Glyndwr MICHAEL (n.Gales, 1909 - d. London, 1943)
In the spring of 1943 things began to go wrong for the Germans after suffering the defeat of Stalingrad and have been virtually expelled from North Africa . The next logical step for the Western allies was a foothold in Europe, and the most appropriate place for this was Sicily, both for its proximity to the newly conquered Tunisian coasts as being a sort of large aircraft that made it possible German air operations in the Mediterranean. The invasion of the island had been planned months in advance and had concluded that a direct attack would be suicidal, because the Germans knew that was the place that more ballots had to be attacked. However, a couple of British intelligence officers, Ewen Montangu and Charles Cholmondeley, they thought that it might be possible through a ruse to convince the enemy that would attack the other side. Cholmondeley had been working with the idea of \u200b\u200blaunching a corpse parachuted into enemy territory with incriminating documents, but later rejected the plan that seemed too crude to fool anyone. However it was thought that if the body seemed to be the victim of a plane crash over the sea the deception would be more likely to thrive, so Montangu Cholmondeley and went looking for a body that could pass drowned in an autopsy. The body was provided by the pathologist Bernard Spillsbury, it was a 34 year old man whose death from pneumonia made him perfect to simulate a drowning man having waterlogged lungs. The family gave their consent to know it was for a special service and would be buried with honors once done this, only asked that his real name is not revealed. Once you have the body, dubbed the operation as Montangu Mincemeat (minced meat) in a display of black humor. The next thing was to create an identity that the Germans could take it for real, and thus was born Major William Martin of the Royal Marines. It was assumed that Martin was a specialist in amphibious operations carrying a letter from General Sir Archibald Nye, deputy chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Alexander , head of the 18 th Army Group, which could be read between the lines that invasion would be in Sardinia and Greece rather than Sicily. Also had another letter from Sir Louis Mountbatten , Chief of combined operations for the Admiral Cunningham in which Martin described the curriculum while he dropped the odd hint of the attack on Sardinia. Besides the letters, and Cholmondeley Montangu filled the pockets of the corpse with all that could lead a true British officer, from letters and a picture of his fiancee, who was not only one of the secretaries of the secret service, to a letter from the bank warning that was in the red after buying a ring for his girlfriend, identity cards for those who had to find a similar model and photographing the dead, keys, coins, tickets to a play of truth, etc.. Up I created a personality, was that Martin was something despistadillo in his private life and some of his documents were reservations about losing the real thing. Even had a letter in which his father was upset about his impending marriage. Once created
lure, had to think where to place it. It was decided that the best thing to appear on the English coast. Despite being a non-belligerent state, the affinity with Berlin was sufficient (Blue Division would not withdraw until the end of 1943) for the British insisting that any document that came into English hands end up in the Abwehr . The following was riding the dead in the submarine HMS Seraph between extensive security measures. The crew thought that the metal container was carrying a new weather buoy, and the officers knew only what they had just before leaving it in the sea a few meters from a beach in Huelva. So on April 30, a fisherman found the body of Martin who was carrying a briefcase with documents subject to his wrist by a chain.
As expected, a few hours the English authorities had made copies of the documents and they had been handed over to the Germans to the impatience to regain the British naval attache briefcase that knew no guile, and that he had said it was retrieve vital. Meanwhile, Martin was buried in the cemetery of La Soledad with military honors.
The arrival of the documents at the hands of Hitler, did it reinforce its troops in Sardinia and Greece, removing even two Panzer divisions from the Russian front would have been very useful in the battle of Kursk to cover the Peloponnese. Also removed most of the air and naval forces who defended Sicily, so that when the Allies landed on July 10 resistance was much more limited than expected and saved many lives. Moreover, the deception was so complete that Hitler kept thinking for a few days (as would happen later in Normandy) that the attack on Sicily was only a feint.
In 1953 Roger Morgan discovered that William Martin had actually been Glyndwr Michael, a homeless alcoholic Welshman who had not been admitted to the army and apparently died from eating rat poison. Today his name appears next to Martin in the tomb in the cemetery of Huelva, which is not without flowers since 1946 by Elizabeth Naylor Mendez and his father, who at death left her in charge of caring for the graves of those who saved so many lives after his death, though life had not been an example of just human. Finally
John and Noreen Steele in his book "The Secrets of HMS Dasher" have questioned the identity of the man buried in Huelva, arguing that the body of Glyndwr Michael was delivered on January 43 and that despite being kept on ice for when they wanted to use was too decomposed, so that the body was used anonymous one of the sailors killed on the aircraft carrier HMS Dasher . Personally I prefer the story of redeeming drunken bum after death, but that I like stories that end happily.
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