Books: Dead Was the Hero

THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS (160 pp.) —Ewen Montagu—Lippincott ($2.75).

The career of Major William Martin of Britain's Royal Marines was as spectacular as it was brief. Although he was unknown when he entered service and had never before been a marine, he was commissioned on the spot. Within a few short weeks in the spring of 1943, he was the key figure in a scheme which convinced the Germans that the attack on Sicily was to be only a feint, led them to weaken Sicily's defenses and so save any number of Allied lives. The odd part of it was that...