Operation Mincemeat
Two members of British intelligence obtained the body of Glyndwr Michael, a tramp who died from eating rat poison, dressed him as an officer of the Royal Marines and placed personal items on him identifying him as the fictitious Captain (Acting Major) William Martin.
Part of the wider Operation Barclay, Mincemeat was based on the 1939 Trout memo, written by Rear Admiral John Godfrey, the Director of the Naval Intelligence Division, and his personal assistant, Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming.
With the approval of the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and the American military commander in the Mediterranean, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the plan began by transporting the body to the southern coast of Spain by submarine and releasing it close to shore, where it was picked up the following morning by a Spanish fisherman.
The nominally neutral Spanish government shared copies of the documents with the Abwehr, the German military intelligence organisation, before returning the originals to the British.
The events were depicted in Operation Heartbreak, a 1950 novel by the former cabinet minister Duff Cooper, before one of the intelligence officers who planned and carried out Mincemeat, Ewen Montagu, wrote a history in 1953.
On 29 September 1939, soon after the start of the Second World War, Rear Admiral John Godfrey, the Director of Naval Intelligence, circulated the Trout memo, a paper that compared the deception of an enemy in wartime to fly fishing.
The following suggestion is used in a book by Basil Thomson: a corpse dressed as an airman, with despatches in his pockets, could be dropped on the coast, supposedly from a parachute that has failed.
[5] In August 1942, before the Battle of Alam el Halfa, a corpse was placed in a blown-up scout car, in a minefield facing the German 90th Light Division.
British planners considered that an invasion of France from Britain could not take place until 1944 and the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, wanted to use the Allied forces from North Africa to attack Europe's "soft underbelly".
[18][19][n 4] At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, Allied planners agreed on the selection of Sicily – codenamed Operation Husky – and decided to undertake the invasion no later than July.
[22] Adolf Hitler was concerned about a Balkan invasion, as the area had been the source of raw materials for the German war industry, including copper, bauxite, chrome and oil.
[24] To suggest the eastern Mediterranean was the target, the Allies set up a headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, for a fictional formation, the Twelfth Army, consisting of twelve divisions.
Montagu later wrote If a post mortem examination was made by someone who had formed the preconceived idea that the death was probably due to drowning there was little likelihood that the difference between this liquid, in lungs that had started to decompose, and seawater would be noticed.
[33] On 28 January 1943 Purchase contacted Montagu with the news he had located a suitable body, probably that of Glyndwr Michael, a tramp who died from eating rat poison that contained phosphorus.
The Mincemeat plan was to place documents on the corpse, and then float it off the coast of Spain, whose nominally neutral government was known to co-operate with the Abwehr, the German military intelligence organisation.
As a Royal Marine, Major Martin came under Admiralty authority, and it would be easy to ensure that all official inquiries and messages about his death would be routed to the Naval Intelligence Division.
[50] Two love letters from Pam were included in the pocket litter,[n 7] as was a receipt for a diamond engagement ring costing £53 10s 6d[n 8] from a Bond Street jewellery shop.
[56] Other items of pocket litter placed on Martin included a book of stamps, a silver cross and a St. Christopher's medallion, cigarettes, matches, a pencil stub, keys and a receipt from Gieves for a new shirt.
The letter covered several purportedly sensitive subjects, such as the (unwanted) award of Purple Heart medals by US forces to British servicemen serving with them and the appointment of a new commander of the Brigade of Guards.
[66][67] Montagu thought the result was "quite brilliant";[68] the key part of the letter stated that We have recent information that the Boche [the Germans] have been reinforcing and strengthening their defences in Greece and Crete and C.I.G.S.
[79] The body was supposed to be the victim of an aeroplane crash, and it was decided that trying to simulate the accident at sea using flares and other devices could be too risky and open to discovery.
Spilsbury provided the medical requirements and Cholmondeley contacted Charles Fraser-Smith of the Ministry of Supply[n 11] to produce the container, which was labelled "Handle with care: optical instruments".
Two days later Bevan met the prime minister – who was in bed, wearing a dressing gown and smoking a cigar – in his rooms at the Cabinet War offices and explained the plan.
[69][84] Churchill gave his approval to the operation, but delegated the final confirmation to Eisenhower, the overall military commander in the Mediterranean, whose plan to invade Sicily would be affected.
Cholmondeley and Montagu travelled in the back of the van, which drove through the night to Greenock, west Scotland, where the canister was taken on board the submarine HMS Seraph, which was preparing for a deployment to the Mediterranean.
The British knew that these were being intercepted and, although they were encrypted, the Germans had broken the code; the messages played out the story that it was imperative that Haselden retrieve the briefcase because it was important.
"[108] Montagu continued the deception to reinforce the existence of Major Martin, and included his details in the published list of British casualties which appeared in The Times on 4 June.
[115] For a considerable time after the initial invasion, Hitler was still convinced that an attack on the Balkans was imminent,[116] and in late July he sent General Erwin Rommel to Salonika to prepare the defence of the region.
[120] The military historian Jon Latimer observes that the relative ease with which the Allies captured Sicily was not entirely because of Mincemeat, or the wider deception of Operation Barclay.
[130] A 1956 episode of The Goon Show, titled "The Man Who Never Was", was set during the Second World War, and referred to a microfilm washed up on a beach inside a German boot.
