THE DEAD DECEIVE

See Also: THE SECOND WORLD WAR

From the start of 1943 it became increasingly apparent that the Allies were probably going to win the portion of the war that was being fought in North Africa. It was clear to the Axis powers that it would then only be a matter of time before an invasion of Southern Europe would be launched. The Allies were planning to seize Sicily. Therefore, they wished to give the impression that the landings that they were preparing for were going to occur elsewhere.

Charles Cholmondley was an R.A.F. officer who was too short-sighted to be allowed to fly. He had been seconded to M.I.5. He devised Operation Mincemeat as a means of misleading the Axis powers as to what was about to happen in the Mediterranean theatre. The scheme centred upon the creation of Major William Martin, a Royal Marines officer who never existed.

The programme was supervised by the intelligence service's Twenty Committee.¹ The Naval Intelligence Division was charged with executing the concept. Ewen Montagu, a former barrister, helped to develop the plan. Those who worked on it included four future novelists, one of whom was Ian Fleming.²

A series of papers were prepared for placement upon a corpse. They included a number of love letters that were written by Hester The Spin Leggett,³ and a photograph of the major's fianc e.⁴ The bait, secreted amidst the context, was a letter that purported to be from Sir Archie Nye, the Vice-Chief of the Imperial General Staff, to General Harold Alexander who was serving in North Africa. This indicated that the Allies real landings would be in Sardinia and The Peloponnese and that a diversionary exercise would pretend to strike at Sicily.

Despite the Blitz, it proved to be very hard to source an uninjured corpse. Finally, one was found. Glyndwr Michael had been a mentally unstable, 34-year-old Welsh homeless man who had committed suicide by eating rat poison in a warehouse close to King's Cross. His body was acquired with the - illegal - aid of Sir Bentley Purchase, the Coroner for St Pancras.

The cadaver was prepared so that it appeared that Martin had been an aircraft that had been shot-down while it had been flying over the Mediterranean. The pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury gave advice on how this should be done. There was concern that the corpse had already experienced a degree of decomposition that was not compatible with it being the body of a recently drowned man. The underwear that was placed upon it had been owned by the Oxford historian H.A.L. Fisher, who had been killed in a traffic accident. The garments were secured by John Masterman, the Chairman of the Twenty Committee, who was also an Oxford history don. He had detested Fisher.

It was known that there was a Nazi agent who was active in and around the Spanish town of Huelva, which was located on the country's southern Atlantic coast. The corpse was transported in a specially-built trunk that was packed with dry ice. This had been built by Charles Fraser-Smith of the Ministry of Supply.⁵ On 30 April 1943, about 1600 yards offshore, the cadaver was released from the submarine Seraph into the sea. Lieutenant Bill Jewell, the vessel's commander, paid his respects to the late Mr Michael by reading out the 39th Psalm. The body washed ashore on a beach. There, it was found by Spanish fishermen.

The organisational flexibility that had allowed the Operation to emerge and to be developed was not paralleled in Germany, where there was a fear of venturing any intelligent, sceptical opinion that questioned what the Nazi hierarchy wanted to be told. Through being able to read the encrypted Ultra communications traffic, the Mincemeat group were able to watch how the bait was being taken. In the wake of Stalingrad and Alamein, the German leadership was open to wishful thinking. Karl-Erich K hlenthal wanted a triumph to aid his career and so chose to take the documents to Berlin in person. In order to make them seem more plausible, he embellished them.

Within the Nazi hierarchy the only person who expressed any doubts about the authenticity of the corpse and its accompanying information was Joseph Goebbels. However, he chose to express his reservations only in his diary. Baron Alexis Freiherr von Roenne, the head of Fremde Heere West (Foreign Armies West), may have had his misgivings about the material. However, he was an anti-Nazi conspirator. Hitler trusted von Roenne s endorsement of the Nye letter and therefore fell for the deception.

Erwin Rommel and a large body of men were dispatched to the Balkans to bolster the Axis presence there. This redeployment of forces involved ending the vast tank battle that had been being fought at Kursk. Thereby, the Soviet Army was aided materially. The first Allied troops landed on Sicily on 9 July 1943. As a result of the Operation's success, for the next month the Allies casualties on the island were relatively light.

Location: The Old Admiralty Building, SW1A 2PA. Naval Intelligence devised Operation Mincemeat in Room 39, which overlooks Horse Guards Parade. (blue, yellow)

St Pancras Coroner's Office, 26-35 Camley Street, N1C 4PP (purple, red)

¹. The first part of the body's name was often written as XX, i.e. double-cross.

². Paddy Bennett was involved in the Operation. Fleming is reputed to have used her as the model for Miss Moneypenny.

³. The Spin was a contraction of the spinster . It was generally thought that she would be very unlikely to marry.

⁴. In reality, Jean Leslie, a pretty M.I.5 secretary.

⁵. Fraser-Smith was to be the model for the character of Q in the James Bond novels.

David Backhouse 2024