Express reporter's key role in plot to deceive Hitler

A DAILY Express journalist was at the heart of an operation to deceive Hitler about Allied plans to seize Sicily, a new book reveals.

- Sam Lister

War correspondent Cedric Salter was drafted in to help throw the Nazis off the scent by being "judiciously indiscreet" about a fake strategy while in Istanbul.

Salter was working for a rival newspaper at the start of the war but switched to the Express and his editor, Arthur Christiansen, had to be brought into the fold on the secret operation.

The details are revealed in The Illusionist: The True Story Of The Man Who Fooled Hitler, a book by political journalist Robert Hutton.

Uncovering documents from the time, it shines a light on littleknown intelligence operations to trick the Nazis during the war.

In 1943, the Allies captured North Africa and prepared to cross the Mediterranean to take Sicily.

Dudley Clarke was put in charge of Operation Barclay, a deception intended to persuade the Germans and Italians that preparations to invade Sicily were fake, and that the real plan was to invade Sardinia and Greece.

The eccentric cross-dressing British officer, who ran the special unit A Force, was played by Dominic West in the recent BBC drama SAS: Rogue Heroes part of Operation Barclay known as Operation Mincemeat became famous for deceiving Germany with fake documents from a supposedly drowned man that made their way to the top of the regime.