Operation Mincemeat: How A Corpse Fooled the Nazis

do about that. That's cool though. Yeah you're aging very well. Yeah, no, you're aging really well. But you mean the teeth falling out, the weight gain, and they're the gray beard. I still say you're aging very well. I appreciate it. Let's get here. Take off your hat. I still got good hair. Boom, look at that. We got hatead now beautiful. Okay, we'll think I'm bald. Some people do, like you're always wearing

that hat. Why. I don't know suspicious people. Yeah, like the drummer for the Chili Peppers, Anthony keytith Flee, Nope, the guy from Jaan's Addiction, Nope, I don't know them. Not John Percant chat Smith, the guy that looks like Will Ferrell, He's always Ferrell. He's always got that hat on backwards. And um he's baldly like Brett Um Michael's bald. Remember he always wears a do Rag's super bald. So

I get why people are suspicious. If you're a public figure that has a patented hat piece, then it's probably because you're bald, but not in my case. What a weird way to start the show, especially this show, Operation Mincemeat, which is a ghoulish gallows humor awesomely World War two British name for this, this operation. Yeah, this will live alongside our our Nazi spies and Invading Florida podcast and the History Girls covered this this very topic as well. Yeah, man,

there's nothing I love more than little known history. This is this is it. But this is great little known history. And this shouldn't be middle known because it was after the Trojan War, maybe the largest and most successful military deception plan in history. Well, there's also have you seen

that documentary Ghost Army about Operation Fortitude. They used a bunch of blow up tanks and planes, like inflatable tanks and planes to make it look like there's a whole Allied division over here, so that we could invade Normandy more you it's like a Looney Tune cartoon. Awesome, But yes, this ranks up there with literally with the Trojan Horses. It's that ingenious and that wonderful. But so let's set the stage right. So in early nineteen UM the war

was very much undecided. It could have been anybody's, like your, Europe was under the control of Hitler, huge amounts of Europe. They called it Fortress Europe because he the Nazis were just had just overrun the place, right dug in and um, the the Allies knew that they needed to get into Europe to topple Hitler or else, like they weren't going to win the war. So um Churchill suggested attacking Europe's underbelly, which is maybe Italy, Greece, Sardinia. He called it the underbelly,

not very flattering, but he called it Europe's underbelly. So everybody, the Allies, the Greeks, the Nazis, the Japanese, Um, the people uh in Hawaii. Everybody knew, yeah, they weren't American quite yet. Everybody knew that the Allies were gonna attack somewhere in that area. Yeah, come up through the Mediterranean. Even Hitler feared this the most. But right, and and I mean everybody knew the Allies were coming and they

were gonna come there. But this, this land mass, this area land and see is large enough that you can't just be like, oh, they're coming down there, we got it covered. You need to know kind of specifically where they were covering. And there were just a few places where they could have come. One was Greece, that was where Hitler always suspected. One was Sardinia, right, and then another was Sicily. And in ninety three, I think January, the Allied powers met in French Morocco and held um

a conference, the Casablanca Conference. Yeah, it really was. And um they said, okay, we're going to invade Sicily this July. We're gonna call it Operation Husky. Now we have to do everything we can to not let the Nazis know that that's where we're going. And that actually hatched eventually

what's called Operation Mincemeat. Yeah, you know what. Studying this stuff and I'm not a big war buff um, although I'm getting more so, but reading up on this stuff like the old war are so much like the board

game risk that it's startling. Yeah, it's literally when you look at the stuff, it's like moving troops to where you think people are going to attack you and rolling the dice a bit, and if you're right, then great, If not, you're screwed very much though, which is why it's such a huge shift that we're seeing now in moving to unconventional warfare, because that's scary stuff. Yeah. I think pretty much all war is scary. Yeah. Well, of course I'm not saying like Normandy was a gig walk

or anything, because they knew what they was going on. Man, I watched Saving Private Ryan again the other day. God, it's crazy. That thing's almost a snuff film. It's not as bad as We Were Soldiers, which is a snuff film, but it's I never saw that one, the Mel Gibson where, Yeah, dude,

it's it's the most graphically violent mainstream movie ever made. Really. Yes, Yeah, Like there's a part where there's there they have a shot a camera shot over this guy's shoulder, right, so his helmets in the in the near four ground and that guy takes a hit to the head and like blood spray covers the camera lens for the next like a little while his brains just cover the camera. It's disgusting. Did you like Saving Private Again? Yeah, it's it's a

great movie, but it is like really like violent. That's another thing about getting older is that stuff affects you more and more. The more you come to terms with your own mortality, the more valuable life becomes. The more valuable even a character in a movie's life becomes, you know what I mean? That stuff gets to agreed, It's called growing up, my friend, I'm becoming human, isn't it

grows alright? So on September twenty nine, nine nine, Uh, there was a director of British Naval Intelligence name Admiral John Godfrey, and he distributed something called the Trout Memo and um, it was written by his assistant, Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming. Familiar name, yeah, creator of James ball Own. That's right, the guy, And uh, I think most people know that he served at this point. Yeah, but um, if you didn't, that's a nice little factoroid for you.

So he he wrote the Trout Memo and they called it the Trout Memo memo because they pointed out in the intro that this that the trout fisherman fishes very patiently, but he changes venue frequently, and he changes his bait very frequently too, And so they wanted to they're charged with deception. They wanted to come up with all these different ideas, all this different bait and venue changes that they could come up with. Yeah, and this was the

time too. We should point out that um spying, spying is always vital, but man of World War two, it was going on all over the place in a huge, huge part of the war. So, um, we need to do one on the Enigma machine. By the way, at some point we do because that's one of the unsung heroes in this operation. Absolutely. Um. Alright, So with the trout memo. In Flaming wrote uh Well co authored fifty one different operations suggestions, and number twenty eight was one

called a suggestion parentheses not a very nice one. The following suggestion is used in a book by Basil Thompson. I'm so pleased that you said Basil instead of Basil. Uh. In fact, that was the novel The Milliner's Hat Mystery. And he was actually a World War One spy. Oh really, yea, So he was it a spy writer that Ian Fleming, the creator James Bond, Doug Crazy, So that's where this originally, so uh here I'm getting that's right. The following suggestion

is used in a book by Basil Thompson Colin. A corpse dressed as an airman with dispatches in his pockets could be dropped on the coast, supposedly from a parachute that had failed. I understand there is no difficulty in obtaining corpses at the Naval hospital, but of course it

would have to be a fresh one. So the idea is, let's get a dead person, let's dress him up like a soldier, given some sensitive documents that leak this invasion fraudulent, fraudulent, very important, that leak the invasion of Greece, which is not really happening, and they're gonna mount up troops there and we'll actually go in Sicily. They're gonna find this body. They're gonna think they've stumbled upon this great happy accident

and we're going to fool him. So yeah, that was the That was the whole idea, That was the general basis of it. And Churchill loved the idea because apparently He liked what he called corkscrew thinkers because he knew Hitler thought in a straight line. Yes, and by corkscrew thinkers, I think that would be our equivalent of outside the box. Yeah. Yeah. Churchill was like, this is great. I love church Let's drink some scotch and do it. Yeah, let's look like

a bulldog. So um they the well. That idea was roughly outlined by Ian Fleming, and then the the Churchill's Court screw Thinkers, the exc committee led by Um you and Montague and um Chumley. Yeah, which is his name is not spelled Chumley? How's it spelled? Are you ready for this? Charles c h O l m O n d e l e y pronounced Chumley. Yeah, And apparently when he met people he would say, uh, Lieutenant Charles Chumley c h O l m O n d e l e y. He would spell it out, Yeah, Are

you making fun of me? Or is there for no? No No? No. He was a very quirky guy, and that's how he described himself as toothpaste, as if it had been squeezed from the tube. Like he self described. He would go hunting with a revolver like bird hunting is a weird guy. I actually watched a quickie BuzzFeed video on this and they've pronounced it Charles cholmondel Did they really? Yeah, I'm glad we did our research exactly shout out with the BuzzFeed.

So you and Montague right, yeah, the other guy. He is noteworthy in a number of ways to apparently it's just the greatest guy ever, most interesting man on the planet. Um. And he actually wrote the book, the first book on Operation mince Meat, because he was one of the people who came up with this and implemented it. The man who was never there, the man who never was so too. Yeah, of the same name starring Montgomery Cliff, I believe, no, starring Cliff Clay Web. Cliff Claven Cliff Web, but not

Montgomery Clift. Those two are virtually interchangeable there, So um what you and Montague was already notable because at school he and his brother had created the rules for um ping pong I know that, among other things, and his brother equally interesting equally um rambunctious went on to become a spy for the Soviets. Wow. Yeah, so he turned

yes against England, Yes against everybody? Except for the Soviets. Well, Montague was, uh, he was formerly a barrister, an attorney, and um, this is why he actually did not go serve on a ship. Um. And the other guy, Chumley, never flew a plane. One was air Force, one was a navy. Uh. And apparently Montague was as an attorney, was very good at just seeing all the angles. So they said, you, sir, are perfect for this job. And they picked wisely because these guys really pulled it off.

So we'll dive into this much more in depth right after this, all right, Chucky, So we have the rough outline that Ian Fleming came up with the XX Committee, led by you and Montague and Charles Chumley, the part of m I five, I believe. Um said we're gonna take this particular idea and really run with it. Um. And like you said, they were going to, Well, the first thing they did was start setting about creating a backstory. Well, they had three months, so that the clock is ticking

at this point. Yeah, because here's the thing. They set the invasion right in January, and they set the invasion for July. Now you needed enough time to um plant this this corpse, this fake dead courier um that had ended Nazi hands and give the with enough time so that the Nazis could digest it, analyze it, decided it was truthful, and then react the way you wanted them to, which meant that they had no later than May or else this plan was out the window. Yeah, you wanted them.

The ultimate goal was to have the Nazis put their troops in the wrong place, and that takes time, so they they looked around and they decided that the best place to carry out this operation was Spain. And Spain during World War Two was allegedly ostensibly neutral, but they had a lot of acts as sympathies, a lot of connections to Nazi Germany. And there was a particular Nazi agent, a spy working in a port called Um Whoell Whoeverla

Whoeverla right Um, and his name was Adolf Klaus. And Adolf Klaus was known to be very methodical, pretty brutal, brutal and ruthless, extremely gullible. Yeah, he was a straight line thinker. He was hitler. He wasn't one that could think outside the box and think, maybe this is an elaborate hoax that that guy didn't even own. A real corkscrew, you know, like they cut the top to off of

wine bottles. Yeah, they specifically targeted, which is amazing. So they wanted this guy who was fairly gullible but also known as like a very respected Nazi agent in Spain um to be the one who came up with this corpse and could ever so before they ever had any corps or could have or anything like that, Montague and um and Chumley start setting about creating a backstory, and they created this guy named Major Um Martin, William Martin,

that's right. And they created Major William Martin, and they created this whole persona and this wasn't the first time they've done it, that they had actually they had um chops with this kind of stuff. So they had created a fake spy network that made Nazi Germany think that they had a whole double double agent network in the UK.

And all of them were fictitious, not real people that you and Montague and Charles Chumley had created these fake personas and had fed the Nazis misinformation through these people that didn't really exist. So they that that understanding and that thinking of what it takes to create a fake persona,

and they said about creating one for Major William Martin. Yeah, and um, if you there's a great BBC documentary on this, and they interview a lot of the players, um, including a lot of the women who worked at m I five in the office, and they were all just so delighted that they all described this as like the most exciting adventure they'd ever had. It was like something out of a spine novel and they were living it. And so they all had great fun creating these characters that

these made up people. Um. They wanted to give him a fiance because the idea is that they find this body with what not only these documents in a briefcase, the important documents, but to make it believable, he had to have believable what they called pocket litter or wallet litter, which is if you find any person on the street, ask them to open their wallet, you're gonna be able to tell a lot about them. So just stuff to

legitimize it. So they said, let's give him a fiance, and all the women in the office wanted to be the fiance, so they all submitted photographs. They picked this one, Lady Jean Leslie, uh secretary Okay, that's the lady on the beach. Yes, picked her of her in a bathing suit on the beach, so this was going to be

planted on his body. Uh. They all wanted to write the love letters back and forth, but they picked a woman named Hester Leggert, the head secretary of m I five, and she wrote even though she was a spinster, she wrote all these like heartfelt love letters. The first couple of drafts were really dirty, and they were like, you gott to tone this down a little, like, is that what you think happens in a relationship? No, not me.

So everyone's really excited in the office. Um Chumley is wearing what would eventually be the uniform of Martin every day to give it that worn in look. Monta Hue actually ended up having an affair with the secretary who gave him the photo as the fiance. They had a real life affair as Bill and Pam. Pam is the made up fian say, got they got a little weird that it is a little weird, Like they wrote each other love letters, had a real life affair calling each

other Bill and Pam. So there was some like strange role playing going on. I'm sure, he was married at the time. His family had been shipped to America, so he was not doing the right thing there he was he was allows in that department. Well you know also um Roll Dahl, the guy who wrote James and Giant Peach and Charlietor he was a spy for the British. He was in the British military and his whole job was to basically bed um the wives of American officials

here in Washington. Really yeah, did he do so? Oh? Yeah? Wow? Oh he made his way through Washington society apparently with great zeal. Alright, so they're cooking up this backstory. Uh, they get other great things for the wallet litter, like, uh, theater ticket stubs and an overdraft letter from his bank and just these things that make it seem like super realistic. And what else they I think they gave him a

st Christopher Metal. Maybe they wanted to strongly imply that he was Roman Catholic and that will come up, uh very it will become very important in a minute. Right, So they've got this backstory and apparently like this, they were working feverishly on this stuff, having the weirdo affair wearing the uniform all that stuff before they'd even gotten final approval, just because they didn't want to stop work and then had to pick it up feverishly. They wanted

this to to keep going. So they finally got final approval from Admiral Godfrey um to carry out this thing for real. And when they got final approval, they said, okay, we need a body, and they figured no problem they were looking at first. They needed somebody who um, who had relatives that didn't care what happened to the body after death and could keep their mouth shut. Um. They needed a body that was of military age, didn't have any signs of visible trauma um right um, and that

that preferably they would have died of pneumonia. And the reason that they wanted him to die of pneumonia is because they were going to make it look like this guy had been in a plane crash, um, but it survived the plane crash, but it drowned at sea. And if he had pneumonia, then his fluids would be filled with long so that when the Spanish conducted in autopsy on them. Yeah, so that when the Spanish conducted their autopsy, they'd be like, that's the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

I've never seen fluid filled with lungs, but that's how much fluid there is. The problem is is they didn't get their hands on a guy with pneumonia, and they didn't even know exactly where to get a person at first. It wasn't until they turned the guy who ran the more g at St. Pancras Hospital, which is the worst hospital name of all time. Um, they turned him and got him to assist them that they finally got their

hands on body. Yeah. His name was sir uh, Sir Bentley Purchase, which is a great name, and uh it was. He was a corner of the largest mortuary at Sat. Pancras, terrible and he had apparently a wicked sense of humor. It was pretty complicated to give directions to his office. So when he gave Montyue the directions, he said, or he could just get run over by a bus. Nice man. The British during wartime where they're having their sense of humor was wonderful. So they got Bentley Purchased and he said,

I've got a dude. Um, his name is Glendor Michael. Yeah that is not how that's spelled either, No, it is g l Y n d w R Super Welsh. Yeah, he was a Welshman born in nineteen o nine. He was the son of a coal miner. His father killed himself by stabbing himself in the throat. I hadn't read that and it didn't say like slit your throat, said he stabbed himself in the throat, which is weird and at. So his dad died when he was a teenager. Mother

died when he was thirty. Uh, alcoholic, had a rough go because of the depression and was basically basically killed himself by ingesting rat poison. So that is not necessarily resolved whether it was suicide. Yeah, so they they the Bentley purchased wrote down that he um he killed himself. It was ruled a suicide, okay. But the way that he ate the rat poison, it was on a crust

of bread. He was hungry, they wondered. So he he may have been so destitute that he ate a crust of bread that he found in an abandoned warehouse and it was smeared with rat poison and that's what he died of. But they found him in this cold January night in nineteen forty three. Um, in this abandoned warehouse in London, and um, he had just eaten some rat poison. But he survived for two more days. And so Bentley purchased guy, his hands on him and said I think

I found your guy. Dudes, Yeah, and they did. Um. There were some issues, of one of which is they needed a photo of the guy for an I d He didn't have any photos. And every time they took a picture of the dead guy's face, they were like, he looks like a dead guy. Yeah, really, So they scoured. You can see your fingers holding his eyes up. So they scoured London looking for a look alike and eventually found a guy at a fellow intelligence officer who looked

just like him. Aweso, they used his face. Aw it's all coming together, Yes it is. I'm sure they were like, Wow, Providence is really smiling on this. Yeah. And if you're feeling bad for Glenn, do or just hang tight? Yeah, I still think you can feel bad for Glenn or talk about a rough life. Jeez, do you remember that one Sara atte Live where Robert Duval was like super special guest. He wasn't even hosting or mentioned, He just showed up on this game show called Who's More Grizzled?

And he talks about like it was him and Garth Brooks. How do I miss that? And um he talks about how one one cold her his wife died and he had to keep her out in the barn until the ground thaws so we can bury her out back. What. Yeah, it was just weird like that. It wasn't even really funny. It was more just like, wow, that really is hard. But the whole game show was Who's more Grizzled anyone?

Of course, because Robert Duvall, Yeah, he's more grizzled than Garth Brooks even even Yeah, yeah, poor guard from Poor Garth books. What are you talking about? I'm talking about the Chris Gaines thing. He chose to do it. He's a wealthy man. Yeah, I don't feel too bad for him, but I think that was evidence that he was surrounded by yes man at the time. That was a weird thing. Though. Yeah, he faked a soul patch that wasn't even real. No, I mean, even if it was real, it was part

of his character. It's like I thought you meant it was Sharpie maybe Okay, the hair was definitely colored with Sharpie all right, so where where are we here? We've got a body. We finally got the photograph of him, yeah, which is that's amazing. I didn't know that part. And um, there's another thing we found this awesome a military analysis of it. So that's kind of cool. Somebody wrote a military analysis of this. I don't remember who, so I can't come a shout out, but we'll put it on

our podcast page. But they point out that one of the reasons this was so successful this operation was one these guys at Excess commit x X committee just had free run to break the law, um, bend morality, do all sorts of stuff. Um, they just were able to go do their thing. But the other thing was is that they really kept this lid on this stuff and it was all disseminated on a need to know basis. So when they had this guy, they had him, they had they got glend Doer, kept him on ice for

three months as they finished his backstory. They're running up against like go time, and then I think in um February or March April maybe I'm not sure the date. Do you know that what happened when they finally um carried out Operation mincemeat. Let's just say spring because I know that they kept him on ice for a few months. Yeah, and they so they're up to the point where the d comp is about to give away that this guy

didn't just recently die. Yeah, and that was a big fear that the Spanish uh corners would be able to tell to which will come up in a minute, Okay, and um, they're also getting to the point where they're reaching the end of the amount of time that they need to give the Nazis to absorb this MINS information. So they finally they get the guys persona in place, they have the body, and now it's time to actually carry out the operation. And like I was saying, they kept a lid on all this, so it was a

need to know basis. So they got their hands on a sub commander who could keep his mouth shut, and they gave him a metal cylinder um with the corpse of glendor Michael now Major William Martin. Yeah, when you say subcommander mean submarine. Yes, not a commander below regular commander, the submarine commander. They gave him the cylinder and they said, we're gonna tell you what's in here. Do not tell anybody else. So apparently the people uh staffing this sub um,

I thought this was some sort of weather buoy. Yeah, it was marked optical instruments. Um. But you're right. He was the only one on board supposedly that knew there was a body inside. Yep, And they put a life jacket on him, stuffed him in the cylinder, put him on the sub and took him over to Spain under a on a submarine. Well, let's back up for one second, because we we forgot to cover the main letter in

the This was the all of operation mince meat. It did not hinge on theater ticket stubs or bank overdraft letters. That's merely pocket litter. It hinged on a letter hinting strongly that the invasion was gonna come up through Greece Sardinia. Right. And that was the other thing too. It wasn't like official document invasion is going to come through Greece. It was a letter from one general or admiral to another

high ranking guy, I think general Nie. Uh. They composed a bunch of different letters themselves, and finally they said, why don't you write it in your own words, in your own language, in your own handwriting. Everything so it really was written by this this um high ranking US military official or British military official, um who who who

wrote this fake letter? And he made a joke about sardines, a terrible joke, which was the little hint that was just clever enough to work, right, And so in it it basically says, um, we're we're coming up with the you know, we're going to strike through Greece, that's where the invasion of Europe is going to be. Um, but we're also going to tell everybody that Sicily is the cover. Right.

And this was a stroke of genius because in this this false letter, not only does it show that they're coming through Greece, which they weren't, but it says that Cecily is the cover, which would make the Nazis think that if anyone ever did actually leak the real invasion plan of Sicily, the Nazis would think that that was misinformation. Dude,

it was so ingenious. That's crazy genes. And I think about here now, Chuck, we get to the point where we should talk about the Enigma machine and the role it played, right, Yeah, Well, basically we all know that the Enigma machine was the codebreaking machine invented in the UK two decipher. Uh. Well, the Enigma machine wrote the code. I think, oh it wrote the code, yeah, and then the decipher code that they had gotten they deciphered it at Bletchley Park. But I think the Enigma machine was

the actual code writing the encrypting machine. I could be wrong, but okay, well, so we definitely need to do a podcast on there because we're mixed up already to get it straight. But at any rate, the long and short of it is, and Beckley Park was Beckley Park. I always say blutch ely was there an Ellen there? I draw the whole ugly word out. Uh, they basically had they could. It was like reading the Nazis email essentially

on a daily basis basis, hourly basis. They knew exactly what was going on, so they would know if they were buying this whole thing as it happened in real time. But even before that they were able to craft this this misinformation based on the Nazis assumptions. So everybody wants to hear that there are assumptions that their beliefs are correct. People are more apt to buy that things that confirm their suspicions of their beliefs already, right, Hitler was worried

about Sicily. He he was, so he he already thought that Greece was going to be where we invaded. And then secondly he was he we knew that he had heard rumors that Mussolini was going to be toppled soon, so he was reticent to commit troops to Italy Sicily. Right. So this, this revelation that came in the form of this letter, this false letter, completely supported everything that Hitler and the Third Reich believed as far as this European

invasion was going to go. And we're able to do that thanks to the smarties at Bletchley Park, right yeah, and uh, this letter too. It's um. There's another little tidbit. They put a single eyelash in the fold of the letter so they would know when they eventually got this letter back. If there was no eyelash, they would know that the Nazi said in fact opened it. Um And because the idea was they would open it and reseal

it and act like we never saw it. But there wasn't that eyelash, and they'd know not so rudim entry. But it worked. Oh yeah, So, um, did you take another break. Let's take a break, all right, I'm getting excited. Okay, So, Chuck, we are at sea aboard a submarine, Jolie down here and it is and you're not supposed to be smoking cigars. No you're not, despite Gene Hackman doing it and Crimson tied. Yeah, what a bad idea. Um. So we're off the coast of Spain. We're off the coast of whoeverla not an

easy word to say, but it's important Spain. And again this is where Nazi agent Aidolf Klaus. Yeah, they kind of want to float the body right up to this guy's backyard basically, so they did. He was released from this canister. I I read somewhere else that, um, the canister itself was fired on with submarine submachine guns on a sub so you could just call the machine guns there. Um, And it was sunk and the body drifted off towards

Oh I thought they just dumped the body. Yeah, I'm not sure, because I found a book, um on Google books. It was like from two thousand and seven, and it was a history book and it made it sound like the sub the people working on the sub all knew what was going on. But that's in start start contrast to everything else we've seen. So they may or may not have sunk the weatherbooy, who knows, but either way, Major Martin was released into the current that took him

right to Huevla and he went. I think he was found by a fisherman that same day. Yeah, and at this point the um the Brits started sending telegrams about a very important missing person frantic Yeah, like they wanted these to get intercepted obviously, uh, and that worked as well. This is all really going exactly as they planned. So they sent the British Council in Spain in Huevla, um or in Spain to Huevla and said, you need this

is really important. You need to get your hands on the briefcase, find out what happened to this guy and get your hands on his briefcase. And Claus was going briefcase right as Monocle popped out, and um, the British Council and Spain didn't even know what was going on. They thought like this, like they were they saw everything from the same aspect of reality that the Nazis saw exactly. So the British Council are trying to get this briefcase

kind of frantically um. And the Spaniards were like, uh, you know what, we are just going to keep this on lockdown for now is we investigate the whole thing. But we got it covered, remember where neutral, so your briefcase is safe. And the British consul said, well, okay, one thing this is very important. Uh. This guy was Roman Catholic. You can check out the medal in his pocket. Um, so please don't dissect him. It's against Roman Catholic beliefs

and traditions to um dissect or autopsy body. I hadn't heard before, but apparently in the forties that was the case and that super Roman Catholic and they said, oh, yes, of course we won't do that. So apparently that's how they got around the fact that Glenda her hadn't died of pneumonia. Uh yeah. And the other way they got around it was they had a plant uh in the office who talked to the corners and was like, guys, it's hot and this body is going to start riding

real soon. So how thorough do you really want to make this? And they said, you're right, Let's go have some some wine. Some Uh what do they call it over there, No, it's the pretty Yeah, let's go have some sangria and knock off early. And that's exactly what happened thanks to the plans. Uh, so this is going on. There was a small wrinkle at this point. The briefcase went to Madrid, Spain wasn't gonna hand it over to anyone, um, but the Brits were trying to get it in the

hands of the Nazis. And they're actually having trouble getting it into the hands of the Nazis until a guy named Carlo Coolan Tall he was Hitler's most trusted guy in Spain. Uh, he got wind of it and kind of took over for Klauss. Was like, I'm gonna get this briefcase, and he did. Nine days later after the body washed Ashore. The letter ended up in the hands of the German. The German, uh you know, it worked his way up the chain. Yeah, to Hitler himself. Yeah.

I went to Gebel's first, and Gebel's even in his diary they found later had suspicions about it because he was a corkscrew thinker, and he was like, wait a minute, this is pretty convenient Yeah, this is really fishy here, but he apparently never said anything to Hitler. He got distracted. He wrote about in his diary, but the documentary said his thinking was, well, if Hitler believes it, then that's good enough for me. It seems like bad idea. Yeah,

and um, homeboy Carlo coolintal. There was always a lot of speculation on why he just ran with it and didn't ask more questions because that was his job. And it turns out his grandmother was Jewish and he was very paranoid about this being found out. So he thought, this is it. I've come upon the greatest find the war and it's all mine, so no one will ask any questions about me after this. Wow, that worked out really really well. Yeah, very convenient and thanks to the

Enigma machine they knew. Um, the Brits knew pretty quickly that this was working. And I guess Montague and um Chumbley were uh sent and Admiral God for you transmission that said Operation mince Meat swallowed, rod blind and sinker. Yeah that when when the it's so cool seeing these old like, uh, apparently you're not supposed to be elderly anymore. By the way, we got an email. I knew that or seniors. You're supposed to call them older adults seniors.

I didn't know that that was the thing. Yeah, older adults. So they're interviewing these older adults, these British ladies that are in their eighties now, and they were just also still excited, they said when they because you know, with the Enigma machine, they were basically reading their emails and they were like there, they knew they were buying it. They're buying it, and everyone was just like flipped when that came through the office. It was just like party

time basically. So the operation meant me really really worked really well, so much so that apparently Hitler moved a panzer division which totals about ninety thousand troops from Sicily to Greece and and all artillery and armaments and everything, Sicily, We're going to Greece. And then up came the Allies through Sicily. Hundred and sixty thousand Allied troops storm Sicily and only seven thousand lives were lost, which is still

in a lot of people who died. But apparently, as far as military historians are concerned, and I think the military at the time, that was a way fewer lives lost than they expected, had they had Hitler not swallowed Operation minced Me. Yeah, they expected, um, ten thousand casualties in the first three days and three hundred boats sunk in the first two days, and it ended up being four in that first week soldiers and about a dozen ships in that first week. So that's not bad. Yeah.

And not only that, but it had another effect, big one the Soviets. Yeah. So this is not something that they teach in American history classes in US high schools that much. The the Operation Husky, Uh, well it was. It was that penetration of Europe's underbelly, right, And suddenly Hitler said, Um, I'm about to storm Russia, but I really need these troops down here in Europe because I

got big problems. And that allowed basically Russia to topple the Nazi regime and Mussolini get toppled by the Brits. It completely changed the face of the war. This one idea cooked up by mean Flaming in part that crazy. It's pretty awesome. You got other stuff. Um, there's a book called Operation Mincemeat by guy named Brett McIntyre. It came out in two thousand and ten. That's a very good,

well cited book, um that we inadvertently cited here there. Um. And then there's The Man Who Never Was, which was written by you and Montague, which is not just about Operation mince Meat, but also about basically how to carry out deception plans. All right, Remember earlier when I said, don't feel too bad for uh, for Glendor Michael even he said, well, the dude died possibly of suicide because

he was penniless and going nowhere. He thought about that, but uh, fifty years after he was buried in uh the British government added, they basically buried him with military honors. The Spanish did. Yeah, he's buried in Spain, but the British it came from the Brits, I think to do so. His headstone, um came from the bridge, but the Spanish buried him with like the twenty one gun salute and everything. Yes, as Glendor Michael served as Major William Martin R M

Royal Marine. Pretty cool. Yeah, So this alcoholic drifter who never served in the military, ever served in the military, buried with full military honors. Yeah, and completely changed the face of the war thanks to being a body yeah, that the fit the bill, and if you like ghoulish photos, is a very famous photo of him being propped up in his life checket and uniform as they were basically loading him into the cylinder um that you can see

by searching. I'm sure major Charles Martin, that's right, Charles Martin. No, William Martin, William Martin, something like that. I still want to know what's going on with that weird role playing there with that dude. That's a Dylan Pam. Yeah. Yeah, because they interviewed the lady and she was just like, oh, it was all very exciting. Yeah, that's a great British lady accent older person, yeah, older ad older adults, yeah, oldie.

If you want to get or no, if you want to know more about Operation Mincemeat, just type that word into your favorite search engine or go check out the stuff you missed in history class episode And I said stuff you missed in history class. It's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this bread crust. We had that discussion about the crust and the in pieces. Remember, so this

is from a dad uh. Dear Chuck and Josh, your discussion of the in slice of bread and the body language episode brought ridiculous grin in my face as I walked around my neighborhood. Ah, don't worry, though, my neighbors have thought me to be eccentric for years now. Look at that guy smiling. What a weirdo. We must be a pinko. When our daughters were still tiny, my wife and I realized we were doomed to eighteen ish years of eating bread crust pieces ourselves if we didn't figure

something out in quickly um our solution. We started calling those pieces the lucky piece, and boy did we look our innocent, trusting toddlers. Turns out your supposition is correct. Chuck at least for children under eleven years old, even if their honor students is mine, where they will fight you for the right to eat that savory, ohso desirable piece of luck. Idea younger adults rocking on guys, and please keep my goofy grinds coming. That is from Ted c O. I n e with a little uh kin

A coin, A coin I sent to do. No, I don't know. I didn't take French legom What do you call that? A lagoon accent? Lagoom? So thanks Ted, I'll just call you coin yeah quin quin an, I don't know, let's say coin there. Uh yeah, thanks a lot. Ted. Ted contacted us on Twitter so he wanted to send us this email, So there you go, Ted. Wow. Um. If you want to get in touch with us, you can try all the ways like Ted did. You can contact us on Twitter at s Y s K podcast.

You can send us an email to stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know, and you can hang out at our luxurious home on the web stuff you should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics because it how stuff works dot com