World War II was not limited to just military battles; there were also clandestine confrontations that significantly altered the course of the conflict in favor of one side at the expense of the other. Among the numerous highly skilled and meticulously planned intelligence operations, Operation Mincemeat stands out. Many military historians consider it one of the greatest strategic deceptions of the entire war. This operation allowed British intelligence agents to trick Nazi leader Adolf Hitler into believing that the Allies were about to invade Greece rather than Sicily, thus confusing the German military leadership and marking the beginning of a shift in the course of the war. Ironically, the hero of this plan was a deceased young man who could never have imagined that his fate would change the balance of the war.

By late 1942, the dynamics of World War II began to shift after the Allies’ successful campaigns against the Axis forces in North Africa. They started considering turning their focus to Europe, with the goal of seizing the strategically significant island of Sicily in southern Italy. However, they were concerned that this objective was too obvious to the Germans. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill remarked that “everyone except the bloody fool Hitler” would know that the target was Sicily. Indeed, the Allies were convinced that capturing this strategically important island, described by Churchill as the “soft underbelly of Europe,” was crucial. To achieve this, British intelligence developed “Operation Barclay,” a disinformation campaign suggesting a focus on the Balkans.

The British intelligence meetings culminated in the highly ambitious “Operation Mincemeat,” which centered around sending a corpse with fake “classified” documents to deceive the Nazis. This idea was first proposed in a 1939 memo titled “TROUT MEMO,” written by British Naval Intelligence Director John Godfrey. Other accounts suggest that it was written by his deputy, Ian Fleming, who later created the James Bond character. The memo proposed several methods of deception, including the use of a corpse dressed as a pilot with letters in its pockets. The idea was to drop the body on the shores in a way that made it appear as if the parachute had failed to open. It also mentioned that obtaining corpses from naval hospitals was not difficult, but they had to be fresh.

It wasn’t long before “Operation Mincemeat” was put into action, but the intelligence officers faced a challenge: they needed a body. British intelligence agents Ewen Montagu and Charles Cholmondeley sought assistance from a London pathologist and found a suitable corpse at the King’s Cross morgue. The body was that of a 34-year-old Welshman named Glyndwr Michael, a vagrant who had died from rat poison. He was perfect for the operation due to his lack of friends or family. The British intelligence service created a false identity for him as a British soldier named Captain William Martin. To complete the picture, they gave the body a backstory, including a wealthy family, a fiancée named “Pam,” and a strained relationship with his supposed father. They even included a romantic letter from “Pam” pleading with him not to go to battle, as she could not bear it. For added authenticity, they included a photo of a real intelligence agent, Jane Leslie, as his fiancée. The belongings also included a controversial letter from his father, cinema tickets, stamps, a receipt for an engagement ring, and a bank notice demanding repayment for an overdraft.

The level of deception orchestrated by British intelligence agents was astounding. At the heart of the plan was a message marked “Personal and Top Secret” from General Sir Archibald Nye, Vice Chief of the Imperial General Staff, to General Sir Harold Alexander, who was then leading the Eighth Army in North Africa. The message suggested that the British intended to send their forces to Greece and Sardinia, not Sicily, stating, “We have a very good chance of making Hitler think that we are going to Sicily as a clear objective, and he should be nervous about it.” The preparation for “Operation Mincemeat” was completed, and ten days before the body’s arrival on the Spanish coast, Ewen Montagu and Charles Cholmondeley transported Captain William Martin in a truck filled with dry ice to Scotland, from where he was placed on the submarine HMS Seraph, which took him to the Spanish coast.

On April 30, 1943, one mile off the coast, the officers released William Martin’s body into the water, using the submarine’s motors to push it towards the shore. The plan succeeded when sardine fishermen found the dead man, with the briefcase chained to his wrist. The Spanish authorities were notified, and although Spain was officially neutral during the war, British intelligence knew that the Nazis had a presence there. The discovery of the body was quickly reported to the German military intelligence by a spy named Adolf Klaus. The British sent a message to Spain requesting the return of the body and the briefcase, stating that the classified documents might be in a black briefcase and should be recovered immediately, ensuring they did not fall into unwanted hands. The Germans promptly examined the briefcase, opened it, and read the fake message, then soaked it in seawater to make it appear untouched.

Despite the Germans’ efforts to make it seem as if the briefcase had not been tampered with, they failed to notice that the agents Montagu and Cholmondeley had left a single eyelash in the letter to identify if anyone had opened it. The eyelash was missing when the briefcase was returned. To confirm this, British intelligence decrypted a message sent to Adolf Hitler, which revealed that Nazi spies had informed him about the body and that the briefcase had been opened. An immediate telegram was sent to Churchill, indicating that the Germans had taken the bait. This was confirmed when the German war strategy took a dramatic turn, with their tanks being moved from France to Greece and an increased concentration of troops and weapons in the Balkans, while only light defenses were placed in Sicily. The Allies invaded Sicily on July 10, 1943, as planned, and easily captured the island in just over a month of fighting, suffering much fewer casualties than expected. “Operation Mincemeat” was an outstanding success, so much so that Hitler initially believed the Sicily invasion was merely a diversion to distract him from an anticipated Greek invasion.

The success of this plan had a significant impact, with historians noting that without “Operation Mincemeat,” Hitler would not have diverted his forces to Greece, making the invasion more difficult, slower, or even impossible, thereby altering the course of the war. Despite the significance and professionalism of this operation, it remained unknown until 1953 when Ewen Montagu recounted it in his book “The Man Who Never Was,” which was later adapted into a film and subsequently remade into another film titled “Operation Mincemeat” by Netflix.