History Daily - Operation Mincemeat

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

April 30, 1943. A British submarine dumps a dead body carrying false invasion plans off the coast of Spain as part of Operation Mincemeat. Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more.History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.Go to HistoryDaily.com for more history, daily.

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southwest Spain. A local fisherman named Jose rose his small boat through the waves.

Twenty-3-3-year old Jose is a fish spawner. 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, Jose 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, dark shape bobbing on the surface of the water. Curious, Jose rose a little closer and 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 Jose 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. Jose carefully maneuvers closer, then reaching over the side of the boat, he grabs hold of the man's waterlog coat and flips him face up. immediately recoils and lets go again. The man is half-rotted and the smell is overpowering. Covering his nose, Jose 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 Jose 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 plans. 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. From Noisor 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. 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 Chumley, 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 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, and drop it from a plane somewhere off the coast of occupied Europe. With a 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 20 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 Ewan Montague. Together, they are told to develop the plan further and bring it back to the 20 committee when it's ready.

But while Charles and Ewan set to work, the war begins to turn in the Allies' favor. Germany suffers 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 would 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 two 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 Chumley is convinced he has the perfect solution. By early 1943, he and Ewan think they've 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 would 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 28, 1943, when Charles and Ewan receive word from a helpful coroner in London that he's got just the corpse they've been looking for. A homeless Welshman named Glendor 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 in the flesh would freeze, which would be an obvious giveaway. But even at that temperature, the corpse won't last forever. Charles and Ewan have three months to persuade the powers that be to execute the plan or the body will have decomposed too much. On February 4, 1943, Charles and Ewan resubmit their plan to the 20 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 the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Supreme Commander of Allied Forces, General Dwight D. Eisenhower. But in the meantime, Charles and Ewan

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 a scrutiny. It will need a backstory that checks out should Germans question the information falling into their hands. So Charles and Ewan set to work building a fictitious life for Glendarm Michael, one that will transform him from a poor, homeless man into a trusted member of the British Armed Forces. Hey, we three, can't even even needn't even nuckuman this assunoss. How can't this can't be able to all? Do a good

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Moor Moor, two months after the 20 Committee approved Operation Mincemeat. Charles Chomley stares down at the corpse of Glendar Michael.

The homeless man has been here almost three months, while Charles and his intelligence colleague Ewan Montague have constructed a new identity for him. Now they've received the official go-ahead for the operation from Winston Churchill and General Dwighty Eisenhower. It's time for Glendar to begin his transformation. Glendar's new name is William Martin, a major in the Royal Marines.

And to corroborate this, Charles and Ewan have created a host of fake documents they intend to place on the body. These include a photo of a fictional fiancé, 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 at 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 Ewan know that the German...

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 documents ready, Charles dresses Glendarm Michael in the uniform of an officer in the Royal Marines. The crucial letter is placed in a secure briefcase that has 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 can. Canister. Charles and Ewan loaded onto a van, and then 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 Serif. 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 11 days at sea, the submarine arrives at its destination off the southwest west coast. coast of Spain. The commander has the canister brought up on deck at 4.15 a.m. 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 toward shore, and 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 Ewan had hoped, the corpse is then taken to the nearby town of Huelva. There's a British consul in the town named Francis Hazelden, 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' superiors' support Imperiors 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 doctor 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 doctor is one of the doctors, to linger over at law. They declare that Major William Martin died in the water around 10 days ago and issued a death certificate. Then, more than three months after he really died on the streets of London, homeless Welshman Glendar 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 opened the letter, though, is a single eyelash tumbling out from inside. It was placed in the folds of the paper by Charles Chumley. When the briefcase and the letter finally arrived 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, 1933, British codebreakers intercept German messages discussing an impending Allied advance on the Balkans through Greece. The ruse appears to be working.

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It's August 17, 1943, near the town of Messina, Sicily, almost four months after Operation Minceme. American General George S. Patton gazes out the window of his command car as it bounces along a dusty stretch of road and a convoy of vehicles. Patton is the commanding officer of the U.S. 7th 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 available. 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 a.m., 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 arise, and the two officers shake hands. Patten 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 Chumley and Ewan Montague. 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.

Next on History Daily, May 1st, 1926, Henry Ford implements a five-day week at his Detroit car plant, kickstarting a workplace reform that will be adopted all across America. From Noisor and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham, audio editing by Mohamed Shazzy, sound design by Molly Bond, supervising sound designer Matthew Filler. Music by Thrum. This episode is written and researched by Rob Scrag. Edited by William Simpson, managing producer Emily Byrd.

Executive producers are William Simpson for airship and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.