25. A Macabre Deception Plan
The Spanish and German intelligence services thought they had pulled a fast one on the British, who did not suspect that the contents of Major Martin’s briefcase had been tampered with. Unbeknownst to them, they had been taken in by a ruse of war, as British intelligence had engineered it all. Codenamed Operation Mincemeat, the British had gone to great – and macabre – lengths, to place the contents of Major Martin’s briefcase in German hands. “Major Martin” was not even a British officer.
The drowned corpse was actually that of a homeless drifter named Glyndwr Michael, that had been taken from a London morgue. As part of an intelligence deception plan, the cadaver was dressed in an officer’s uniform, furnished with identification papers and a briefcase secured to it by a courier’s chain, then dumped off the Spanish coast. The hope was that the corpse – and most importantly the briefcase attached to it – would be recovered by the Spanish, who would then turn around and share the briefcase’s contents with the Germans.