The Man Who Never Was

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The exact identity of the "man who never was" has been the centre of controversy since the end of the war. On the one hand, certain accounts claim the true identity of "Major William Martin" was a homeless, alcoholic rat-catcher from Aberbargoed, Wales, Glyndwr Michael, who had died by self-administering a small dose of rat poison. However, in 2002, authors John and Noreen Steele published the non-fictional account of The Secrets of HMS Dasher, about an ill-fated escort carrier that exploded and sank in the Firth of Clyde around the time Operation Mincemeat had commenced. The Steeles argued that "Major Martin's" body was actually that of seaman John Melville, one of the Dasher's casualties. Further, it has been reported that the accuracy of this claim was verified by the Royal Navy in late October 2004, [3] and a memorial service was held for Melville, in which he was celebrated as one whose "memory lives on in the film The Man Who Never Was... we are gathered here today to remember John Melville as a man who most certainly was." There is some circumstantial evidence that also supports the identity of the body used as being Melville's. [4] However, in fact, Professor Denis Smyth, a researcher at the University of Toronto, has counter-argued that Glyndwr Michael was indeed the real "Major Martin". To support his claims, Smyth published the contents of a secret memo and an official report, both authored by Ewen Montagu himself, confirming the Glyndwr Michael story. [5] Macintyre also suggests that Ewen Montagu’s account is incomplete, written at the behest of the Government, conceals facts, and is deliberately misleading. The true identity of the fictitious “Major William Martin” is not revealed in this book, and later there was some dispute about it. Montagu himself wrote that the real man who served his country in death was Glyndwr Michael, a homeless man from Wales. Real agents could be intercepted, interrogated, and tortured. A dead agent could not be. Lieutenant-Commander the Honourable Ewen Montagu of Naval Intelligence, a successful barrister and Kings Counsel before the war, was paired with Cholmondeley and charged with finding a dead body and constructing the details of the plan to deceive the Germans.

The body was dropped off the Spanish coast at dawn on 30 April by HMS Seraph, a submarine that had already taken part in Special Operations and whose captain was considered entirely trustworthy. An RAF dingy was dropped in the sea nearby to suggest that the body had come down in a plane crash. It was known the tides would carry the corpse ashore. Taking the bait?

Warner Brothers upcoming movie Operation Mincemeat tells the story of one of the most secret operations of World War Two. In 1943, following the campaign in North Africa the Allies turned their attention to the island of Sicily. But to help increase their chances of success, the British Intelligence service hatched an elaborate plan to fool the defenders into thinking Allied priorities lay elsewhere. What was Operation Mincemeat? Operation Barclay was set up with plans to create the impression that an entire army group existed in the Eastern Mediterranean. It was to create a lot of noise, as though planning to invade Greece. General Henry Wilson was put in charge of this imaginary army. Double agents were to feed disinformation to the Germans about landings in Greece. Meanwhile, General Patton was apparently put in charge of an operation to invade Sardinia and Corsica. As part of Barclay, two intelligence officials came together to mastermind a brilliant additional and original aspect to the deception plan. Ewen Montagu, the author of The Man Who Never Was, quotes this adage as he describes British efforts to misdirect the German military from the Allies’ invasion of Sicily during the Second World War. After the war Jean Leslie married, Cholmondeley chased locusts and intelligence in Arabia, Hillgarth planted trees in Ireland. Montagu became a pillar of Anglo-Jewish society, was raised to the bench and became notorious for terrorising his court. In a characteristically deft addition, Macintyre quotes the judgment of the appeal court in the case of one of his victims: "Discourtesy, even gross discourtesy, to counsel, however regrettable, could not be a ground for quashing a conviction." But Montagu concealed as much as he revealed. There is no hint that German communications were being deciphered and read by the "Ultra" analysts at Bletchley Park or that the Abwehr in Spain was already being fed false information through the double agent Juan Pujol, "Agent Garbo". Thoroughly penetrated by the brilliant naval attaché in Madrid, Captain Alan Hillgarth, the supposedly neutral Spanish general staff could be expected to show the Germans the letters. Montagu also concealed the identity of the body, and lied about how he got it. The originator of the scheme, Charles Cholmondeley, is all but written out. Montagu was unaware that his brother Ivor, with his passion for leftwing causes and table-tennis, was the Soviet agent known as "Intelligentsia". It has taken Ben Macintyre to unravel these untruths and half-truths and convert Montagu's blade-straight gentlemen-amateurs of the 50s imagination into the ruthless and unscrupulous professionals our age can recognise. It is hard to imagine that he has missed anything, but I would not bet on it.

Smyth, Denis (16 June 2010). Deathly Deception: The Real Story of Operation Mincemeat. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-161364-7– via Google Books. As the team develops the plan to plant phony invasion documents on a dead body for the Germans to find, Montagu is forthright about his challenges and concerns. His description of the construction of a fake history (including name and personal life) for their corpse messenger is fascinating—as is his admission of a growing attachment to the bogus personality they created. The plan worked, German secret agents passed copies of fake documents onto German high Command who believed the deception and began redeploying troops. By the end of June, the German forces on Sardinia had been doubled to 10,000. German torpedo boats were moved from Sicily to the Greek islands in preparation and German divisions transferred to Greece and the Balkans. The Invasion of Sicily The BBC's radio comedy show, The Goon Show, made a send-up of the story of The Man Who Never Was (based on the book) and incorporated most of the regular Goon Show characters. Written by Spike Milligan and Larry Stephens, the first version of the script formed two-thirds of the episode broadcast on 31 March 1953, before the film's release, with the first third comprising a separate sketch. Like most of these early episodes, this no longer exists.On 9 July the Allies launched Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily. Across three days, more than 150,000 ground troops were landed on the island, supported by 3000 ships and more than 4000 aircraft. Coming to Duff Cooper's Operation Heartbreak, we find the Welsh tramp has climbed up the social scale. He is an ageing cavalry officer, Willie Maryngton, whose one wish in life is to fight for his country. Too young in 1918, too old in 1939, bewildered by both the mechanisation of cavalry regiments and the "modern" girl, Maryngton has his wish only after his death from pneumonia. Two Panzer divisions were removed from the Eastern Front and one from France. All three divisions were sent to Greece. New minefields were laid off the Greek coast. Squadrons of R-boats were sent from Sicily, and, most importantly, Field-Marshal Rommel was put in charge of German forces in Greece. Side note: apparently, the story is retold, at three times the length (so, presumably, in more detail), in a 2010 book titled: Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory ... but I haven't read that (and, frankly, there's a certain joy in reading Montagu's sparse, tight, yet, almost light and airy, autobiographical retelling of the tale with more than a fair share of modesty and self-congratulation, all of which seemed both fully justified and, surprisingly, endearing).