LECTURE: Operation Mincemeat

OPERATION MINCEMEAT: “The Man Who Never Was” - a successful British deception during WWII to disguise an Allied invasion of Sicily.

In Huelva (a town filled with German spies) in the South of Spain, in April 1943, a dead British military man is found, with a briefcase attacked to him. He was a military messenger, and when the case was opened, the documents inside were determined to have been given to the German consulate, who were then convinced Sicily was not being invaded. That was the plan and the success. Note: It was later obvious that Spain had not been neutral in the war but rather that Franco and Hitler were working together. The Nazis wanted Gibraltar as a key transit location and the Allies knowing that Spain would turn this over to Germans, wanted to lead them to think they were going to attack Greece and Sardinia, keeping them away, when they really planned Sicily. Allied forces from North Africa wanted to attack Europe's "soft underbelly". Control of Sicily would open the Mediterranean Sea to Allied shipping and allow the invasion of continental Europe through Italy.

The suggestion to plant misleading papers on a corpse that would be found (supposedly from a parachute that has failed) by the enemy, was one of 54 plans that were reviewed. The document on the body was the Trout memo written by Admiral Godfrey & his Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming (yes, the writer of 007 stories), to attack Sicily. They even conducted tests on different inks to see which would last longest in the water. A single black eyelash was placed within the letter to check if the Germans or Spanish had opened it, got the letter out carefully and put back as if they had not read it.

They had to find a dead body without next of kin and no sign of how death had occurred. A homeless man in London, Glyndwr Michael, dies from rat poison (not easily traced if he is found and the Germans are looking for a cause of death). They dressed him as an officer in the Royal Marines and named him William (Bill) Martin (made up person). They made up and leaked fake communications on their plan, purchased maps and money of these nations to convince the Nazis of the plan. They brought the dead body to Spain by submarine releasing it close to the shore so it would wash ashore and be found, which it was. The name "Martin" was selected because there were several men with that name of about that rank in the Royal Marines. Royal Marines would wear battledress, which was easily obtainable and came in standard sizes. The rank of acting major made him senior enough to be entrusted with sensitive documents, but not so prominent that anyone would expect to know him. To reinforce the impression of Martin being a real person, corroborative details were carried on his person. These included a photograph of an invented fiancée named Pam, love letters, a letter from the fictitious Martin's father, a book of stamps, a silver cross, cigarettes, matches, a pencil stub, keys and a receipt for a new shirt, ticket stubs from a London theater and a bill for four nights' hotel.

They strap the briefcase to Martin, so they are not separated. The corpse is taken by submarine (HMS Seraph) one mile out knowing that it would wash in and had been preserved in a torpedo canister (filled with dry ice) that says optical equipment and only the Captain knows. When they get close to the coastline, the Captain has a short service with a few officers and then lowers the body in the water. The body arrives the next morning and they put in newspaper that he is dead. The Spanish navy get the briefcase and, supposedly despite pressure from German agents, neither it nor its contents were handed over to the Germans. In actuality, they did get them and the letters were dried and photographed, then soaked in salt water for 24 hours before being re-inserted into their envelopes, without the eyelash that had been planted there. The information was taken to Germany but the body is returned. When the British get the body back, they bury his body as a military hero, but its all fake.

Operation Mincemeat reports back that “They Swallowed it hook, line and sinker”. The Italian attack was able to continue and Sicily was captured in just 38 days with few casualties, allowing them to continue north and speeding up the end of the war.

Hitler informed Mussolini that Greece, and Sardinia needed defense at any cost and moved all troops, aircrafts and torpedo boats from Sicily. The exact impact of Mincemeat is impossible to calculate. Although the British had expected 10,000 killed or wounded in the first week of fighting, only a seventh of that number became casualties; the navy expected 300 ships would be sunk in the action, but they lost 12. The predicted 90-day campaign was over in 38. On Major Martin's grave they added the postscript "Glyndwr Michael served as Major William Martin RM" on the grave and later honored as a war hero (although Martin never was).

One of the officers, that executed the plan, Ewen Montagu, wrote the story up in a successful book, The Man Who Never Was, in 1953, which became two movies (1956 and 2021) and now is a Broadway and West-End live theater success.

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