Operation Mincemeat

Operation Mincemeat is one of those "truth is stranger than fiction" stories. Here we have a successful soldier who doesn't exist, used for a plot by men that worked with the creator of James Bond, a corpse-spy that fooled Hitler and his best men, and a British plot that saved countless lives by misinforming the Nazis to pave the way for one of the largest invasions of all time. If it were a movie and not a true story, it would be deemed too unrealistic. It's a tale of sheer luck, expert planning and dressing up the corpse of some poor Welshman. 

Now, for the background. The Allies wanted to attack Germany through initially landing in an invasion in Sicily, believing it to be what they called the "soft underbelly" of the Axis forces. However, the Nazis had this nasty tendency of defending their positions and killing everyone, a frustrating issue for the Brits. Obviously the borders to defend are massive, but that was largely a non-issue. Between any number of spies, wire-tapping and all sorts of espionage, it was darn near impossible to send a full invading force without the enemy finding out about it prior to the landing, giving them time to set up defences, move troops, and go all 300 on the attackers and hold the line. To trick the enemy, there had to be a plan of absolute sheer genius. Aaaaand enter Operation Mincemeat. 

The ID card of Major Martin. He lived by the motto
"live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse
...that can be used to trick Nazis".

Two men spearheaded an idea of tricking the Nazis into believing the attacks would not land in Sicily, but elsewhere close by, likely in Greece. Their plan was an audacious one - find a corpse, plant enough important (although faked) documents to make an enemy spy wet himself with glee, and hope it gets passed up the chain of command until it becomes fact, causing the enemy to move his pieces in all the wrong places. While on paper it sounds like a sound plan, there are an almost endless number of ways the plan would fail; the corpse wouldn't wash up on shore, it wouldn't be believable, it wouldn't be passed up the ranks, or worst of all, the Germans would read it, see it as a ruse, and prepare all the more in the Sicily believing it to be a faint. And then of course there's the matter of finding a corpse... that's not as easy as it sounds, unfortunately.

The dead man that was chosen was a poor Welsh guy with little family to speak of, meaning they could slip past the awkward "would you be so kind as to let us borrow the corpse of your son" conversation. As for the man, he died from accidentally killing himself with rat poison. He lived an uninspired life, with not much to make note of - in a way it's rather sad how his accomplishments in death, through no choice or decision of his own, far surpassed what he had done in life; heck, they blew out of the water the accomplishments of what most people would do with theirs, so maybe it's not depressing at all but morbidly inspiring. That or the most likely conclusion, being it's simply an interesting anecdote and I should continue on with the story.

Charles Chomondeley, a man who
from this picture alone you can tell put on
a quality, British, cracking good show.

Unfortunately for the masterminds behind the operation (Ewan Montagu and Charles Chomondeley) getting the body was only half the battle. If they simply put the corpse in the water with a number of battle plans the Nazis would pick it up as a fake faster than a blitzkrieg through Poland. Their job was to create a life for a dead man; they had to falsify documents, make up a personality, give him family, friends, an attitude, a rank in the military, bank dept, and every number of things that can not only be used to make him look like just an everyday military man but also things that can be completely verified. Montagu and Chomondeley slaved over letters to fill his pockets, trying to make him sound like a real man without forcing an air of honesty that would come across as unrealistic. After countless attempts and interference from higher-ups, they came to their finale - Major Martin was born from the corpse of an Welshman. The newly created Major was placed in obituary papers, had a sweetheart back home, money issues with his wealthy father, and an ID card with his photo taken (the photo was actually a separate man as the corpse was not particularly cooperative in the act of looking alive). He was also fitted for military dress, which involved the unseemly task of temporarily unfreezing his feet (he was frozen to prevent rotting) in order to remove his shoes to put on the tight military boots he needed to look authentic. I sincerely doubt Montagu had that particular moment on any future resume.

The New York Times listed him in their list of casualties.
The book noted it was the only time a fake man was listed in the
obituary pages of the newspaper. I thought this was an unnecessary thing to mention.

Now that the body was prepared (as well as a capsule to transport the corpse that was so notoriously difficult to sink and took so many gunshots when trying to dispose of the evidence it almost ruined the mission) they had to drop the body off in a place where they knew it would get picked up with the documents read and sent up the chain of command. The chosen location was neutral Spain - in particular, a part of Spain that had a large number of German sympathizers, as well as a prominent and high quality German spy. The hope was they would pick up the body, delay the attempts of the British to recover it, pass along the documents and return them untouched. Britain's plan would be to feign casual interest in retrieving the documents (too much interest would be showing their hand too much in the importance of the body, too little would mean it's obviously a fake) and eventually get them back to continue with their plans. The documents themselves stated an attack on Greece was imminent, 

with a feint to distract the Germans through an attack on Sicily - of course, it was entirely the opposite. 

Through a series of chance, the ideal people on the German side to pick up the documents and believe them (namely an expert spy to get them and an incompetent official to believe them so willingly), and absolutely ingenious planning from the Brits back home, the plan worked perfectly. The faked invasion plans made it all the way up the line to Hitler himself. On landing on the shores of Sicily some weeks later, they were met with just a fraction of the defences they had anticipated, the German army set up far, far away unable to reinforce. The Allied army crushed through the weakened line in an absolutely massive military campaign, with so much of the thanks going to a poor Welsh lad who killed himself while trying to bump off a few rats. 

Famous Historical Figures Say the Darndest Things!

1. "The German in Sicily is doomed. Absolutely doomed. He won't get away." Words from British WW2 General Montgomery upon the successful invasion of Sicily. 
2. "Joy of joys to anyone, and particularly a Jew, the satisfaction of knowing that they had directly and specifically fooled that monster." Ewan Montagu, one of the leading ideas men of Operation Mincemeat.
3. "In that case, we shall have to get the body back and give it another swim." Winston Churchill on the worries of the corpse not making it to the shoreline in Spain.
4. "Glyndwr Michael served as Major William Martin." The words on the gravestone for the created agent, buried in Huelva.