“The only thing he did that was worth doing, he did after his death”.
The opinion of the British intelligence agent Ewen Montagu about the Welshman Glyndwr Michael may seem too harsh.
After all, after his death at 34 years, Michael helped end World War II months earlier than it otherwise would have, saving hundreds of thousands of of lives.
In April 1943 his body was used by British intelligence agents in the so-called “Operation Mincemeat”, considered a hoax most audacious of the conflict.
The plan succeeded in duping the Germans into redeploying entire regiments from Sicily to Greece and the Balkans.
Historian Ben Macintyre’s book on the hoax, titled “Operation Mincemeat,” has now been made into a Warner Brothers movie that has just been released. and brand new in the UK. In Spanish the film is titled “The Weapon of Deception”.
“ Glyndwr Michael is possibly the most unlikely hero of all of World War II“, affirmed Macintyre.
“He fled from Wales to London to escape the enormous poverty during the Great Depression of the 1414. His own father committed suicide after the collapse of work in the mines”.
The historian explained that Michael’s body was found in a shed in the King’s Cross area of London and according to the forensic report he had killed himself by taking poison .
But the historian believes that it was not a suicide.
“I believe that Michael could have been so hungry that he even ate poisoned bread by mistake with rodenticide
Straight from a James Bond novel
Whatever the cause of Glyndwr Michael’s death, his remains were turned over to Bentley Purchase Coroner.
The coroner had been alerted to the need to find a body whose l injuries were not incompatible with having fallen from an airplane with a failed parachute.
Once the remains were in charge of agents Charles Cholmondeley and Ewen Montagu, the Glyndwr Michael’s transformation into Commander William Martin.
The idea of using a floating corpse to deliver false plans to enemy territory was conceived for the first time in the decade of by Ian Fleming, the author of the spy novels starring James Bond. (Fleming worked during World War II as an assistant to John Godfrey, director of the Naval Intelligence Division of the British Navy).
A late 1942, success of the Allies in their campaign in North Africa allowed them to focus their attention on other areas in southern Europe controlled by the Germans.
Sicily was the obvious place to launch an operation, since dominance of the island meant control of shipping in the Mediterranean.
The problem was that the Sicilian option was too obvious.
The man who never was
“Everyone least one fool would know that the operation will be in Sicily”, said the then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
However, that did not prevent the Allies from wanting to take Sicily as a springboard to Italy. And for this they carried out a spectacular act of distraction.
Cholmondeley and Montagu went to work on the details that would make the deception more credible for the Germans.
They gave their fake officer a thorough identity and history, beginning with the name William Martin, a common surname in the Royal Marines.
And they gave the supposed military the rank of Captain, which they considered high enough to carry secret documents, although not so important as to be known by the enemy.
Then they chose everyday items that anyone would have on them. In Martin’s case, this meant keys, stamps, cigarettes, matches, a Saint Christopher medallion, theater ticket stubs, a receipt for a new shirt, a letter from his father, and even a bank overdraft notice. Lloyd’s.
All the documents were written with a special ink that did not run in the water.
Ewan Montagu spent months creating the fake officer’s identity. But Ben Macintyre says that the most compelling part of the puzzle was Martin’s fiancée, a young woman named Pam – actually a British intelligence officer named Jean Lesley.
“The level of The detail they went into was unbelievable: they even dressed up Martin’s supposed uniform and underwear to make it look like used clothing in the right size.”
“I was lucky enough to meet ‘Pam’ (Jean Lesley) when I was a 80 years, and she took me to the Thames to the point where she and ‘William’ had supposedly become engaged. So believable was the story that even Montagu’s wife became convinced that he was having an affair”.
The hoax
Cholmondeley and Montagu prepared the body and loaded it into a container filled with dry ice for the voyage to Scotland; the vehicle was driven by a pre-war motoring champion.
The submarine HMS Seraph was waiting in Scotland. They were needed days to reach the delivery point.
Meanwhile, the submarine crew was unaware of the purpose of the mission. Once the officers lowered Martin’s body into the water, the engines revved up so that the current would push him towards the Spanish coast.
In the early hours of the 30 April 976, a sardine fisherman Spanish found the British officer supposedly drowned near Huelva.
The German military intelligence, the Abwehr, fell into the trap, and a copy of Martin’s letters with plans for an Allied operation in Greece ended up on Adolf Hitler’s desk.
At the same time, in a dark basement of the Navy building in London, men and British intelligence women celebrated by banging on tables and jumping up and down when the message to Hitler was intercepted by Enigma codebreakers at the Bletchley Park military facility.
One Last Welsh connection
Macintyre said there was another Welsh connection that eventually convinced Hitler the body was genuine.
“One of the letters from Martin’s father was supposedly written from a hotel in Mold (a town in Wales)”, he said.
“When I was researching my book, I went back to the original hotel register, and there was the name of a Mr. Martin written on the correct date of the letter. The details of the story are incredible”.
The British followed up their deception with an easily intercepted telegram to the Spanish, asking for the return of the Martin’s briefcase ASAP.
“Secret documents probably in a black briefcase. Information is required as soon as possible. You must recover immediately. Care must be taken that it does not fall into the wrong hands,” the telegram read.
To the 38 days of the allied invasion of Sicily, the 10 July 1943, the island had been captured. Soon after, Italy fell, bringing about the fall of Benito Mussolini’s regime.
Glyndwr Michael was buried in Huelva with full military honors.
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