Charles Cholmondeley (intelligence officer)

Charles Christopher Cholmondeley[a] MBE (27 January 1917 – 15 June 1982) was a British intelligence officer known for his leading role in Operation Mincemeat, a critical military deception operation which misdirected German forces' attention away from the Allied invasion of Sicily in Operation Husky.

[3][4] During World War II he served as a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force (RAF) who had been seconded to MI5, Britain's domestic counter-intelligence and security service.

He had been appointed as the secretary of the Twenty Committee, a small inter-service, inter-departmental intelligence team in charge of double agents.

[5] In November 1942, the Twenty Committee turned down Cholmondeley's Operation Mincemeat plan as being unworkable, but thought there may have been some potential in the idea.

[8] Cholmondeley died 15 June 1982; Montagu wrote an obituary that was published in The Times.