Rtn Peter Kemp: Operation Mincemeat

Operation Mincemeat is perhaps better known as “The Man Who Never Was”. It was the deception devised by the British in the Second World War to convince the Germans that the Allied invasion of southern Europe would start by a landing in the Balkans rather than Sicily.

Our First Vice President Peter Kemp described it during our meeting today. He pointed out that deception in wartime was an ancient practice. During both World Wars the British had operated “Q Ships”, military vessels disguised as merchant ships to lure German submarines to attack from the surface. When the submarine surfaced, the Q Ship would fold down its false superstructure to reveal heavy guns. During the Second World War General Paton was based in south-eastern England as head of an invasion army being gathered there; in reality the “army” consisted of inflatable decoy equipment and a succession of false radio messages to create the impression of an active deployment.

Operation Mincemeat was thought up by a combined team from MI5 and the Royal Navy. The then Lt Cdr Ian Fleming was part of the planning team.

The plan was to find a suitable body from a man who had died recently, dress it up to look like a drowned military officer, plant false information on it wand dump it in the sea near Spain to be picked up by the Spanish authorities. Spain was officially neutral in the war but had strong links with Germany.

The problem was to find a suitable body. The North London coroner was one of those asked to keep a watch. In early 1943 he contacted the team to say he had identified a suitable body, that of a man who after a harrowing life had committed suicide by consuming rat poison and had no known relatives.

The team duly collected the body and preserved it in ice. Attempts were made to make it look as though the person had drowned. He was dressed in military uniform and items put in his belongings to create a false history for him. These included a photograph of his “fiancée” (actually a photograph of a clerk in MI5), letters supposedly from her, an identity card identifying him as “Acting Major William Martin” of the Royal Marines, unused postage stamps and even ticket stubs from a London theatre “proving” that he had been in London at a particular time.

The most important item in the deception was a briefcase containing sealed letters giving detailed plans of an invasion of Europe through the Balkans. Some of these were handwritten and signed by major British military leaders. A black eyelash was placed in one of the envelopes.

In late April 1943 “Major Martin’s” body was taken by submarine to the sea near Spain and released. Spanish fishermen found the body and handed it to the Spanish authorities.

The British Consul encouraged the two Spanish pathologists to complete their post mortem quickly by the simple expedient of inviting them to lunch afterwards. They concluded that “Major Marin” had drowned.

The British then sent an urgent message to the local British Consul, in a code they knew had already been broken by the enemy, telling him how vital it was that the briefcase be retrieved unopened. At first the Spanish authorities did not open any of the sealed letters but, under pressure from the Germans, it was sent to Madrid, where the letters were opened without breaking the seals, the contents photographed and then replaced, and copies of the letters given to the Germans.

The Spanish released the briefcase to the British Consul and it was returned to London. However, one thing they had not put back in the relevant envelope was the black eyelash. The British therefore knew the contents had been examined but sent a message to the Consul, again in a code known to the enemy, confirming that the contents had been recovered unopened and all was well.

This elaborate deception had the desired effect. The Germans sent several army divisions and other forces to reinforce the Balkans against invasion. When the Allies invaded Sicily and swept up through Italy they did not meet the opposition they expected. The Man Who Never Was is credited with reducing the losses by thousands of lives and over two hundred ships.

It was not until the 1990s that the body used was publicly identified as that of Glyndwr Michael, who had committed suicide at the age of 34. The Spanish had buried “Major Martin” with full military honours. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission arranged for an inscription to be added to the foot of the gravestone stating that “During the Second World War Glyndwr Michael served as Major William Martin”.