Operation Mincemeat

Operation Mincemeat was a highly successful British deception plan during World War II to convince the German High Command (OKW) that the Allies would invade the Balkans and Sardinia instead of the island of Sicily, the actual objective. The operation called for making the Germans believe that they had, by accident, intercepted highly classified documents detailing future Allied war plans. It succeeded: the Germans diverted their forces and the Allied invasion of Sicily proceeded smoothly. The story was subsequently told in a book and later film as The Man Who Never Was.

Planning for the deception

As the North African Campaign was winding down, Allied planners turned their attention to mainland Europe. Sicily's location made it a strategic first objective. As well as providing a springboard for the invasion of the continent, control of the island would help safeguard Allied shipping in the Mediterranean. However, the strategic importance of the island was not lost on the Germans. It was the base of Luftwaffe air attacks against the British stronghold of Malta. Furthermore, as the massive Allied buildup for the invasion (code-named Operation Husky) would surely be detected as a sign of an impending operation, the Allies had to deceive the Germans, so that they would not concentrate their forces and repulse the allied invasion.

A few months before, Flight Lt. Charles Cholmondeley of Section B1(a) of MI5 (not Sir Archibald Cholmondeley as in some accounts), came up with an idea of having a wireless radio dropped in France by means of a dead man attached to a badly-opened parachute, thereby giving the Allies the opportunity to feed misinformation to the Germans. This was dismissed as impractical and unworkable; however the idea was taken up a few months later by a small inter-service, interdepartmental intelligence team called the Twenty Committee.

As described in his published account, author and team member Lt. Cmdr. Ewen Montagu, a naval intelligence officer, relates that the possibilities for the success of Cholmondeley's deception idea evolved into a more workable plan. Together they quickly devised the details of the ruse. The deception team first thought that the documents would have to be recovered from a man who died due to an unopened parachute, as Cholmondeley had proposed. However, since the Germans knew that it was Allied policy never to send sensitive documents over enemy territory, they decided to make the man a victim of a plane crash at sea. That would explain the fact that the man would be dead for several days if found floating in the sea and solve the problem of the documents. Now that they had a plan, the operation needed a code name. With Montagu's characteristic macabre sense of humor, he gave the operation the code name of Mincemeat. It was not just Montagu's sense of humor that prompted this name however- it was next on the list of names to be used in operations such as this one.

Precedents

The idea of using a corpse with documents was nothing new. Two incidents that Montagu would have been aware of illustrated this. The first incident happened in August 1942 when a deception plan was executed before the Battle of Alam Halfa by using a corpse with a planted map. The body was placed in a blown-up scout car for the Germans to find, in a minefield facing the 90th Light Division just south of Quaret el Abd. The map included the locations of non-existent Allied minefields. The Germans fell for the ruse, and Rommel's panzers were routed to areas of soft sand where they bogged down. Also, in the XVI century, the Japanese daimyo Mori Motonari is said to have used the same idea, in this case to make his enemy Amako Tsunehisa execute his top generals for treason.

The second incident was not a deception at all, but rather a close call. In September that same year a PBY Catalina crashed off Cadiz carrying a courier named Paymaster-Lt. James Hadden Turner of the Royal Navy. When his body was washed up on the beach near Tarifa and recovered by the Spanish authorities, he was carrying a letter from General Mark Clark to the Governor of Gibraltar, which named French agents in North Africa and gave the date of the Torch landings as November 4 (although the actual landings happened on November 8). When the body was returned, the letter was still in its possession, and it was determined that the letter was never opened when examined by technicians. Of course, the Germans had the means to read the letter without opening the envelope, but, if they had, they apparently dismissed the information as bogus, regarding it as "planted" and therefore not acted upon -- until it was too late.

Major William Martin, Royal Marines

With the help of the renowned pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury, Montagu and his team were able to determine what kind of body they should be looking for this purpose. Through the most discreet inquiries they were able to secure the body of a 34-year old man who recently died of chemically-induced pneumonia as the result of ingesting rat poison. They briefed the man's next of kin of the operation and swore them to secrecy. The man's family agreed, on the condition that the man's real identity would never be revealed. Since the man died of pneumonia, the fluid in his lungs would be consistent with that of a man who had been at sea for an extended period.

The next step was creating a "legend", or a false identity for the man -- Major Martin of the Royal Marines: William Martin, a temporary captain and acting major, born in Cardiff, Wales, in 1907, and assigned to Headquarters, Combined Operations. This rank was assigned because a man with too junior a rank would not be so entrusted with sensitive documents, but his age would have been a problem. Making Martin an acting major would solve both problems and would give the impression that the man was a very responsible officer and thus had been trusted.

To give credence to this cover identity they supplied him with a fiancée named Pam (actually a woman clerk from MI5), complete with photograph and love letters. They also provided for a set of keys, theater stubs for a recent performance, a statement from his club for lodging in London, and so forth. To make him even more believable, Montagu and his team decided to insinuate his careless nature such as overdue bills, a replacement identification card to replace the one he lost, an expired pass to Combined Operations HQ that he forgot to renew, and an irate missive from a bank manager from Lloyds Bank for an overdraft of £17 19s 11d. This last touch, although ingenious, carried an element of risk as the possibility existed that the Abwehr would be suspicious of a careless man having been entrusted with sensitive documents. However, if Montagu was aware of the Catalina incident, he was also counting on the Germans' frustration with what could have been an intelligence coup to take the documents seriously.

But it was also necessary to imply carelessness because they had to find way to ensure that both the body and the briefcase with the documents would be recovered together. The solution that they hit upon that Martin would be wearing a chain looped around his trenchcoat to give the impression of a man who wanted to be comfortable during a long flight but wanted to have the case with him at all times, indicating a highly responsible, if somewhat careless officer.

While the cover identity was being created by Montagu and his team, the documents needed to make the ruse work were being created, since they needed to deceive the Germans that the invasion would be taking place somewhere else besides Sicily. Thus the scenario to attack Sardinia first as a staging area for an invasion of the south of France, to be followed by a second major thrust against Greece through the Balkans. Rather than state the obvious through official documents, the war plans would be suggested through a personal letter from Lt. Gen. Sir Archibald Nye, vice chief of the Imperial General Staff to General Sir Harold Alexander, the British commander in North Africa. It would be revealed in an "off-the record" manner that there would be two operations: Alexander would attack Sardinia and Corsica, while General Sir Henry Wilson would take on Greece (which was given the name "Operation Husky", the real name of the Sicily invasion). Furthermore, in a master stroke of reverse psychology, the letter disclosed that deception plans were being drawn up to convince the Germans that they were going to invade Sicily. This would give the impression that they were dealing with a force strong enough for two separate operations that would take place far from the intended target, causing them to disperse their forces to meet the threat.

To emphasize the letter's sensitive nature as well as to establish Major Martin's qualifications for travel to North Africa, Montagu also included another letter from Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Chief of Combined Operations, to Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean. In the letter, Mountbatten extolled Major Martin's expertise in amphibious operations; more important was that Mountbatten also told Cunningham that Martin was carrying a letter too important to be sent through normal channels, hence the need for Major Martin to fly. The letter intimated that Sardinia was to be an invasion target.

Execution

Major Martin, preserved in dry ice and dressed in his Royal Marines uniform, was placed in a sealed steel canister, and Cholmondeley and Montagu hired a car to deliver it to Holy Loch, Scotland and placed on board the British submarine HMS Seraph. Montagu had made the arrangement through Admiral Barry, the flag officer in charge of submarines. Barry suggested the Seraph, which was available. This was fortuitous, for its commanding officer, Lt. Norman L.A. (Bill) Jewell and his crew had previous special operations experience.

On April 19, 1943 the Seraph set sail to a point about a mile off Huelva on the coast of Spain. This location was decided because they knew that Spain, despite being neutral was sympathetic with the Axis and was crawling with Abwehr agents, allowing for easy discovery. It was known that there was a German agent stationed in Huelva with excellent contacts with Spanish officials.

At 0430 hrs. on April 30, Lt. Jewell ordered the canister to be brought up on deck of the surfaced submarine by the crew. He previously told the crew that a top secret meteorological device was being deployed and ordered everyone below deck. He gathered his officers, briefed them on the details of the operation and swore them to secrecy. They then opened the canister, fitted Major Martin with a life jacket, secured his briefcase with the papers, and the 39th Psalm was read and the body was gently pushed into the sea where the tide would bring it ashore. Jewell afterwards sent a message to the Committee: "MINCEMEAT completed".

The body was discovered at around 0730 hrs. by a local fisherman, Jose Antonio Rey Maria, who brought him to port and the report of the discovery was made to the local Abwehr, which was represented in the town by a German agricultural technician, Adolf Clauss.

"Mincemeat swallowed whole"

Three days later, the Committee received a cable from the Naval Attaché of the news of the body's discovery. After handing over the body to the British Vice-Consul F K Hazeldene, Major Martin was buried with full military honours on May 4 in Huelva.

The Vice Consul arranged for a pathologist, Eduardo Del Torno, to carry out a post-mortem. He reported that the man had fallen into the sea while still alive and had no bruises, death was due to drowning, and that the body had been in the sea between 3 and 5 days. A more comprehensive examination was not made because the pathologist took him for a Roman Catholic due to a silver crucifix that hung from his neck, another Montagu touch.

Meanwhile, Montagu decided to include Major Martin's name in the next British casualty list and a month later was published in The Times, knowing that the Germans would be bound to read them to confirm Martin's bona fides. (By coincidence, the names of two other officers who actually died when their plane was lost at sea en route to Gibraltar were also published that day, giving credence to Major Martin's "story".) To further the ruse, a series of urgent messages were made by the Admiralty to the Naval Attaché demanding the return of the documents found with the body at all costs due to their sensitive nature and to make the inquiries discreet so as not to alert the Spanish authorities of their importance. The papers were returned on May 13, with the assurance that "everything was there".

The Germans got wind of the discovery and the local Abwehr agent with some difficulty was able to obtain the documents. The briefcase was carefully opened by the Germans and photographed, the papers returned and then given to the British by Spanish officials. The photographs were rushed to Berlin where it was evaluated by German intelligence.

When Major Martin's body was returned and the papers examined, the British had been able to determine that the papers were read, carefully refolded and resealed. Further confirmation from ULTRA prompted a cable to be sent to Winston Churchill, then in the United States: "Mincemeat Swallowed Whole".

The documents were indeed swallowed whole: hook, line and sinker. The care which Montagu and his team had lavished on establishing Martin's identity paid off, for they were to learn much later that the Germans noted the date on the theatre stubs (April 22 1943) and confirmed their genuineness. As a result Hitler was so convinced of the veracity of the bogus documents that he disagreed with Mussolini that Sicily would be the most likely invasion point, insisting that any incursion against the island should be regarded as a feint. Hitler ordered the reinforcement of Sardinia and Corsica and sent Field Marshall Erwin Rommel to Athens to form an Army Group. Even patrol boats as well as minesweepers and minelayers marked for the defence of Sicily were diverted. Perhaps the most critical move of all was diverting two panzer divisions to Greece from the Eastern Front where they were most needed, especially when the Germans were preparing to engage the Russians in the Kursk salient.

Operation Husky began on July 9, with the Allies attacking Sicily. The Germans remained convinced for two more weeks that the main attack would be in Sardinia and Greece. As a result, the Allies met relatively little resistance and the conquest of Sicily was complete by August 9. Moreover, the fall of Palermo in the middle of July inspired the coup against Mussolini, and he fell from power on July 27.

Who was Major Martin?

The man known as Major Martin lies in the Cemetery of Solitude in Huelva. As Mincemeat became legend the question persisted: what was the identity of the man known as Major William Martin?

It was only in 1996 that an amateur historian by the name of Roger Morgan was able to uncover evidence that "Martin" was a vagrant Welsh alcoholic named Glyndwr Michael who died of ingesting rat poison, although how this happened is unknown.

The tombstone now bears Glyndwr Michael's real name, but he will be remembered as Major William Martin, who in death had saved thousands of lives and turned the tides of war.

As for Ewen Montagu, he was awarded the Military Order of the British Empire for his part in Operation Mincemeat. He later became Judge Advocate of the Fleet. Montagu later wrote a book about the operation, The Man Who Never Was (1953), which was made into a film of the same name (1955). In the film, the submarine used wears the pennant number P219, that of HMS Seraph, and she was indeed still in commission in 1954/55.

HMS Dasher connection

Authors John and Noreen Steele in their book, "The Secrets of HMS Dasher" claim that the body was not of Glyndwr, but of one of the victims of the aircraft carrier HMS Dasher accident. As reasoning they present evidence that the body of the vagrant was "acquired" in January 1943 and would have suffered decomposition even on ice. Why else would the submarine HMS Seraph be ordered up the east coast of Scotland, around the north, and then turn south and make for the Firth of Clyde? It would have made more sense for Major Montagu to drive straight to Blyth where the Seraph was berthed. The authors think that a new body was needed for the operation as the original body had decomposed to the point of being unusable and the container that Montagu took to Holy Loch was empty.

So the mystery of the man who never was continues.

Additional reading

Steele, John and Noreen. The Secrets of HMS Dasher, Scotland: Argyll Publishers, 2002 3rd Ed., ISBN 1902831519

Montagu, Ewen. The Man Who Never Was: World War II's Boldest Counter-Intelligence Operation. Paperback. Bluejacket Books, March 2001. ISBN 1557504482

External links

http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/navalwarfare/a/mincemeat.htm
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/chalcraft/sm/seraph.html
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/01/27/1043534001763.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/08/24/db2401.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/08/24/ixportal.html
http://us.geocities.com/manwhoneverwas/hom090.html

Allied invasion of Sicily | World War II deception operations | World War II Mediterranean Theatre | Classified documents

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