Operation Mincemeat WWII deception prior to invading Italyby Ian Fleming Full

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at dawn on an April morning in 1943 with the Second World War at its height a young Spanish fisherman spotted a strange object floating in the water here of the south coast of Spain as he rode closer he saw it was the body of a dead man the corpse was wearing a life jacket over a British uniform the briefcase attached to the wrists by a chain was floating alongside him the face had begun to rot and the stench was overpowering the fisherman called the body onto his boat believing he had found a casualty of war in fact he had just set in train operation mincemeat a deception plan that would change the course of the Second World War we've all were terrified by the Official Secrets Act and thought we'd end up in the Tower of London if if we get it gave anything away my father used to say both out isn't it natural bent towards criminality intercepts strawberry story that's what was always cherished that you know nothing about it where you swore to secrecy well I never say with some seizure said we were rather good secret people's in 1943 the men and women in this subterranean room began work on an extraordinary plan inspired by none other than Ian Fleming a young intelligence officer who would go on to create James Bond three years earlier Fleming had worked on a list of 51 suggestions for deceiving the enemy including schemes too outlandish even for double-oh-seven number 28 on the list was headed a suggestion not a very nice one a corpse dressed as an airman with dispatches in his pockets could be dropped on the coast there is no difficulty in obtaining corpses but of course it would have to be a fresh one this was the sort of idea that Winston Churchill loved he deliberately encouraged spies with corkscrew minds because he knew that Hitler thought in straight lines British spy masters had a lower opinion of their German counterparts regarding them as dull humorless and predictable early in 1943 that opinion would be put to the test after three years of fierce fighting the Nazis still occupied most of Europe and vast territories in the Soviet Union Hitler remained convinced that world domination still lay within his grasp what the Allies now needed was a breakthrough the first crucial step would be an invasion of Sicily thousands of British and American troops were now massing in North Africa for the attack victory and Sicily would punch into the enemy's soft underbelly in Europe it might turn the tide of the war but there was a problem as Churchill put it anyone but a bloody fool would know it was Sicily the island was the obvious target and the Germans knew it it would need a deception of staggering daring to convince them otherwise the job of British intelligence was to convince the Germans that instead of attacking Sicily the target was Greece suddenly Ian Fleming's mad idea seemed almost sane there were two men who were perfect for this sort of scheme they worked at the heart of British intelligence one an RAF pilot who didn't fly and the other a royal naval commander who didn't go to sea together they would assemble the plan of planting fake documents on a corpse and find a way of getting it to the Germans Churchill had his corkscrew thinkers Charles Chumley was a 25 year old airforce officer with a magnificent waxed moustache and a very peculiar mind in his spare time he studied the mating habits of insects and hunted partridge with a revolver I spelled him several times on the telephone in my work I was working for mi6 and he was an mi5 and one day by mistake has sent him the wrong papers they were top secret and I had to get them back somewhere and I was terribly worried about this and so I rang him up said I'm terribly sorry I've sent you these wrong papers what shall I do and he suggested that I met him outside the Piccadilly herd and had dinner with him one evening I was standing there waiting on the pavement outside the hotel for a minute or two and I saw this very tall man who later described himself as toothpaste squeezed out from the tube he said my name is Chumley spelled CH o LM om d le why and he always said Charles Chumley CH o he just seemed happy very pleased and happy was life as if life was one big adventure Chumley was joined by Ewan Montague a bold and ambitious naval intelligence officer as a brilliant barrister before the war Montague could see inside the minds of his opponents and exploit their weaknesses ruthlessly he wants to go to sea because he joined the supplementary reserve of he want to go to sea and then they found out that he was a lawyer in evidence barrister as they whipped him after that shot him off after of naval attentions because that sort of mind is trained to cut through deception as a course as part of the job that you deceive and you and you identify deception he was delightful he was enormous ly tall had enormous feet and he used to loaf around a nude seal of feet long before you saw his head he wanted everything done at once which and of course that's one of the secrets of his success Montagu ran the counter espionage unit in naval intelligence housed in a stuffy smoky underground room deep inside the Admiralty the members of section 17 M spent their days gathering and analyzing enemy intelligence it was really a small room we would sometimes twelve people in that room and they were air I think though air for six and we had this fluorescent lighting which made everyone look blue and people were large smoke it was just a sea of smoke at times on yearns desk and on one or two of the other desks in the room there was what called scrambler telephones so you you get a call in and who wanted to talk something secret you'd say shall we scram we'll press a button and the whole conversation would be scrambled out and so no spy could hear it new and montague and charles Chumley they thought of absolutely everything and they could look round corners in a way that most people's minds don't go round corners the invasion of Sicily was set for July in 1943 that gave Montague and Chumlee just three months to find a dead body dress it up as a British officer plant false documents on it and leave it somewhere where the Germans would find it you might think that finding a dead body in the middle of the second world war would be pretty easy in fact finding the right sort of body would prove extremely tricky the most suitable sort of body would be somebody who'd perhaps drowned or who had died an accidental death have the sort of injuries that would be in keeping with an aircraft that had ditched and then somebody had been injured and then drowned or succumbed to their injuries when in the water there was one man in wartime Brittany with an almost inexhaustible supply of dead bodies he went by the delightfully Dickensian name of Sir Bentley purchase as the coroner of --scent pancreas he was in charge of the largest mortuary in the country Savanti purchase you more about death than any man living and he found every aspect of death amusing when Montague asked to come and see him birches replied with complicated directions to the mortuary but then he added an alternative method of getting here is of course to get run over Montagu asked the coroner to keep an eye open for a suitable corpse sir Bentley purchase was only too happy to oblige Bentley purchase would have a large number of people coming through his jurisdiction much the same as it would be now the problem would be finding a body which could be used for that purpose perhaps the saddest chapter in operation mincemeat begins in a grim Welsh mining town a Babar guide was built on coal when the coal ran out there was nothing left it was here that a man called Glinda Michael was born his father an unemployed coal miner stabbed himself in the throat when Glyn was 15 years old the young boy signed his death certificate it is the only example of his handwriting that exists he was barely literate his mother died in 1940 alone in the world his mind beginning to disintegrate Glinda drifted to London in January 1943 homeless penniless and friendless Glinda Oh Michael killed himself with rat poison in a disused warehouse near Kings Cross he was 34 years old he died unloved and unlimited but not unnoticed ah is the entry Glynda michael 34 male lunatic phosphorus poisoning taken orally suicide here was the perfect candidate sir bentley purchase was waiting at the morgue Glynda Michael had no family there were no physical marks on him above all he had died in the right way Venky Proteus was adamant the poison would never show up in an autopsy the body could be made to look as if it had died at sea after an aircraft the team who were dealing with the operation had been informed that somebody who died of white phosphorus poisoning over I essentially rat poisoning would be good for this sort of operation and that the state of pathology at that time was such that they wouldn't be able to detect any inconsistencies between the reality of this man's death and the story that was being spun about it at last Montague and Chumley had their body but they still needed a codename all this talk of corpses was having an effect and so they settled on a name they reflected their black sense of humor operation needs meet the two men now began to invent an entirely new personality the more believable they could make him the more likely the Germans were to swallow the faint and so over the next two months with the body securely locked inside the refrigerator they set their imaginations to work to create a fiction so dazzling that the Germans were accepted as truth almost as if they were putting on a show from the tragic life of Glinda Michael they decided to forge a doomed hero first the character needed a name Glinda Oh Michael was erased from history in his place was William Martin a major in the Royal Marines an officer a gentleman and the sort of chap who could be entrusted with top-secret documents even if he died in the process which he would getting hold of the right uniform was easy far more tricky was finding the right underwear help came from an unexpected quarter during the war everything was rationed including underwear neither Montague nor chun-li nor anyone else was willing to surrender their own and so the underpants vest and socks would come from the University of Oxford two years earlier the warden of New College the immensely distinguished historian H al Fisher had been run over by a truck Fisher had left behind the library of scholarly works and an impressive collection of underwear this would now be commandeered for the war effort now I have in my hand a pair of ancient Underpants and we are in the wardens lodgings in New College Oxford in the master bedroom that was once occupied by the great historian H al Fisher well these pants belong to HL Fisher who was the warden the new college previously had been a cabinet member and the Lord George a very very distinguished historian and he died in 1940 so when the Tramp was being carefully dressed as major Martin the very clever men who were working on this thought well any decent officer and a gentleman would have a proper pair of Underpants and what could be better than the underpants of somebody who held the order of merit what do you think he would have made of the fact that his underwear was deployed in the war effort I think he would be appalled if that is what he is mainly remembered for he was a man who was known to be rather proud of his record and his achievements so I think it would have been mildly horrified that he should now be remembered in the 21st century for his underwear there were no photographs of glinda Michael but they needed one for his identity card they tried photographing the corpse but found that a dead man's face never looks anything but for weeks you and Montague scarred London looking for a look-alike until he found a fellow intelligence officer who is the spitting image of the dead man right down to his spindly mustache with the hero fully dressed as Major William Martin of the Royal Marines the two men now set about filling his pockets you look inside my wallet you'll find all sorts of things that tell you a little bit about Who I am train tickets business cards press card unpaid parking fines its spy jargon this is known as wallet litter Montague and Chumlee has now set about assembling the wallet litter for Bill Martin receipts bills bus tickets letters the small clues to his character the man they had in mind would be brave and romantic but disorganized and deeply in debt dear sir I'm given to understand that in spite of repeated applications you're over doll and mounting 279 pounds 19 shillings and tuppence still help stands doors faithfully Ernest weakley-jones joint general manager Lloyds Bank the bank managers letter was added to the dead man's wallet there was federal whale of a time now if the I hope idea of fooling the jurors the top of their bed would you enjoy Bill Martin now had a bank manager an overdraft and a clean set of underwear what he needed next was a girlfriend but so montt have you now invited the female staff of British intelligence to submit photographs themselves photographs that might be included in the dead man's wallet a sort of top-secret beauty contest from this fragrant lineup Montague chose the winner a photograph of Jean Leslie a young secretary in the mi5 typing pool someone said anybody got any photographs they can give us to use so being always freshly enthusiastic and left into my hand back where I found this one photograph taken it was actually taken scrunching in cow mud on the banks of the Thames as I said see the company this is anywho sure is it returned habit of your tears and they took it now 88 Jean Leslie is returning to the Oxfordshire countryside where her photograph was taken she has not been back for almost 70 years so Jean what happened on that day in 1942 when you came down here I walked down and we always got into the river have a good swim and then your friend took a photograph yes she took a very great snapper he was a great snapper was he and he was he was in the army wasn't yes yes he was anonymous never he was a nice snapper when did you have any idea that the photograph might have any significance at all not very remotest what were you doing in those days in 1942 where he in the war of his which bit of the War Office mi5 are you allowed to tell us any more about what you were doing there we'll leave it at that and leave it at that quite right too there was one thing that we were all rather jealous of we would have liked to have been one of the the girl whose photograph went on the body we would have liked to have written the letter that was came from the girlfriend but that all went to the mi5 side I'm afraid and we felt that was slightly unjust alongside the photograph in his wallet Bill Martin would carry fake love letters from his fake girlfriend her name was Pam I do think dearest that seeing people off at railway stations is one of the poorer forms of sport a train going out can leave a Harlan great gap in one's life that lovely golden day we spent together how I know it has been said before but if only time could stand still the letters were actually written by Hester Leggett the head secretary of mi5 she was Stern elderly and unmarried but she poured her heart into Pam's letters like a young woman in love Hammond don't be a little fool darling do let me know when you get fixed and can make some more plans and don't please let them send me off into the bloom that horrible where they do nowadays now that we found each other out of the whole world oh my mouth we were all in on the plot every day you know we were told little bits and pieces and every day we had our little discussions we've just when strolled was the whole idea we didn't question anything if anything we just never wanted to elaborate it to complete this invented romance Bill Martin would buy a diamond engagement ring from the exclusive jeweler's Phillips of Bond Street a grand romantic gesture to seal this dude love affair now we've got here a receipt for a diamond ring from 1943 for 53 pounds 10 shillings and sixpence which of these these rings here would be equivalent to something like that I think that that is probably the nearest to the description of me my receipt what would the equivalent price of a ring like that be today what the ring you're holding is 13,000 pounds so that was that was some gesture that that major w Martin RM was making as a loss of money so Nicolas who do you think in the firm was in on the plot well I I don't honestly know whether anybody in the firm was in on the plot because if it was meant to be a secret why would they have divulged any information to anybody who was not absolutely vital do you think they invested 53 pounds 10 shillings and sixpence in buying a diamond ring the answer is no because we can't find any ring that was purchased by us that was sold for that amount of money do you think this is a real invoice well it's a real invoice for whether it were first or anything because if it does were still owed 53 pounds the receipt would join the rest of bill Martin's wallet litter Chumbley and Montague were falling in love with their own creation Charlotte wore Bill Martin's uniform every day to give it the right wear and tear but Montague went one step further he got more more convinced that he was Martin robberies he lived the part 100% as he decided I was Pam because there was this we have character called PAP who was me he slightly expensive me to respond Montague was married with two children but his family had been evacuated to the United States at the beginning of the war I we were shipped off to America because some young believed in getting rid of useless mouths because I suppose he had in the back of his mind that he knew he was on to stop her list as an eminent remember the Jewish community with his wife and children in America Montague now moved in with his mother here in the family home in Kensington he was now living a bachelors life Jean Leslie was young pretty and unattached mental cinema only went dancing around somewhere but he's a much richer man I had on the gentleman around that aid there was only about 18 19 I suppose it I enjoyed the excitement of the whole thing I relive the part of Pam yes King gave him a copy of the photograph on it she wrote till death do us part you're loving Pam he placed it on his dressing table here was the strangest romance imaginable fiction was slipping into fact privately montague began writing love letters to jean addressing her as Pam and signing himself bill Pam dearest I just loved the photograph it sounds as if you have a foreboding I have from your inscription on the photo I think you have the same fear I hope you meet someone worthy than me over yours bill PS try the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve next time you and Montague needless to say was in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve my grandmother who was living better the time she must have got worried because she wrote to my mother expressing some sort of worry about unity professor you better come back soon and things like that because you're too stuck-up this photograph Pam with love from PAML when he was cut off it's and so on and was wondering what the hell you was up to all these poor wretched wife came bouncing back from America where she was evacuated to get back should get this one I was supposed to draw he had I wasn't man Montague and Chumley were having fun maybe a little too much fun but their mission was deadly serious by April 1943 the Allied invasion of Sicily was only weeks away anticipating the attack the Germans were heavily reinforcing the island just as the Allies had feared Major William Martin must now play his part because all the little lies in Bill Martin's wallet litter were there to underpin one big lie a single official letter he'd be carrying clearly hinting that the Allies were about to attack not Sicily but Greece a letter so secret that the Germans would think Bill Martin was a special courier and that his plane had crashed into the sea the letter would be signed by General Sir Archibald Nye and addressed to general Harold Alexander the British commander in North Africa they went to Draft after Draft after draft until finally they hit upon a solution that was inspired and incredibly obvious they got the general to write it himself my dear Alex I'm taking advantage of sending you this personal letter by one of Mountbatten's officers carefully buried in general knives long and rambling letter was the bait a hint but an unmissable hint that Sicily was not the real target at all but merely the cover for a full-scale invasion of Greece best of luck yours ever Archie no urine came in one day may came up fate up to my desk I saw the feet first of course of one always did and he handed me a big envelope and said that will you write the address for general Alexander on this envelope which I did so I was I was slight seeing one up on some of the others on that at least my handwriting went on the body even if nothing else after months of preparation Bill Martin was almost ready Pam's photograph the love letters and all the rest of the wallet litter were placed in his pockets a single eyelash was inserted in the fold of general knives letter if it was returned to the British with the eyelash missing that would prove the contents had been read the letter was then put in a briefcase which would later be chained to the dead man at midnight on April the 19th 1943 Montague and Chumlee met at Hackney mortuary and extracted the course in the refrigerator but at the last moment they encountered an unexpected problem the feet of the body had frozen stiff and they couldn't get the boots on and so in the most macabre moment of the entire saga they obtained a two-bar electric heater and set about sewing the ankles of the dead man at last the boots ticked off Major William Martin of the Royal Marines was ready to go to war the body was inserted into a specially designed canister labeled optical instruments and bolted shut it was so exciting it was just like having an adventure story in in your own in your own life the first stop was Scotland where a submarine was waiting to take him to Spain to drive him there they recruited Sinjin Jacque forceful an mi5 chauffeur who also happened to be the fastest racing driver in the country forceful was short-sighted and refused to wear spectacles he drove a terrifying speed through the blackout in his own souped-up van while Montague Chumlee and the canister rolled around in the back the three men drove all night and into the next day covering the 500-mile through villages and towns heading north on the way the myopic driver failed to see a roundabout until too late and shot over the grass circle this was the closest Montague and Chumley came to death in action during the war once over the border they stopped for a cup of tea and even took souvenir photos of each other sitting on the canister on the west coast of Scotland hms serif was waiting for them the crew of hms serif had no inkling of what they were loading through the torpedo hatch the only person who knew what the canister contained was the captain Bill Jule leftenant Norman Lim Barry Auchinleck jewel known as bill was thirty years old with a cheerful grin and bright blue eyes understated and charming he was also tough as teak body with broad canister right the size of the torpedo for time the torpedo have no one except myself knew that it was a body therefore journey I to put him down on the coast of Spain the crew would be eating working and sleeping around the corpse as HMS Sarah took its secret cargo on a four-day voyage to the southern coast of Spain Spain was neutral but its dictator General Franco turned a blind eye to Nazi spies operating throughout the country if the fake documents could be got to the right spot there was every chance they've ended up on the desk of the only man who really matters Adolf Hitler you and Montague had already identified one Nazi spy who could be relied on to do the job he lived here in the port of huelva on the south coast of Spain bill Martin would be floated right up to his doorstep in his spare time Adolphe Klaus grew giant tomatoes and collected butterflies he also collected secrets nicknamed the shadow he was the most effective German spy in Spain Klaus was a menace to British shipping he and his network of spies spotted ships off the coast and passed this information on to the waiting you vote wolf pack's these activities had cost the Allies countless lives collecting his intelligence like butterflies he was systematic meticulous and deeply unimaginative what he and Chumley knew there man adult Klaus thought in straight lines he was tailor-made to be cute at dawn on April the 30th 1943 hms serif lay submerged 500 meters of the coast of well well we were just about surfing's when the fishing fleet went over the top of us when I click sardines we surface behind them close inshore we took the end off this canister brought the body and check that he got his papers and everything on him we've then stated my over the side and fullest and on the motors said that he'd be pushed in the right direction he said what I could remember of the funeral was having cerebral as Bill Martin floated to shore captain Jewell recited a passage from the Psalms I will keep my mouth as if it were with a bridle held my tongue and spake nothing I kept silence when we amigo de el pescadore capital avi Antonio de Maria he may come in Turkey una Mesa manana a la manna fell a brave fruit on de la playa de la mota negra Nicaragua do Minotaur you know Amara polis Allah illa ala playa Antonio mekin inta Carrabba como el otro ho Dermott Alleluia libecki la cara de un golpe a possible meant a sido una caja de Katan adore korabik en un Barco or vienna tennis event a REO yell abeyance Estrella contrl mark Jael Correa sri gopala Paula Ventana de la vie o-silk Raghava Kalka la ville de vera una Cantera avasara su cuerpo no associate on your eye in the midday heat the body was brought to the cemetery at Huelva in this tiny room two spanish doctors began to perform the autopsy first they emptied the dead man's pockets to find out who he might be and what he was doing floating in the sea off the coast of Spain the wallets and letters were then put to one side to dry out while the pathologist went to work on the body one of the witnesses was the British consul who was in on the plot he knew that the longer the autopsy continued the greater the risk that it would reveal the truth real danger in this case is that it would be identified immediately that the body was in a more advanced state of decomposition any experienced pathologist would be able to tell the difference between a body that had been lying in a fridge for two to three months and a body which had been in the Mediterranean for a matter of weeks and the risks of discovery were quite significant operation mincemeat was on a knife-edge thousands of lives now depended on the thoroughness of the Spanish doctors if the lie were exposed it would prove beyond doubt that the real target was Sicily the Allies could face catastrophe Montague and chun-li had foreseen this danger the British consul knew what to do he now stepped in and suggested that with the heat and the stench the Spanish doctors might like to call it a day they readily agreed and signed a death certificate that was both definitive and completely wrong officially Bill Martin had drowned as for the briefcase it was removed unopened and handed to the Spanish Navy for safekeeping that afternoon a man who had never been recognized for anything during his lifetime was buried in this cemetery with full military honors Glynda Michael had achieved little during his short and unhappy life now in death he might change the course of history there was one other witness that day Adolphe Klaus had got wind that a British courier carrying a briefcase stuffed with documents had been washed up on the beach from a corner of the cemetery the shadow was watching and from room 13 in London Montague and Chumley were watching the shadow they knew he was already curious so they decided to give the pot a little stir British telegrams were routinely intercepted by German spies operating in Spain Montague and Chumley knew this and so they began to send a series of messages demanding that the British consul find out what had happened four missing documents secret papers probably in black briefcase earliest possible information required it should be recovered at once care should be taken that it does not get into undesirable hands message ends stop the telegrams worked a treat Klaus now mobilized his entire network of spies for one purpose to get his undesirable hands on the briefcase the briefcase meanwhile remains securely locked inside the safe of the Spanish naval authorities at this point the plan hit an unexpected snag because instead of collaborating with the Nazis as they were supposed to the Spanish authorities declined to surrender the briefcase to Klaus the plot was swiftly descending into farce the Germans were trying to get their hands on the briefcase the British were trying to help them get their hands on the briefcase but the Spanish flatly refused to hand the briefcase over to anyone instead they sent it to Madrid where the job of getting it now fell to the most feared German spy of all the mi5 files described a man of elegance and refinement a champion tennis player with perfectly manicured nails his name was Karl Erik coolant tal and he was Hitler's most trusted operative in Spain coolant aisle was the main operator in Spain he was collecting information and forwarding it on to Berlin and acting as the focal point we know about this because Bletchley was receiving messages from coolant aisle and to coolant all throughout that period Bletchley Park a country house in the heart of the Home Counties was the center of code breaking operations during the Second World War here some of the country's most brilliant academics and scientists worked around the clock deciphering the most secret messages of the German High Command but she was reading most of the signals from pretty near all of the military and the civilian elements of the German war machine primarily Germany of course but from countries such as Greece and neutral countries such as Fame but we've been reading all these messages and so we knew how they were reacting that was the important thing to know exactly whether your bait was being swallowed the codebreakers were on the alert for any enemy wireless traffic relating to operation mincemeat but the days passed and nothing appeared Montague and chun-li began to fear that the briefcase along with its contents had simply vanished back in London the tension mounted in room 13 as Montague and chun-li waited for news had to gamble backfired had the Germans rumbled the plot had they even got hold of the briefcase time was running out 160,000 Allied troops were gathering in North Africa for the largest amphibious invasion the world had ever seen their fate might depend on a briefcase and no one in room 13 had a clue what had happened - but the Germans were also under pressure Klaus had missed his prayer but Carl Eric coolant R was determined not to make the same mistake nine days after the body was fished out of the water the fake letter landed in the lap of the Germans one of coolant oils agents inside the Spanish Navy extracted the official letters from their envelopes and handed them over the Germans were given exactly one hour to photograph everything coolant all realized at once that he'd stumbled on the scoop of his career the love letter the identity card the photograph of Pam the whole invented story of Bill Marshall and the crucial letter he carried coolant are believed it all he flew at once to Berlin carrying the photographs of documents and handed them to his bosses in German intelligence never once doubting their authenticity why why didn't he ask the questions that any good intelligence officer should have asked why didn't he authorize a second autopsy why in the end did he believe in Bill Martin without a second thought the answer may lie in the mi5 surveillance files for Carl Eric coolant I'll had a secret of his own his grandmother was Jewish as a German officer with Jewish blood he was understandably paranoid and desperate to please his superiors perhaps in the end he believed the mincemeat documents because he needed to believe them but would his superiors believe them over the following days the documents were minutely scrutinized by Germany's espionage experts each element was examined and re-examined everything appeared to fit the intelligence was given the stamp of approval and the lie began to spread up the German chain of command until it reached the minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels gurbles had a sensitive nose for a lie and the british letter smelled wrong gurbles studied the british he read the times every day a rump thing about the paper like a retired general living in the Home Counties The Times has once again sunk so low as to publish an almost Bolshevik article it makes one blush with shame in his private diary Goebbels wondered whether the letter was an elaborate and very British hoax but he kept his doubts to himself if Hitler believed it that was all that mattered two weeks after Bill Martin was dropped off the coast of Spain the fake letter finally landed on Hitler's desk everything now rested on this moment would Hitler take the bait so Kathleen laid by Montague and Charlie would their corkscrew thinking out with the Fuhrer with Churchill's gamble finally pay off on May the 12th 1943 the codebreakers of Bletchley Park picked up a signal from German High Command citing an absolutely reliable source the message ordered Mediterranean commanders to prepare for an Allied attack on Greece within hours the intercepted message reached the Admiralty basement where Montavilla Shamli were waiting Montague was sitting at his desk leafing through the latest messages from Bletchley Park when he suddenly banked the table and let out a work of triumph here at last was the moment they had all been waiting for Montague was made aware from decrypt received at Bletchley that the German High Command had been hoodwinked into believing that the story was in fact a true story we all simply jumped up and down and it was unbelievable award this had come to a happy conclusion and there wasn't such a lot of good news at that time and this was a real triumph as far as we were concerned that evening Churchill received a telegram from mi5 it read quite simply mincemeat swallowed rod line & sinker we were just ecstatic did you feel proud to know that whether it was rather satisfactory it really was I think the most exciting moment that I've ever had in my life when that that came through I love all I of course it is Corsica Hitler moves an entire Panzer Division 19,000 men from France all the way to Greece the evidence came in Fast and Furious other troop movements follow these short order division being sent to Greece torpedo boats were redeployed to the Greek Coast along with fresh fighter squadrons gun emplacements being moved in Sicily the forces defending Greece jumped from one division to eight Hitler's army lurched sideways to defend against this new threat it showed that it was working effectively part of the German army in the Mediterranean for being controlled not from Berlin but from a basement room here underneath the Admiralty in London it was the first chink of light really that's act that we could we could get rid of those germs on the night of July the ninth the field marshal in command of the German army transmitted a warning labeled most immediate that was picked up here at Bletchley it predicted a major attack on Greece the next morning 160,000 Allied troops stormed ashore on the beaches of Sicily the British had expected 10,000 casualties in the first week of the invasion in fact just 1,400 were killed or wounded the Navy had feared losing up to 300 ships in the first two days barely a dusty were sunk and in Greece thousands of German troops waited for an invasion that never happened operation mincemeat was the most successful deception of the Second World War perhaps the greatest military hoax since the Trojan horse instead of the bloodbath the Allies had once feared Sicily was conquered in just over a month my husband whom I didn't know in those days they ended three days before the main troops a la Erebus landed and he would have probably been dead so I wouldn't have had a husband so in a way mincemeat played a role in your family yes it did I wouldn't have ever got to meet him thousands of lives had been saved Churchill's corkscrew thinkers had triumphed and their triumph went far beyond Sicily mussolini was soon toppled from power and forced to confront this allied invasion from the south Hitler called off a huge offensive against the Soviets the Germans were now on the back foot the Red Army did not stop until it reached Berlin but it it all hinged on one dead man a man whose real name was intended to remain a secret forever in the years after the war the man who never was became the stuff of legend it's the most outrageous disgusting preposterous not to say barbaric idea spawning books a Hollywood movie and countless myths but his true identity remained hidden until more than half a century later one man stumbled upon the truth I took to going to as it was called then the public record office and looking at the newly released files I became entranced with the idea of the British government requisition a corpse and keeping the name secret forever eventually I saw one of these monthly binders number twenty minced meat and I really I didn't have any expectation because butter had always kept the whole thing so secret that I mean I believed at that point in the oath of eternal secrecy and looking at the first page scan MRI down I saw Dindo a Michael it was it was an unbelievable feeling in this Spanish cemetery one grave is different from all the others it tells of a double life one brief sad and real the other entirely invented and oddly heroic Grave number one 886 commemorates a gallant British officer who washed up with a love letter from a girl who never existed pressed to his heart in reality its occupant is a poor Welsh Tramp who killed himself with rat poison in a disused warehouse in London finally in 1998 the British government gave him back his name presenter and author Ben MacIntyre has given more details of operation mincemeat which you can find at the BBC history website this week as part of BBC fours season on Germany al Murray's German adventure continues on Wednesday at 9:00

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Length: 58min 48sec (3528 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 17 2016

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Germany got bamboozled

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/Cerebralchip 📅︎︎ Apr 30 2019 🗫︎ replies