Cold Open

It’s the morning of April 30th, 1943, just off the coast of southwest Spain. A local fisherman named José rows his small boat through the waves. 23-year-old José is a fish spotter—his job is to look out for shoals of sardines and alert the other fishermen. But today the skies are overcast, the water is a dull gray, and, after hours at sea, José hasn’t spotted anything.

He’s just about to turn his boat around and circle back in the opposite direction when something catches his eye—a dark shape bobbing on the surface of the water. Curious, José rows a little closer. He quickly sees that it’s the body of a man, floating face down. He’s wearing a yellow life vest over what looks like a military uniform.

World War II is currently raging throughout Europe, but Spain is officially neutral, and sometimes José still hears the sound of guns over the horizon or finds the debris of distant battles washing up on shore.

But this is the first time he’s found a body, though. José carefully maneuvers closer. Then, reaching over the side of his boat, he grabs hold of the man’s waterlogged coat and flips him face up. He immediately recoils and lets go again. The man is half-rotted, and the smell is overpowering.

Covering his nose, José gets up and shouts across the water. A larger fishing boat is already angling through the waves toward him—the men on board clearly thinking he’s found a shoal.

But José has forgotten all thoughts of fishing. He recognizes the uniform the man in the water is wearing.

It’s not just any dead body. It’s a British officer.

The discovery of the dead man off the coast of Spain is no accident. He was placed there by British intelligence as part of an elaborate and ingenious plan to deceive Nazi Germany about Allied war planes. Nothing about the man is as it seems. The identification in his pockets is false. His rank and entire life story are a lie. And he died months before he was found by a fisherman out looking for sardines on April 30th, 1943.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham, and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is April 30th, 1943: Operation Mincemeat.

Act One

It’s September 1942, in London, England, seven months before the discovery of the body on the beach.

At his desk, 25-year-old intelligence officer Charles Cholmondeley scans a report on an Allied military aircraft that went down over Spain. There were no survivors, and what’s worse, the victims included a courier who was carrying top-secret documents. The bodies were recovered by the Spanish authorities and have been sent back to the Allies. But there are fears that the Spanish may have allowed German agents to view the courier’s classified files before the dead men and their possessions were returned.

This report is concerning, but it does get Charles thinking. It reminds him of a memo that circulated around the intelligence service at the start of the war—one of its proposed operations involved using a corpse to deliver misinformation to the enemy. The plan was never approved. But now, though, Charles wonders whether it’s time to resurrect the idea.

Thinking it over, Charles decides the best approach would be to source a body, fill its lungs with water, then drop it from a plane somewhere off the coast of occupied Europe. With the corpse dressed as a British officer, its pockets could be filled with false intelligence designed to mislead the Nazis.

So a few weeks later, in late October 1942, Charles takes his plan to the Twenty Committee, the arm of British intelligence responsible for counterespionage and deception. The committee doesn’t approve the operation immediately, though, there are too many practical questions that still need to be resolved. But they do think it has potential. So, the chairman of the committee pairs Charles with a naval intelligence officer, 42-year-old Ewen Montagu. Together, they are told to develop the plan further and bring it back to the Twenty Committee when it’s ready.

But while Charles and Ewen set to work, the war begins to turn in the Allies’ favor. Germany suffer a major defeat in North Africa, and, in early 1943, Allied leaders plan an assault on Europe. After much debate, they decide to attack Sicily first.

The island of Sicily will be a perfect launch pad for further attacks on enemy forces across Italy and Southern Europe. So a July invasion is targeted, but there’s one major problem. If the Allies have identified Sicily as the obvious target, then there’s every chance the Germans have too, and are prepared.

What’s needed is a diversion, something to make the Germans believe that the Allied attack will be focused elsewhere. And Charles Cholmondeley is convinced he has the perfect solution.

By early 1943, he and Ewen think they have worked out all the details. They’ve been told that many air crash victims die from shock and trauma, not drowning, so there’s no need to fill the corpse’s lungs with water. But dropping a dead body from the air risks inflicting injuries that will be easily identifiable as occurring post-mortem. So, instead, they plan to dump the body directly in the water by sea. To reduce the risk of a detailed autopsy by suspicious German scientists, they select Spain as the drop site.

But their scheme is still missing one crucial element—the body, and that proves harder than Charles expected. He has particular requirements—the age, sex, and build have to be right, and the manner of death has to be consistent with a plane crash.

Their break comes on January 28th, 1943, when Charles and Ewen receive word from a helpful coroner in London that he’s got just the corpse they’ve been looking for. A homeless Welshman called Glyndwr Michael has died from eating rat poison, but it’s a small enough quantity that it shouldn't show up in an autopsy.

The coroner agrees to store the body for them at the mortuary. It must be kept at precisely 39 degrees Fahrenheit. Any colder and the flesh would freeze, which would be an obvious giveaway. But even at that temperature, the corpse won’t last forever. Charles and Ewen have three months to persuade the powers that be to execute the plan, or the body will have decomposed too much.

On February 4th, 1943, Charles and Ewen resubmit their plan to the Twenty Committee. It now has a new code name: Operation Mincemeat. And this time, the committee gives its approval.

Final go-ahead for the operation will have to come from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Supreme Commander of Allied Forces, General Dwight D. Eisenhower. But in the meantime, Charles and Ewen are told to proceed with their plans.

Because Charles knows it’s not enough to simply plant a letter on the body and throw it into the sea. For the plan to really work, the corpse will need to stand up to scrutiny. It will need a backstory that checks out, should Germans question the information falling into their hands.

So, Charles and Ewen set to work building a fictitious life for Glyndwr Michael, one that will transform him from a poor homeless man into a trusted member of the British armed forces.

Act Two

It’s April 17th, 1943, in a London morgue, two months after the Twenty Committee approved Operation Mincemeat.

Charles Cholmondeley stares down at the corpse of Glyndwr Michael.

The homeless man has been here almost three months, while Charles and his intelligence colleague Ewen Montagu have constructed a new identity for him. Now they’ve received the official go-ahead for the operation from Winston Churchill and General Dwight D. Eisenhower, it’s time for Glyndwr to begin his transformation.

Glyndwr’s new name is William Martin, a Major in the Royal Marines. And to corroborate this, Charles and Ewen have created a host of fake documents they intend to place on the body. These include a photo of a fictional fiancée, letters from family members, as well as receipts and theater tickets showing that Major Martin is stationed in London.

The key document, though, is a letter supposedly from a senior British commander to a colleague stationed in North Africa. It has been carefully written, referring to upcoming military operations in Greece and the Balkans that don’t exist. But it also mentions the real planned assault on Sicily.

And this is deliberate. Charles and Ewen know that the Germans will know of Allied preparations for the invasion of Sicily. But they hope that this letter will convince the Nazis that any move on Sicily is a feint to disguise a bigger assault on Greece.

So with all the fake documentation ready, Charles dresses Glyndwr Michael in the uniform of an officer in the Royal Marines. The crucial letter is placed in a secure briefcase that is chained to the body around the waist to ensure it’s not lost. The corpse is then packed in dry ice and sealed in a specially constructed canister. Charles and Ewen load it onto a van, and the pair drive through the night to the town of Greenock on the west coast of Scotland.

There, Charles delivers the canister to the crew of Royal Navy submarine HMS Seraph. To maintain operational security, only the captain and his senior officers know the truth—the rest of the crew is simply told this canister contains a meteorological device that they will be deploying near Spain.

After eleven days at sea, the submarine arrives at its destination off the southwest coast of Spain. The commander has the canister brought up on deck at 4.15 AM. He dismisses the crew, keeping only his officers with him. Then they open the canister and lower the body into the water.

They use the craft’s propellers to gently push it towards shore, then they head back out to sea, hoping that the tides and a little luck will take care of the rest.

Only a few hours later, the body is discovered by a local fisherman. And just as Charles and Ewen had hoped, the corpse is then taken to the nearby town of Huelva. There’s a British consul in the town named Francis Haselden, and he has an important role to play in this operation.

Francis is 62 years old and no spy. But he plays his part to perfection. He sends a series of cables to his superiors. These are encrypted, but in a code that the British know the Germans have deciphered. The cables have been prepared in advance, designed to catch the attention of their silent audience of Nazi spies. And in the exchange, Francis’ superiors tell him to recover the briefcase as a matter of urgency. If the Germans weren’t already taking an interest in the body, these cables ensure they are now.

Francis then attends the autopsy on Major Martin. This is the riskiest stage of the operation. Because if the doctors spot that the body is months old, the entire deception will fall apart. So, Francis is there to subtly hurry them along. But he doesn’t have to do much persuading. By now, the corpse is decomposing rapidly, and not even the doctors want to linger over it long. They declare that Major William Martin died in the water around ten days ago and issue a death certificate.

Then, more than three months after he really died on the streets of London, homeless Welshman Glyndwr Michael is buried in the south of Spain with full military honors.

Meanwhile, on May 5th, the briefcase he was carrying begins its journey home to England. But when it reaches Madrid, senior German agents persuade their Spanish hosts to let them view and photograph the documents inside.

What they don’t notice, as they open the letter, though, is a single eyelash tumbling out from inside. It was placed in the folds of the paper by Charles Cholmondeley. When the briefcase and the letter finally arrive back in London, the missing eyelash is the signal that Charles’s plan worked. The letter was opened and read.

Now, the Allies need to wait and see if the Germans have truly taken the bait.

And it only takes a week for confirmation to come. In mid-May 1943, British code breakers intercept German messages discussing an impending Allied advance on the Balkans through Greece. The ruse appears to be working.

But the Allies won’t know for certain until they launch their attack on Sicily. And the lives of thousands of real soldiers will depend on whether the Germans believed a letter carried by a fake one.

Act Three

It’s August 17th, 1943, near the town of Messina, Sicily, almost four months after Operation Mincemeat.

American General George S. Patton gazes out the window of his command car as it bounces along a dusty stretch of road in a convoy of vehicles. Patton is the commanding officer of the US Seventh Army and a renowned wartime leader. For more than a month, his troops have been battling their way across Sicily. But victory is in sight, and Patton is determined to beat his British allies to Messina.

The fighting has been hard, but it could have been much harder. Thanks to Operation Mincemeat, in the build-up to the invasion, German commanders were convinced that the Balkans and Greece were the real target. Even as the Allies began their assault on Sicily, the Nazis were still transferring troops off the island to reinforce positions elsewhere. Now, a month later, German defeat in Sicily is imminent, and most of their troops have been evacuated.

Patton and his convoy make their way into the heart of Messina. The buildings around them are pockmarked from intense fighting, and Patton carefully watches out for booby traps or mines. But he makes it through the deserted streets without incident. And at 10.30 AM, Patton’s convoy reaches the town square—just moments ahead of the British.

With a broad smile, he steps out to meet the British commander when he arrives, and the two officers shake hands. Patton may have been first to Messina, but together they’ve won.

But while the campaign is a success, it is not without cost. Almost 6,000 Allied troops have lost their lives in the battle to claim Sicily. But that number is far less than it might have been, thanks to the ingenuity of Charles Cholmondeley and Ewen Montagu. Their exploits will live on long after the war. Numerous books, movies, and even a Broadway musical will be written about their extraordinary trick, and the dead homeless man who changed the course of the war, after he was discovered by a Spanish fisherman on April 30th, 1943.

Outro

Next on History Daily. May 1st, 1926. Henry Ford implements a five-day week at his Detroit car plant, kickstarting a workplace reform that’ll be adopted all across America.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mollie Baack.

Supervising Sound Designer Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Rob Scragg.

Edited by William Simpson.

Managing producer Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.