How to Fool a Führer - Operation Mincemeat - WW2 - Spies & Ties 19

some strange news reaches out of hitler sometime in the second week of may 1943. a dead british officer carrying secret documents has been recovered from the sea of spain these documents carry details of upcoming allied invasion of priests and sardinia and of a decoy invasion to take place in sicily hitler is skeptical he wonders if it is a hoax but on may 11th his star intelligence officer assesses the information as genuine of course we know that this is a british disinformation operation sicily is in fact the real target now it all rests on the fur what will he command his word will decide the outcome of operation mince meat [Music] this is spice and ties a subseries of world war ii in real time and i am astrid dinard hello darlings glad to be back today we're picking up the story of operation mints meat you have been waiting for right that's the british mission to convince the germans that the next allied targets are greece and sardinia and that the real landing plant for sicily is nothing more than a faint which was of highest importance to be covered up key to that mission is a body the body of a british royal marine officer named william martin what we have seen that this gentleman started off as someone else entirely under the command of mi5 men charles chumley a naval intelligence officer ooh in mountain queue the body of a homeless man named gwinder michael was magically transformed into william martin major william martin officer in the british navy if you're scratching your head right now i recommend you go back and watch my previous episode number one about operation mincemeat okay martin was carried from britain by submarine and set adrift off the coast of hueva on the morning of april 30th the deceptive documents packed into his briefcase and in his suit he was recovered by a spanish fisherman now we rejoin the action the next morning may 1st as major martin awaits his autopsy british vice council in nueva frances hasselton is invited in to oversee proceedings by a spanish naval judge lightning pascual the mobile pension okay first del pobile goes through martin's pockets and his briefcase so the letters are quite literally now in spanish hands in theory they should be passed up the chain of command and then return to the british and somewhere in this process the germans should get a look in almost immediately though there's a snack derek will offers to hand the letters over straight away he says this will be much easier for everyone involved hazardon stares at him with his best poker face i'm sure his heart is racing oh my god er think about it why would del po refuse he gives the letter back quickly and can leave the stinking shed and get some lunch right he adopts a tone of concern and says something along the lines of well i wouldn't want you to get in trouble uh you should follow the official route deliver the case to your superior so staring back dell paville pax the briefcase up with the idea cart wallet and pocket litter and agrees that they will be handed over to the naval commander at the port of whoever next up is the autopsy hazard stays to watch poor guy britain's lady pathologist had been consulted on the plan do you remember that he rather arrogantly said that there was nothing to worry about from a spanish autopsy that was important because guinder had died of phosphorus poisoning as you may remember not drowning now he might have to eat his words for whatever reason the spanish have rolled out a big gun for this dr eduardo fernandez del torno is the senior pathologist for in for or in whoever he's got over 20 years experience his expertise bummer drownings okay the inside of gunders body is in a pretty advanced stage of decomposition it's so filled with fluid that hazelden will later describe a minor explosion upon fernandez making his first incision hazelden has got to stop this pronto vernon death might just spot the hole in this plan he's on friendly terms with the fernandez so he suggests that because the heat has so damaged the body there's little point carrying out a detailed autopsy right the british are happy to accept drowning as the cause of death quick thinking fernandez has missed the decoloration of the skin from phosphorus poisoning but what he has noticed is that the dead man doesn't quite match the id photo fortunately for hazardon senior felon death is keen to get away from the bloated stinking corpse so he sets these nickels aside and gives a final verdict on death by drowning with that grinder michael's service to his country is finished but who was he before he became major martin huh so let's look at that well like i said his body was obtained at the end of january the 28th to be precise his death was recorded as suicide by ingesting phosphorus i don't know why he was just 34. his life ended in london but began in abu bakr in south wales in january 1909. his mother was illiterate and his father worked in the mines they struggled to keep a roof over their heads during gwinder's childhood the family moved once twice several times across south wales his father's health was poor not only did he have untreated syphilis but mining caused his lungs to waste away he died in march 25 of pneumonia glinda his mother and his three youngest siblings received help from charity of course and moved into a tiny flat in tree law near tony pandy south wales was hit hot during the great depression and glinder managed to find nothing more than part-time work as a gardener and laborer he wasn't called up in 39 hardly surprising he was mentally and physically totally unfit further tragedy came in january 40. glenda's brother and sister had already moved away and in january his mother died his last source of support was gone after her death glinda vanished he wasn't until winter 1942 that he turned up sleeping in a lodging house in west london he may have been undergoing some form of treatment in an asylum nobody knows and that is the last we know of him until he died and entered service as his alter ego major martin we thank you for your service but back to spain where the wheels of the conspiracy are set in motion at 8 30 in the evening hazard sends a message notifying the british embassy in madrid of the jet officer and of arrangements for a funeral and whoever he explains that the spanish navy has taken possession of all of major martin's papers this message is purely to get the up there on the scent all the lies into and out of madrid embassy are of course bugged actually the up they already know it's no surprise that they've been tipped off the regional of their chief has a good chunk of the town in his pay his name is adolf klaus he and his men keep watch on british merchant shipping and spot targets for you birds in you and montague's words the man is a super super spy but klaus is having trouble persuading the spanish navy to hand over the documents the spanish navy is mostly british and klaus has little influence with them his requests are met with polite refusal no back in london chumley and montague are frustrated by this lack of progress so what do they decide so they decide to impress upon the germans just how very important those papers are right on may 4th they sent another unequipped cable for their audience in the april this goes to british naval attache in madrid captain alan hilgard get those papers back now as soon as possible is the gist of it hilgard also starts spreading word of the lost briefcase among his acquaintances in madrid with any luck this will filter through to the germans on may 5th the spanish navy transfers the papers to cadiz in preparation for forwarding to madrid so klaus tries his luck there he mobilizes his connections in the spanish jin john da movie the guardian civil to make inquiries again they're rebuffed meanwhile chumley and montague sent more messages to her guard in madrid secret papers probably in a black briefcase care should be taken it does not get in undesirable hands they write on may the 7th no luck that same day the papers are transferred to madrid and are given over to admiral moreno minister of the navy adolf claus has failed now is the job for the affair in madrid okay let's see how that goes that would be major cal erich kulentar he's known as don pablo and the capitals bars if anyone can get these letters it's him mi5 rate him as efficient and extremely dangerous kurentel decides to outflank the navy he turns to colonel jose lopez he is secretary general of the direction general de sikoridat or dgs spanish sacred police he's about to pro-german as it's possible he fought on the eastern front with a blue division and his dsg keeps record of all of spain's juice there you have it together kurental and the colonel convinced the pro-german minister of war to force the ministry of the navy to share the documents some say it was the intervention of franco which swung it we can't know for sure but on may the 8th the spanish gracefully hand over the letters first they have to crack them open i say crack but actually they gently extract the letters without breaking the waxil the gum which holds the envelopes closed has dissolved in the sea water of course this means that one of the flaps can be gently bent open giving access to the letter inside then a long metal probe with a hook on the end is slipped into the letter by careful winding the dam paper can be curled up around the probe into a cylinder it's then slipped out and through the gap in the envelope finally the lattice are dried under a lamp and examined later that day the spanish hand the letters over to the german embassy kulental and his boss leisna are told you have exactly one hour to do whatever you want with them we want them back then immediately the letters are read and photocopied the originals are giving back to the spanish who carefully reinsert them into their envelopes and soak them in saltwater this leaves almost no trace of their opening the spanish will give the originals back to the british on may the 11th leicester's skeptical he thinks it's strange that the letters contain both the code names for the operation husky and the intended target isn't that an obvious security risk but kunta is convinced of their authenticity he's already been summoned to berlin and he takes the copies with him on may the 9th so hold on aren't things that up there hq a bit strange kulentan has just overruled the concerns of leisner who is his boss it's all down to internal politics coolant has a cuckoo in the nest he has so impressed his seniors including admiral canaris that he's pushed leicester aside to be little more than a figurehead kulental is also a quarter jewish and highly insecure about this perhaps he's even part of canaris anti-nazi conspiracy right the admiral had him aryanized and kulental always seeks to impress his bosses with big scoops in fact he sometimes inserts fake sensational details into his own intelligence this is all great for the allies right if leisner had gone to berlin he might have shared his doubts kulentat presents the documents as that from the abwaya the letters go to the oba commando desires okaha german army high command the job of evaluating the information goes to fremdejerevest foreign army's west or v they produce intelligence reports about the western allies for hitler or cavi and field commanders head of frv is colonel alexis barron from rene he's a favorite of hitler he pleased the fura by correctly predicting that the french marginal line could be breached in 1940. he loves him now he can make or break the entire scheme from his team evaluate the letters they draw on their assessment of british and american troop movements in north africa they read and re-read statements given by the spanish he writes up his final report on may the 11th he swallows the ploy completely large-scale amphibious assaults are planned for the peloponnese in greece and for sardinia and sicily is nothing more than a hoax actually foreign hasn't been completely duped he knows that this could be a ruse but he signs it off anyway why i hear you ask well he's a baltic german from an aristocratic christian family and he hates the upstart nazi thux there we have it since witnessing the work of the ss in poland he's resolved to do his bit to fight back his goals aren't entirely clear he wants to get rid of the nazis but he also hates bolshevism what he does is deliberately inflate the size of the western allies armies in his reports perhaps in this way he believes he can push the nazi government towards a separate peace with the west while allowing the war against the soviet union to continue who knows his endorsement of mincemeat is crucial like i said in the beginning hitler is skeptical but he reads fondrana's report and by may 12th he's both into the conspiracy if fondrena believes it it must be true hitler issues a military directive defensive measuring regarding sardinia and the greek peloponnese are to take precedence over everything else about the same time the men and women in room number 13 of the admiralty basement learn of their success on may the 12th montague searches through their decrypted material sent over from bletchley park right nestled among the documents is a message from general alfred ural ukavi chief of operations the man responsible for german war planning it is instructions to begin putting hitler's defensive measured in place yodel states that his decision is based on information that is absolutely reliable with this news there's celebration in room 13 quickly a telegram is dispatched to churchill who is in washington dc for a trident conference i'm sure that puts him in a very good mood in germany some within frv raised doubts over the next few days but van grener brushes them aside frv questioned kuntaligan but he refuses to consider this that his intelligence might be wrong anyway hitler believes it and that's all that matters really perhaps the reason why mincemeat takes hold so successfully is that the german high command wanted to be true they've just suffered defeat in north africa now they see a chance to strike back and push the allies into the sea throughout may and june the british mount deceptions to reinforce the conspiracy mincemeat runs along a much bigger operation codenamed barclay look it up men carry out diversionary reconnaissance missions on sardinia and the greek island of sante soe step up operations with the greek resistance operation waterfall great operation by the way use it dummy tanks and planes to hint at an army or root for the balkans the axis shift forces to sardinia and greece to prepare to fight invasions that are never coming the troop count in sardinia will be doubled to almost 10 000. the number of german divisions in greece will grow from one to eight by july but is sicily then completely defenseless well you'll have to watch indy's upcoming episode to find out but we can already say this much a daring ruse based on a plan so complicated it could have fallen apart at any time has succeeded it might not be the only thing that paves the way for allied success but for certain the lonely death of the sad character grinder michael has made him immortal as the man who will have saved countless british and american lives by removing their enemy to a place where they are not going and until this day we will be fascinated and thrilled at the idea of a dead homeless man fooling the nazis and putting egg on hitler's face well done if you would like to hear more about what was going on in spain in between the walls check out our between two wars episode on the spanish civil war i'll put it in the links to become a part of our efforts to expose how foolish narcissism and other evils are join the time ghost army at timeghost.tv or patron.com and i will see you next time you

Channel: World War Two

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Keywords: The Great War, Wold War Two, WWII, WWI, Pacific War, WW2, Indy Neidell, Indy Neidell WW2, World War Two in realtime, World War Two YouTube, YouTube, Historian, History, Greece, Sardinia, Sicily, Operation Mincemeat, William Martin, Glyndwr Michael, Heulva, Francis Haselden, Pascuel del Pobil, Dr Eduardo Fernandex del Torno, Adolf Clauss, Great Britain, Charles Cholomendely, Ewen Montagu, Alan Hillgarth, Cadiz, Karl-Erich Kulenthal, Wilhelm Leissner, Alexis Baron von Roenne

Id: Ls-Lcs3bWmA

Length: 24min 49sec (1489 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 04 2022