Page 36 - History of War - Issue 01-14

MILITARY

MASTERSTROKES

THE ULTIMATE

Operation Mincemeat
DECEPTION

Second World War: A dead homeless person. A submarine.
A briefcase full of faked documents… As bestselling author
Ben Macintyre explains, Operation Mincemeat was one of
the Second World War’s most ingenious and effective plans
– and helped the Allies to swing the confl ict in their favour…

N A THUNDERY NIGHT IN BACKSTORY lives of thousands. But
September 1942, an RAF Catalina Despite the Allied what’s more, the incident
FP119 seaplane travelling from forces’ successful provided the inspiration
Plymouth to Gibraltar crashed off campaign in North for a brilliant and daring
Cadiz on the Atlantic coast of Spain, Africa, the Second plan that would swing
killing everyone on board. Among World War still hung the war in Allied favour.
very much in the
the passengers was Paymaster-Lt balance. Seizing Following the capture
OJames Hadden Turner, a Royal Navy control of the island of North Africa, the Allies
courier who was carrying a top-secret letter of Sicily was crucial, turned their attention to
from General Mark Clark – the US Deputy as it would facilitate Sicily. Tactically speaking,
Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force the passage of it was an obvious choice
– to the British Governor and Commander Allied ships through – control of the Italian
in Chief of Gibraltar, General Nöel Mason- the Mediterranean island would open the Fiona Mason
MacFarlane. The contents revealed that General and deeper into Mediterranean to Allied
Dwight Eisenhower would be arriving on the continental Europe. shipping and allow the
rock imminently, in preparation for Operation invasion of continental
Torch – the invasion of North Africa by Allied Europe – and the Germans knew it. So somehow dead man] to his destination. The body could
troops. When Turner’s body was washed up, the Allies needed to convince their enemy that be transported aboard a surface ship, most
Spanish authorities turned it over to British their intentions lay elsewhere: namely, Greece easily on one of the naval escorts accompanying
forces, the letter unopened in his pocket. It had and Sardinia. With the Paymaster-Lt Turner merchant vessels in and out of Huelva port. This
been a close escape for Allied security – had episode fresh in their minds, the British Secret option was rejected – nothing was more likely
the Germans discovered the letter, the whole Service hatched a plan to dispose of a corpse to attract the attention of Adolf Clauss and his
operation would’ve been blown, risking the – planted with fake documents detailing a spies than a Royal Navy ship lingering in shallow
phoney military advance towards those two waters. An alternative would be to take the body
destinations – in a place where the enemy would by plane and throw it out at the right spot. The
A Catalina seaplane was fi nd it. Called Operation Mincemeat, it would problem was that “if the body were dropped in
an option for ditching take months to plan and involve some of the this way, it might smash to pieces on landing”.
the body, but was most cunning brains in British intelligence… A seaplane might be able to land if the
considered too dangerous conditions were right, and slip the body into
Disposing of the corpse the water more gently. Cholmondeley drew up
Even [secretary of British intelligence unit the a possible scenario: the plane would “come in
Twenty Committee] Charles Cholmondeley’s from out at sea simulating engine trouble, drop
elastic mind was having trouble wrapping itself a bomb to simulate the crash, go out to sea
around the problem of how to transport a corpse as quickly as possible, return (as if it were a
from London to Spain, then drop it in the sea second fl ying boat), drop a fl are as if searching
without being spotted, in such a way that it down the fi rst aircraft, land and then, while
would appear to be the victim of an air crash. ostensibly searching for survivors, drop the body
[The corpse was that of a Welsh homeless and take off again”. On examination, this plan
man, Glyndwr Michael, who had died after seemed too elaborate. Any number of things
ingesting rat poison.] There were, he reckoned, could go wrong, including a real plane crash.
four possible methods of shipping “Major A submarine would be better. The drop
Martin” [the fake identity they had given the could be carried out at night, and if there was
36 HISTORY WAR
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