Operation Mincemeat

1943. The Allies are about to invade Sicily — and everyone knows it. The island is the obvious stepping-stone into Europe. The only trick left is convincing Hitler that it isn't.

In a quiet London office, two intelligence officers — Ewen Montagu and Charles Cholmondeley — hatch a plan so strange it might just work.

Ewen Montagu

“We give the Germans a secret. Not a stolen one — a gift. Documents that say we land somewhere else entirely, carried by the one messenger who can never be questioned: a dead man.”

They obtain a body and build a life around it. He becomes "Major William Martin" of the Royal Marines — with an ID card, love letters, a photo of a fiancée, ticket stubs, all the small debris of a real life.

Chained to his wrist is a briefcase of official papers hinting that the Allies will strike Greece and Sardinia — and that Sicily is only a feint.

A submarine, HMS Seraph, carries the body south and slips it into the sea off Huelva, on the coast of Spain — a country swarming with German agents.

The body is found. The Spanish authorities, friendly to Germany, let German intelligence photograph the documents before quietly handing them back.

A German analyst

“A drowned courier, the papers still sealed... it is almost too perfect.”

But the bait is swallowed at the very top. Hitler becomes convinced the blow will fall on Greece, and pours troops, tanks, and ships there — away from Sicily.

In July 1943 the Allies land on Sicily. The defenses have been thinned, and the German high command is still watching the wrong coastline.

The deception saved countless lives and helped crack open the door to Italy. The Germans never realized that the officer who fooled them had never drawn a single breath in the war.

For decades the dead man's true name was a secret. He is now believed to have been Glyndwr Michael — a destitute Welshman who, in death, may have helped change the course of the war.