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Operation Mincemeat: How the Allies Fooled the Nazis about the Mediterranean Invasion


In 1943, General Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps surrendered in Tunisia to the Allies. This surrender of the Axis troops in North Africa, led by one of Hitler’s most formidable generals known as “The Desert Fox,” was a devastating blow to Germany and its allies. The Allies deliberated future targets at the Casablanca Conference in 1943, attended by Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and

Casablanca Conference (1943): left to right, General Giraud, President Roosevelt, General de Gaulle and Prime Minister Churchill. Wikicommons.
Casablanca Conference (1943): left to right, General Giraud, President Roosevelt, General de Gaulle and Prime Minister Churchill. Wikicommons.

Charles de Gaulle, where it was agreed to invade Sicily as a launchpad for an attack on the Italian mainland. Churchill described Italy as the “soft underbelly of Europe,” and it was there the British and Americans could gain a foothold in continental Europe to divert German divisions away from the Eastern Front sooner rather than later. The Allies called this planned invasion Operation Husky and scheduled it for June 10, 1943.


Sicily was an overly obvious target for an invasion of Italy. It was a big Mediterranean island with numerous airfields and a northeastern port separated from mainland Italy by the small Strait of Messina. Churchill said, “Everybody but a bloody fool would know that it’s Sicily.” It was too obvious a target, and the Allies needed a deception operation to prevent the Germans and Italians from significantly reinforcing Sicily to an extent that would seriously jeopardize the success of Operation Husky.


Operation Barclay was the codename given to the broader Mediterranean deception campaign to deter the Axis from reinforcing Sicily during the first half of 1943. This consisted of a number of suboperations, among the most significant of which was Operation Mincemeat. Operation Mincemeat was concocted by the British intelligence officers Charles Cholmondeley and Ewen Montagu. They devised a plan to plant fake ‘classified’ letters on the enemy (specifically Hitler and his entourage) that contained false information about where the Allies intended to strike in the Mediterranean during 1943.


This ingenious scheme drew some inspiration from the Trout Memo drafted by the director of naval intelligence, Admiral John Godfrey, in collaboration with Ian Fleming (author of the James Bond book series). The Trout Memo included a list of ways to deceive the enemy during wartime. Gruesomely, one of the ideas on that list was to drop a dead man who would appear to have had a failed parachute. Further, on the body, false information would be planted for the enemy to discover when they found the planted corpse.


Cholmondeley and Montagu modified that idea to turn it into a more realistic deception operation, which they codenamed Mincemeat. Rather than dropping a dead body on the enemy behind lines, they decided to plant a corpse in the sea (seemingly from a crashed plane) to be washed ashore on the coast of Spain at Huelva. This body would be disguised as an officer and carry a briefcase (attached by leather-covered chain) containing high-level papers that included false information highlighting the Allies primarily intended to attack Greece and, to a lesser extent, Sardinia rather than Sicily. The idea was, of course, to direct them away from the planned invasion of Sicily. The British expected German agents in neutral but sympathetic Spain would get a chance to view the fake documents in the briefcase.


Charles Cholmondeley and Ewen Montagu, shown in front of the vehicle transporting the body of Glyndwr Michael for pick up by submarine. Wikicommons.
Charles Cholmondeley and Ewen Montagu, shown in front of the vehicle transporting the body of Glyndwr Michael for pick up by submarine. Wikicommons.

Although corpses were not in short supply during World War 2, this operation could not simply use any body of a soldier killed in action. The operation needed the Germans to accept the recovered corpse was one from a plane crashed at sea, based on pathologist reports. Most pathologists would be able to determine whether the body in question had been killed in an airplane crash or on the battlefield.


Montagu was sworn to secrecy about the identity of the corpse chosen for Operation Mincemeat. All he reveals in his book “The Man Who Never Was” is that the body selected was one of a man in his early thirties killed by pneumonia. Historical research undertaken by Ben Macintyre in 1996 identified the corpse used for Mincemeat to be Glyndwr Michael, a Welsh tramp known to have died from swallowing rat poison. This identification of the Mincemeat corpse has been generally accepted, but some Spanish researchers have disputed it.


From the National Archives, UK. This seemingly ordinary image is of an MI5 agent, and planted with other documents to create a sense of authenticity. Wikicommons.
From the National Archives, UK. This seemingly ordinary image is of an MI5 agent, and planted with other documents to create a sense of authenticity. Wikicommons.

After selecting a suitable body for the operation, the corpse needed a convincing false identity for it to be believable. The body was dressed in a Royal Marine officer uniform, with the rank of Acting Major, and named William Martin. Placed on the corpse was a fake ID card with a photo of somebody who looked a lot like him. To create an even more real person, the corpse came with extra details such as the photo of a fictional fiancée called Pam, a Lloyds Bank overdraft, other bills, personal letters, theater ticket stubs, a cigarette box, and a wallet containing some of the collects in his pockets.


However, the fake documents in William Martin’s briefcase were the most important details. The backstory given to William Martin was that of a Royal Marines officer flying to North Africa carrying letters containing sensitive information about Allied operational plans in the Mediterranean. One was a letter from General Sir Archibald Nye to Harold Alexander (Alex). That letter highlighted the Allies were planning operations codenamed Brimstone and Husky in the eastern and western Mediterranean, for which Sicily is confirmed to be diversionary cover rather than a primary target. An important passage from Nye’s letter reads:

We have had recent information that the Boche have been reinforcing and strengthening their defenses in Greece and Crete and C.I.C.S. felt that our forces for the assault were insufficient. It was agreed by the Chiefs of Staff that the 5th Division should be reinforced by one Brigade Group for the assault on the beach south of Cape Araxos and that a similar reinforcement should be made for the 56th Division at Kalamata. We are earmarking the necessary forces and shipping.

That letter omitted any direct references to Sardinia as the western target because of concerns it would too clearly reveal Sicily as the primary target if the Germans saw through the deception. However, a joking reference to Sardinia as a target for an Allied invasion was included in a fake letter from Louis Mountbatten sent to the Mediterranean Commander-in-Chief Andrew Cunningham. This letter was a reference for Major William Martin with a line that says, “He might bring some sardines with him – they are ‘on points’ here.”


The Seraph Submarine. Wikicommons.
The Seraph Submarine. Wikicommons.

A D.N.I naval letter dated April 16, 1943, confirmed Churchill approved Operation Mincemeat, with Eisenhower also informed. The operation began on April 19, 1943, after the body of William Martin was placed aboard the Royal Navy Seraph submarine commanded by Lieutenant Jewel. Martin’s corpse was loaded in an airtight canister filled with dry ice to slow the rate of decomposition.


The Seraph submarine proceeded to the coast of Spain near Huelva. A signal from the Seraph confirmed the planting of the body on April 30, 1943. It was then that some of the submarine’s officers placed the corpse, wearing a Mae West lifejacket, with its chained briefcase into the sea. An inflatable, turned-over dinghy was placed about half a mile from the corpse to enhance the illusion of a plane crash.


In early May, the British received news from a naval attaché in Madrid that a Spanish fisherman had found the body of William Martin. That fisherman alerted an officer to the discovered corpse that got handed over to the vice-consul stationed in Huelva. Sources also confirmed the Spanish buried Martin Williams at a cemetery in Huelva with a military funeral. An additional inscription that reads “Glyndwr Michael Served as Major William Martin” was added to his tombstone after Ben Macintyre researched the Mincemeat corpse during the 1990s.


The British requested the Spanish return the documents that came with William Martin, as would be the case if they were genuinely secretive letters of the utmost importance. The Spanish Chief of Naval Staff returned the documents to a British naval attaché in Spain in May. Extensive scientific examination of the planted letters back in England revealed they had been removed from their envelopes even though an effort was made not to make it appear so.

Thus, it was reasonably clear the letters had attracted the attention of Abwehr (German military intelligence) agents in Spain. Heulva was chosen as the plant location for the corpse because the British knew there was a very active and well-connected German agent there. It was these agents’ jobs to report their intelligence findings back to the German operational command.


Heulva in Spain. Wikicommons.
Heulva in Spain. Wikicommons.

The British also learned details of the medical examination carried out on Martin’s body. This medical examination confirmed William Martin’s death was due to asphyxiation (suffocation) through immersion in seawater. It was the kind of post-mortem conclusion Ewen Montagu had hoped for.


Operation Husky duly began on July 10 with lighter-than-expected resistance at the landing points in southeast Sicily. Subsequent intelligence reports revealed the Axis had established the strongest defenses along the northern coastline of Sicily, with reinforcements in the south surprisingly deficient. An element of surprise for the Sicily invasion was seemingly achieved, and the Allies secured the island in August 1943.


Troops from 51st Highland Division on the opening day of the Allied invasion of Sicily, 10 July 1943. Wikicommons.
Troops from 51st Highland Division on the opening day of the Allied invasion of Sicily, 10 July 1943. Wikicommons.

However, not until World War 2 was over did documents captured from the German naval archives at Tambach confirm the Nazis had intercepted the planted Operation Mincemeat letters and that they had fallen for the deception. The Allies recovered a translated German copy of the fake Louis Mountbatten letter from Martin’s briefcase that proved the Nazis had intercepted the false information. The second significant piece of evidence was a German intelligence appreciation report about the captured enemy documents in the Mediterranean. A line from that report says, “The genuineness of the captured enemy documents is above suspicion.”


The German intelligence service passed such reports to Grand Admiral Doenitz

The Arrest of Karl Dönitz. Wikicommons.
The Arrest of Karl Dönitz. Wikicommons.

and Hitler. A passage from Doenitz’s diary says: “The Führer (Hitler) does not agree with the Duce (Mussolini) that Sicily is the most likely invasion point. He believes that the discovered Anglo-Saxon order confirms the assumption that the planned attack will be directed mainly against Sardinia and the Peloponnesus.”


Operation Mincemeat had worked.

Even Hitler had fallen for the Mincemeat deception enough to divert significant resources for reinforcing Greece (Peloponnesus) and Sardinia before the Allies invaded Sicily. The Germans reinforced Greece and even sent Rommel to take command of forces stationed there after the real Operation Husky had begun. They redeployed a large group of R-boats from Sicily to the Aegean Sea and established naval minefields around Greece in anticipation of an Allied assault. Records also show a strong Panzer force was dispatched to Corsica in June for the defense of Sardinia.


This dispersal of German military resources across the Mediterranean in 1943 undoubtedly made the invasion of Sicily a somewhat more straightforward operation for the Allies than it might have been (or was even expected to be). The actual outcome of Operation Husky, wartime documents, and other historical evidence highlight the Mincemeat deception worked a treat for the Allies. Capturing Sicily led to the fall of Mussolini’s fascist regime and a signed armistice in September 1943 that officially knocked Italy out of the war. Defeating one of Germany’s foremost allies was a notable step to victory in World War 2 for which Operation Mincemeat played an important part.


 

Matthew Adams is a freelancer who has produced a variety of articles for various publications and websites, such as Swing Golf Magazine, Windows Report, Naval History, Military History Matters, Artilleryman, dotTech, Naval History, Against the Odds, Argunners, History Lists, and Bright Hub. Matthew is also the author of Battles of the Pacific War 1941-1945. Check out the book’s blog at Battles of the Pacific War 1941-1945.

 

Sources and Further Reading

Ewen Montagu (1953): “The Man Who Never Was”

Sky History: Operation Mincemeat

Imperial War Museum: What Was Operation Mincemeat?

The National World War 2 Museum Orleans: Secret Agents, Secret Armies

The Legend of Q: Ian Fleming

New York Post: Corpse Who Went to War

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