Operation Mincemeat

WWII espionage attracts strange ideas, and characters. And none more so than 1943's Operation Mincemeat. The plan: float a corpse (Major Martin) ashore in Spain bearing fake secret documents. The reason: to mislead the Germans into believing that the Allies planned to invade Greece and Sardinia. This was instead of the obvious target of Sicily.

Ewen Montagu (one of the two main instigators of the deception) told the story in 1953. His book, The Man Who Never Was, became a successful film. But much remained unwritten. Ben Macintyre, fills in the gaps with fascinating and recently available material.

The body designated as Major Martin was an itinerant Welsh labourer, Glyndwr Michael. Michael was born in Aberbargoed in Monmouthshire in South Wales. Before leaving the town, he held part-time jobs as a gardener and labourer. His father Thomas, a coal miner, killed himself when Michael was 15 and his mother died when he was 31. Michael, homeless, friendless, depressed and with no money, drifted to London where he lived on the streets.

Found in an abandoned warehouse close to King's Cross he was seriously ill from ingesting rat poison. He died two days later. His death may have been suicide, although he may have been hungry. The poison he ingested was a paste smeared on bread crusts to attract rats.

The St Pancras coroner, tipped off about the need for a corpse that wouldn't be missed, alerted Montagu. After illegally removing the body it was stored in a mortuary. Three months later it was set adrift from a submarine off the Spanish coast near Huelva.

To appear more real, Naval Intelligence gave Major Martin a private life:
- he had fake letters from a fiancée “Pam”,
- theatre ticket stubs,
- a bill for an engagement ring,
- letter from an exasperated father demanding his son sort out his financial affairs.

While the deception was intrequate and well plotted, it was the willingness of the Germans to believe. This is what assured the success of Operation Mincemeat. If the Abwehr had been doing its job properly, they would have spotted the deception. The agents in Huelva were looking for something to advance their careers. Once the Führer believed, none of the yes men around him dared suggest otherwise. Even the sceptical Dr Goebbels recorded his doubts only in his diary.

On 14 May 1943 Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz met Hitler. The Admiral, referring to the Mincemeat documents as the “Anglo-Saxon order”, recorded:

The Führer does not agree with ... [Mussolini] that the most likely invasion point is Sicily. Furthermore, he believes that the discovered Anglo-Saxon order confirms the assumption that the planned attacks will be directed mainly against Sardinia and the Peloponnesus.

This is a well researched and readable book. It's a must for anybody interested in the Second World War and the British Secret Service of the time.