How the Nazis Lost the War Because of a Single Corpse

hey 42 here lots of random odds and ends get washed up on the beach seashells seaweed empty plastic bottles driftwood the corpse of a welsh dressed up to look like an officer of the royal marines okay so maybe that last one was a bit of a curveball but that's exactly what a spanish fisherman found near the port city of huelva in 1943 during the second world war of course it isn't unheard of for dead soldiers to wash up on beaches in times of war but this was no ordinary corpse and in discovering it the unwitting fishermen triggered the first step in a carefully orchestrated chain of events devised by the british secret service to fool adolf hitler into making a catastrophic tactical blunder you see by this point in the war the tide was already beginning to turn in favor of the allies the japanese attack on pearl harbor in 1941 had convinced the united states to make a timely appearance on the global battlefield the nazi invasion of the soviet union was fast turning into an unmitigated disaster and the allies had just scored a resounding victory in the north african campaign but for all this success by early 1943 the nazis and daraxis allies still controlled most of europe something that was going to need to be rectified if the war was to be won luckily with the north african campaign concluded the allies suddenly had huge numbers of troops in need of a new assignment the only question was what were they going to do with them victory in africa had opened up a whole new angle of attack against the axis powers and the allies planned to use it there were two possible targets sicily which would give the allies a foothold in italy and clear important shipping lanes in the mediterranean or greece allowing for a pincer movement pressing the germans up against the soviets on the eastern front both options had their merits but as far as the allies were concerned only one really made sense invading sicily unfortunately sicily was such a juicy target hanging there like a big ripe strategically important plum at the end of italy's big toe the axis powers were bound to anticipate the attack and concentrate their defenses accordingly which brings me back to our recently deceased welsh who also happens to be the key to operation mincemeat a stroke of tactical deception so ridiculous and bizarre the fact it actually worked surprised everyone not least to people who devised it the aim of operation mincemeat was simple convince hitler as well as fellow fascism enthusiast benito mussolini and all the rest of the axis powers that greece rather than sicily was the ultimate destination for the allies troops in north africa but how exactly do you go about fooling the sharpest minds in the nazi party into thinking you're going to do one thing when really you're going to do the complete opposite easy you find a nice fresh corpse dress it up to look like a british royal marine shove a briefcase full of fake top secret documents into its cold dead hands then drop the corpse into the ocean wait for it to get washed up and discovered by german intelligence and finally hope they believe the fictional invasion plans you've planted inside the briefcase are authentic okay so maybe it's not that easy if all of this is starting to sound like something straight out of a james bond movie then hey that's very perceptive of you operation mincemeat was based in part on a short document of creative military deception techniques called the trout memo which was circulated by a man named admiral john godfrey but whilst godfrey took all the credit for the ideas in the trout memo most historians seem to agree the document was probably written by his assistant ian fleming who after the war would go on to write the first bond novel whilst the trout memo contains the central idea behind operation mincemeat it didn't account for all the finer points of the plan like where to get the body how to create a plausible identity for a man who never existed or how to transport a corpse all the way to spain without being murdered by germans intelligence officers charles chumley yes weirdly that is how you pronounce that and you and montagu were tasked with overcoming those little challenges and the first thing on their checklist was to obtain a corpse for the job at hand not only did the corpse have to be the right age and gender but the deceased also had to have died recently so as to be in a believable state of decomposition when discovered whilst plenty of young men died on a regular basis during the war it turns out most families in mourning want their loved ones laid to rest respectfully as opposed to dressed up in uniform and tossed into the ocean upon their tragic demise which meant chumley and montagu would ideally need to find a body with no known relatives under normal circumstances it might have been almost impossible to find a suitable stiff in such short notice but this was wartime and unlike sugar coal and nylon dead bodies were one of the few commodities not in short supply so chumley and montagu made a few discreet inquiries and before long word of an appropriate body reached their ears before becoming a full-time corpse that body had belonged to glyndor michael a welsh vagrant who'd tragically taken his own life by ingesting grat poison in an abandoned warehouse in king's cross glindor's body fit the bill perfectly and with no family to notify of his death it was soon at the disposal of the british secret service of course obtaining a corpse was only the first step in the mincemeat plan before it could be dropped into spanish waters it needed a new identity so chumley and montague set about transforming wells vagrant glindor michael into the fictitious major william martin distinguished member of the royal marines nothing could be left a chance when attempting to deceive high-ranking nazi officials so their attention to detail needed to be meticulous even major william martin's name and rank were carefully chosen he was designated the official rank of acting major as this made him senior enough to be entrusted with top secret documents but not prominent enough that his name or face would be known to the germans the surname martin was chosen simply because it was the most common name amongst officers of the same rank as for him being a royal marine that was more a case of convenience their uniforms were the easiest to obtain or at least that's what chumley and montagu thought until they encountered an unexpected uniform related problem as a high-ranking member of the royal marines major william martin would be expected to be sporting a lovely pair of woolen underpants any other kind would raise suspicions the nazis may have counted some of the most evil men in history amongst their number but apparently they really knew their underpants unfortunately such luxuries as woolen drawers were in very limited supply at the time and no one was willing to part with theirs but this little issue was eventually solved by another recently deceased person a college warden by the name of herbert fisher whose grieving family kindly donated a pair of his old undies to the war effort not only did major william martin need to be dressed appropriately he also needed to have a convincing backstory these days someone could have whipped up a facebook page complete with embarrassing junking photos of the majors university days in no time at all but back then they had to be a bit more creative chumley and montague started to curate a collection of what they like to refer to as pocket litter personal items and trinkets that would make major martin feel real things like cigarettes posted stamps matches keys receipts and ticket stubs the major was even given a fictitious fiancee called pam who existed in the form of two love letters a receipt for a diamond engagement ring and a rather saucy photograph well for the time of pam drying herself off with a beach towel in reality pam was jean and jean worked just down the corridor it's mi5 of all the fake documentation needed to bring major martin to life the most important and problematic was his naval id card the problem was there were no photos of glindor michael from his pre-rat poison days attempts were made to photograph the cadaver but michael made a terrible model he was far too stiff [Music] montague pondered over this little poser for days before realizing the solution to his problem was staring him right in the face literally during a meeting at mi5 he found himself sitting across from a man named ronnie reed who in montague's own words could have been the twin brother of glindor michael so reed's headshot was taken and the id card was completed for added authenticity montague then spent the next few weeks rubbing the card against his trouser leg in order to give it an authentic warning look which was all the rage for id cards at the time chumley and montague finally had everything they needed to set operation mincemeat into action but as the body was dressed and readied for transportation the pair hit another snag this time in the form of major martin's military boots to keep the body preserved it had been kept on ice for several months but as i'm sure you're aware attempting to jam a pair of standard issue military boots onto the feet of a frozen corpse is no mean feat and trying as they might chumley and montagu couldn't manage it luckily this little hurdle was overcome relatively easily the pair grabbed the nearest electrical heater plugged it in aimed at it the corpse's feet and forged their mouse until they were just soft enough to slide the boots right into place and you thought being a spy was glamorous with his id card suitably worn a saucy photograph of his fiancee in his pocket and his military boots laced up glindor michael was now officially major william martin of the royal marines leaving the secret service to turn their attention to the next stage of the plan delivering the body into the hands of the nazis spain was chosen for the drop as it was known to be rife with german spy activity at the time and the british knew a washed-up royal marine would soon have the nazis buzzing around it like flies around well a dead body but simply dropping the corpse out of a plane and into the ocean was far too risky people tend to notice things like aeroplanes during world wars and boats are also pretty conspicuous this job called for something a little more covert a submarine called the hms seraph the seraph took 10 days to complete its journey to the spanish coastline after a day of reconnaissance the submarine surfaced and the body which had been preserved inside a specially built container was brought up to the deck and released into the ocean it was discovered only a few hours later news soon reached the nazis who were practically salivating at the prospect of having a sneaky peek inside major william martin's top secret briefcase official procedures dictated that the spanish authority should have sent the briefcase straight back to the british and they did but as had been predicted first they allowed german spies to have a gander at the goodies inside we know this because when the secret service inspected the documents after their return to britain a single eyelash which had been carefully placed within the folds of one of the letters was noticeably absent the fictitious plans had been read by the enemy photographs of the falsified documents ran up the nazi command's chain faster than you could do one of those salutes that would get you arrested today and soon enough they found their way into the hand of the fuhrer himself he didn't doubt the authenticity of the plans for one moment in fact when benito mussolini tried to convince him that it seemed very likely the allies would focus their attentions on sicily not greece hitler simply refused to listen and he was adamant the spies had struck gold by intercepting genuine british military plans this blind belief in the authenticity of the documents might sound a little naive after all it must have occurred to someone that the documents could have been faked but the deception went beyond just a body and a briefcase the whole ruse was supported by a large number of pre-scripted diplomatic cables exchanged between britain and spain in which the british made it clear how important it was that the briefcase be recovered and kept out of the hands of the nazis the real genius here was that these messages were all heavily encrypted but the british knew the germans had cracked their cipher when the briefcase finally made it back to blighty a further series of messages was sent to report the tests have been carried out on the contents of the case confirming they hadn't been compromised this was a vital step as naturally the allies would have changed their plans if they had reason to believe the germans had gotten wind of them the complex deception was outrageously successful convinced he had gotten one over on the allies hitler gave orders for an entire panzer division of some 90 000 soldiers to be deployed to a place britain had absolutely no intention of invading leaving the allies free to invade sicily with relative ease by the time hitler realized his mistake it was too late the successful invasion of sicily held huge consequences for hitler and his attempts at world domination it paved the way for the allied invasion of italy and hastened mussolini's fall from power and in his desperation to regain control of the mediterranean hitler called off a huge planned offensive against the soviet union diverting one-fifth of the entire german army from the east to southern europe giving the soviets a decisive advantage in the battle for the eastern front if the tides of war had been starting to turn when operation mincemeat was first conceived by the time the grand deception had actually panned out it isn't much of a stretch to suggest the allies were actually winning today operation minsmith is regarded as one of the most successful feats of deception ever pulled off in the theater of war the modern day equivalent of the trojan horse had the mission failed it's possible the outcome of the war would have been very different and a lot more swastikery but what of the real hero of the story glindor michael the welsh vagrant who died twice to deceive the nazis a man who'd felt his own life so insignificant he decided to end it alone in a warehouse in london his body was buried in spain with full military honors for many years his tombstone only bore the name of his fictional alter ego the man who never was major william martin but in 1997 his real name was finally added to his resting place the great tragedy of course is that glindor michael will never know how he fooled hitler and changed the course of history in the process thank you for watching you can get your hands on my book stick a flag in it over on amazon or on audible links to both in the description below thank you

Channel: Thoughty2

Views: 1,620,659

Rating: 4.9275527 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: Iipsxj3hRpE

Length: 18min 13sec (1093 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 21 2021