The Man Who Never Was — Operation Mincemeat in WWII
Written by Prisha Gupta and edited by Aanya Sethi and Suhani Prakash
During World War 2, British intelligence pulled off one of the most successful deceptions of all time: Operation Mincemeat.
On April 30, 1943, a corpse was found floating off the Southern Spanish coast. The dead body had a briefcase handcuffed to its wrist. Even though Spain was supposed to be a “neutral” country during WWII, the Spanish promptly informed Germany about this discovery.
The Germans quickly acted on this information. They got hold of the body and examined the man and his possessions. The body was identified as Major William Martin of the British Royal Marines. His briefcase contained letters from military authorities to British officers. The letters were about the Allied army’s plans to cross the Mediterranean in order to attack Greece and Sardinia, which were German-controlled territories.
Adolf Hitler, along with the German army, was entirely convinced that the Germans had intercepted crucial plans of the allies. As a result, they doubled the number of troops in Sardinia, and many German divisions were sent to Greece and the Balkans.
The only problem was that the drowned body and the documents were a coup, designed to foil the German Army.
The man was nothing but a Welsh tramp whose body was dressed as a Major in the Royal Marines and given the false identity of William Martin. They gave the man a uniform, theatre tickets, a picture of his girlfriend and other objects to make him appear real. This operation was called Operation Mincemeat.
What made this operation so triumphant?
After a successful North African Campaign, Winston Churchill wanted to attack the Italian island of Sicily, which he called ‘Europe’s soft under-belly’. However, the problem was that the Germans would foresee the attack because Sicily was an obvious target. They needed a diversion, something to throw the Germans off their scent.
There were multiple operations initiated to achieve this — building a fake army in the Eastern Mediterranean, the broadcast of deceptive radio chatter, buying large quantities of Greek maps, etc. All of these helped convince the enemy that the planned attack was in the Balkans.
After the Germans received the fake information, Sicily, the real target, was left lightly defended.
Churchill’s coupe had worked, and in just over a month, the island was captured by the Allies. This ultimately changed the course of the war, tipping it in the Allies’ favour.
Not only did this help Churchill achieve his plan, it also kept the Germans on their feet. Over the course of the war, papers were found revealing future targets of the Allies but Germans never regarded them as true. Everything appeared suspicious: an abandoned craft was confiscated by the Germans.
Operation Mincemeat played an integral role in the Second World War. Without it, the war would have continued for many more years and many more lives would have been lost.
Without The Man Who Never Was, our history would have been different.
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Bibliography
- Andrews, Evan. “What Was Operation Mincemeat?” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 5 June 2013, www.history.com/news/what-was-operation-mincemeat.
- “Conclusion and Impact.” Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Ensured an Allied Victory, operationmincemeat.weebly.com/conclusion-and-impact.html.
- “‘Perhaps the Most Successful Single Deception Operation of the Entire War.” Sky HISTORY, www.history.co.uk/article/operation-mincemeat.
- “The War on Paper: Operation Mincemeat.” Imperial War Museums, www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-war-on-paper-operation-mincemeat.