28. The World War II Plan That Began With the Discovery of a Drowned British Officer Off the Spanish coast
Spanish fishermen off the country’s southwestern coast came upon a drowned man in uniform on the morning of April 30, 1943. They hauled in the corpse and took it to the nearby port of Huelva, where documents on the cadaver identified it as that of Major William Martin, of the British Royal Marines. Looped around the major’s trench coat was a chain affixed to a briefcase. The British consul was informed, and he informed London of Major Martin’s fate via coded diplomatic cables. That code had been broken by German intelligence, however.
When they read the exchanges between the authorities in London and their consul in Huelva, the Germans discovered that British higher-ups were extremely anxious to recover the downed officer’s briefcase. So the Germans leaned on Spain’s fascist authorities to furnish them with the contents of Major Martin’s briefcase, in the hope that they might reveal some information about an Allied plan or other secret. General Francisco Franco’s Spain was ostensibly neutral during WWII, but its pro-Axis sympathies were an open secret.