During World War II, Sicily became a point of unquestionable strategic value.
William Martin was a British naval officer, born in Cardiff in 1907. His life was apparently normal: he liked smoking, going to the movies, and he had a girlfriend named Pamela. During World War II, a plane crash plunged him into the cold waters of the Mediterranean Sea, where he met his death in 1943.
This was, at least, what the Germans had to believe, since in truth William Martin never existed: he was only the imaginary protagonist of a delicate military operation. Martin’s “father” was Ewen Montagu, a British Security Service officer.
RAF Captain Charles Cholmondeley of Section B1(a) of MI5 not Sir Archibald Cholmondeley, as stated in some accounts had the idea of launching a radio transceiver in France with a corpse, as the supposed operator, to which a badly opened parachute would be attached, with the idea of providing the Allies with a source of disinformation against the Germans, so that a minor German resistance could be attacked. The plan was shelved as impractical; however, the idea was revived a few months later by Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu, a naval intelligence officer who was a member of the “Committee of Twenty” (a group that ran a branch of MI5 specializing in counterespionage, deception operations and disinformation), who considered the idea to have great potential, and quickly began to study the details of the deception.
The first thing his team did was to consider what kind of documents a man who died by accident from the parachute opening would carry, according to Cholmondeley’s proposal.
Since the Germans knew that the Allies never sent sensitive documentation on flights over enemy territory, they decided that the man would be the victim of an aircraft crash at sea. This would be an explanation as to why he would have been dead at sea for several days, while solving the problem of the high level of classification of the documents. Now all that was missing was a code name for the operation. With Montagu’s characteristically macabre sense of humor, the operation was given the name “Mincemeat”.
As discreetly as possible, they located the body of a 34-year-old man who had recently died of pneumonia chemically produced by ingesting rat poison. As discreetly as possible, they located the body of a 34-year-old man who had recently died of pneumonia chemically produced by ingesting rat poison. They did not discuss the operation with the family or seek permission for it, but obtained the body through the mortuary attendant at St. Pancras Hospital. Since the man had died of pneumonia, the fluid in the lungs was consistent with the fact that he had been in the water for a long time.
The next step was to establish a “legend” or false identity. Major Martin of the Royal Marines, William Martin, an eventual captain qualified as a “major,” born in Cardiff, Wales, in 1907, and stationed at Combined Operations Headquarters.
To add credibility to the story, they invented a girlfriend named Pam, actually an MI5 officer, and supplemented it with photos and love letters. His belongings included a set of keys, recent theater tickets, an accommodation bill from his London club, etc. To reinforce the deception, Montagu and his team decided to imply that he was somewhat careless, with unpaid bills, a duplicate identity card to replace the one he had lost, an expired Combined Operations Headquarters pass that he had forgotten to renew, and an angry letter from his bank.
In addition, in a masterstroke of reverse psychology, the letter indicated that plans were being drawn up to deceive the Germans and convince them that the landing would be made in Sicily. This was to give the Germans the impression that they were facing forces powerful enough to carry out two major operations simultaneously and that they would take place far from Sicily, forcing them to disperse their forces to meet the threat.
Commander Martin was placed in an airtight, sealed container preserved in dry ice and dressed in his Royal Marines uniform. Cholmondeley and Montagu hired a car to deliver him to Holy Loch, Scotland, and loaded him onto the British submarine HMS Seraph.
Commander Martin was placed in an airtight, sealed container preserved in dry ice and dressed in his Royal Marines uniform. Cholmondeley and Montagu hired a car to deliver him to Holy Loch, Scotland, and loaded him onto the British submarine HMS Seraph.
Montagu had arranged this with Admiral Barry, who had the submarines under his command. Barry suggested the Seraph, which at the time was available.
On April 19, 1943 the Seraph sailed to a position one mile south of Huelva. This location was decided upon because Spain, although officially neutral, was sympathetic to the Axis powers and was full of Abwehr agents. It was also known that German agents were very active in Huelva and had very good contacts with the Spanish authorities. Afterwards, they opened the container, put the life jacket on Commander Martin and tied the briefcase with the documents to him. They then prayed the 39th psalm and gently placed the body in the water so that the current would carry it to dry land.
Photo: Enrique Conde, CC BY-SA 3.0, by Wikimedia Commons
The body was discovered at 07:30 by a Punta Umbria fisherman of Portuguese origin, Jose Antonio Rey Maria, on the beach of El Portil, who took it to the port and informed the Spanish authorities. The local Abwehr, represented by the German agricultural technician Adolf Clauss, was immediately informed of the discovery.
Three days later, the committee received a telegram from the naval attaché with the news of the discovery of the body. Major Martin’s body was handed over to British Vice Consul F. K. Hazeldene and was buried with military honors on May 4 in the Huelva cemetery. It was reported that the man had fallen into the water alive, that he had no injuries, that he had died from drowning and that the body had been in the water for three to five days.
To reinforce the deception, a series of urgent messages were sent from the Admiralty to the British naval attaché in Madrid requesting the return at any cost of the documents found with the body, due to their highly sensitive contents, to alert the Spanish authorities of their importance. The documents were returned on May 13, assuring that nothing was missing. But earlier the Germans had heard about the discovery of the documents and, not without some difficulty, the local Abwehr agent managed to get hold of them. The Germans carefully opened the briefcase and photographed all its contents. Afterwards, the briefcase was handed over to the British by the Spanish authorities. The photographs were urgently sent to Berlin, where they were evaluated by German intelligence.
When Major Martin’s body was returned and the documentation checked, the British found that it had been read and carefully put away again. Because of such deception, patrol ships, minelayers and minesweepers assigned to the defense of Sicily were sent elsewhere. As a result, the conquest of Sicily met relatively little resistance and was completed on August 9.
The man who became known as “Commander Martin” is still buried in the Huelva cemetery. In 1996 an amateur historian named Roger Morgan found evidence that Martin was an alcoholic Welsh tramp named Glyndwr Michael who died from ingesting rat poison, although it is not known how or why he ingested it.
The gravestone in the Huelva cemetery bears the name “William Martin” who, by his death, saved thousands of lives and changed the course of the war. Subsequently the name Glyndwr Michael has been added in recognition of his work.
As for Ewen Montagu, for his participation in “Operation Mincemeat” he was awarded the Order of the British Empire. In 1953 he wrote a book about the operation entitled The Man Who Never Existed which was made into a film shortly afterwards.
Visit the Tomb of William Martin in the Soledad Cemetery in Huelva.
Summer opening hours:
Monday to Sunday: 08:00 – 20:30 h.
Winter schedule:
Monday to Sunday: 08:00 – 19:00 h.
You can book a tour to the Soledad Cemetery on the third Saturday of each month on the web www.platalea.com
