in a crime story.

The powers-that-be required a ruse to disguise the impending Allied invasion of Sicily. So the ‘corkscrews’ devised a plan whereby the corpse of a British soldier (actually a dead tramp), carrying misleading secret documents and false papers, would be found floating off the coast of Spain.

‘Major Martin’ had an attache case chained to his wrist containing documents that would find their way to German high command, and then to Hitler. Operation Mincemeat, based on Ben Macintyre’s spellbinding book, begins filming just before Christmas.

I’m mildly amused that both Firth and Macfadyen have played Mr Darcy in, adaptations of Pride And Prejudice.

Kris Thykier, of Archery Pictures, who is producing the film with Iain Canning of See-Saw Films, told me it explores the spy craft employed during the last war.

The cast includes Kelly Macdonald, Penelope Wilton, Johnny Flynn, Hattie Morahan, Simon Russell Beale, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Gatiss and Paul Ritter.