Selects: Operation Mincemeat: How A Corpse Fooled the Nazis

26:54Super Welsh. Yeah, he was a Welshman born in 1909. He was the son of a coal miner. His father killed himself by stabbing himself in the throat. I hadn't read that. Can you imagine a worse way? That is grizzled, man. And it didn't say, like, slit your throat. It said he stabbed himself in the throat. Right. Which is weird and sad. Jeez. So his dad died when he was a teenager. Mother died when he was 30. Alcoholic, had a rough go because of the depression, and basically killed himself by ingesting rat poison. So that is not necessarily resolved. What, whether it was suicide? Yeah. So the Bentley Purchase wrote down that he killed himself.

27:35Yeah, it was ruled a suicide. Okay. But the way that he ate the rat poison, it was on a crust of bread. So he was hungry? They wondered. Ugh. So 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. Wow. But they found him in this cold January night in 1943 in this abandoned warehouse in London, and he had just eaten some rat poison, but he survived for two more days. Yeah. And so Bentley Purchase got his hands on him and said, I think I found your guy, dudes. Yeah, and they did. And there were some issues, one of which is they needed a photo of the guy for an ID.

28:19He didn't have any photos. Oh, God. 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. I can see your fingers holding his eyes open. So they scoured London looking for a lookalike and eventually found a guy, a fellow intelligence officer who looked just like him. Awesome. So they used his face. Awesome. For the ID. 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 Glendor, just hang tight. Yeah, I still think you can feel bad for Glendor.

28:51Well, sure. Talk about a rough life, man. Jeez. Do you remember that one Saturday Night Live where Robert Duvall was like super special guest? He wasn't even hosting or mentioned. No. He just showed up on this game show called Who's More Grizzled? No way. And he talks about like it was him and Garth Brooks. How did I miss that? And he talks about how one cold winter, his wife died, and he had to keep her out in the barn until the ground thawed so he could 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.

29:29Yeah, sure. And he won. Of course. Because it's Robert Duvall. Yeah, he's more grizzled than Garth Brooks or Chris Keyes. Yeah, even, yeah. Yeah. Poor Garth Brooks. not poor garth brooks what are you talking about i'm talking about the chris gains thing he chose to do it he's a wealthy man yeah i don't feel too bad for him i think that was evidence that he was surrounded by yes men at the time yeah maybe that was a weird thing though yeah you know he faked a soul patch oh that wasn't even real no i mean even if it was real it was part of his character it's like sure i thought you meant it was sharpie maybe okay the hair was definitely colored with Sharpie.

30:09All right, so where are we here? We've got a body. We finally got the photograph of them. Yeah, which is, that's amazing. I didn't know that part. Yeah. And there's another thing. We found this awesome military analysis of it. Yeah, that was kind of cool. Somebody wrote a military analysis of this. I don't remember who, so I can't give them 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 XX Committee just had free run to break the law, bend morality, do all sorts of stuff. They just were able to go do their thing.

30:52But the other thing was is that they really kept a lid on this stuff, and it was all disseminated on a need-to-know basis. So when they had this guy, they got Glenduer, kept him on ice for three months as they finished his backstory, They're running up against go time. And then I think in February or March, April maybe. I'm not sure of the date. Do you know? What happened? When they finally carried out Operation Mincemeat. Let's just say spring because I know that they kept him on ice for a few months. Yeah, so they're up to the point where the decomp is about to give away that this guy didn't just recently die.

31:33Yeah, and that was a big fear that the Spanish coroners would be able to tell too. Okay. Which will come up in a minute. Okay. And 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 misinformation. Sure. So they finally, they get the guy's 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 with the corpse of Glendure Michael, now Major William Martin.

32:12Yeah, and when you say sub commander, you mean submarine. Yes. Not a commander below the under commander. A submarine commander. Yeah. They gave him the cylinder, and they said, we're going to tell you what's in here. Do not tell anybody else. So apparently the people staffing this sub thought this was some sort of weather buoy. Yeah, it was marked optical instruments. 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 on a submarine. Well, let's back up for one second, too.

32:48Okay. Because we forgot to cover the main letter in the briefcase. Oh, yeah. Really important. This was all of Operation Mincemeat. 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 going to 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. Yes. It was a letter from one general or admiral to another high-ranking guy. I think General Nye, 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?

33:33In your own handwriting, everything. So it really was written by this high-ranking U.S. military official, or British military official, 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, we're coming up, we're going to strike through Greece. That's where the invasion of Europe is going to be. Yeah. But we're also going to tell everybody that Sicily is the cover. Right? Right. And this was a stroke of genius. Oh, yeah. Because in this false letter, not only does it show that they're coming through Greece, which they weren't.

34:17Yeah. But it says that Sicily's 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 ingenious. 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 code-breaking machine invented in the UK to decipher... Well, the Enigma machine wrote the code, I think. Oh, it wrote the code? Yeah. I thought it deciphered code that they'd gotten.

34:57They deciphered it at Bletchley Park, but I think the Enigma machine was the actual code-writing, the encrypting machine. Oh, okay. I could be wrong, but okay. Well, so we definitely need to do a podcast on that. Right. Because we're mixed up already. To get it straight. But at any rate, the long and short of it is in Beckley Park. Was it Beckley Park? I always say Bletchley. Oh, was there an L in there? I draw the whole ugly word out. They basically had, it was like reading the Nazis' email, essentially, on a daily basis. On an hourly 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.

35:34But even before that, they were able to craft this misinformation based on the Nazis' assumptions. So everybody wants to hear that their assumptions, that their beliefs are correct. Yeah. People are more apt to buy that, things that confirm their suspicions or their beliefs already, right? Yeah, Hitler was worried about Sicily. He was. So he already thought that Greece was going to be where we invaded. Yeah. And then secondly, 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 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.

36:26And we were able to do that thanks to the smarties at Bletchley Park, right? Yeah, and this letter, too, here'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 Nazis had, in fact, opened it. Right. Because the idea was they would open it, reseal it, and act like we never saw it. Right. But if there wasn't that eyelash, then they'd know. Nice. So rudimentary, but it worked. Oh, yeah. So... Should we take another break? Let's take a break. S-Y-Y-S-K-S-K.

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38:39You know Roald Dahl, the writer who thought up Willy Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roald Dahl, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life. His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. What? And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you, the guy was a spy. Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's, played poker with Harry Truman, and had a long affair with a congresswoman?

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39:45All stuff you should know. Okay, so Chuck, we are at sea aboard a submarine. That's right. It's chilly down here and dark. It is. And you're not supposed to be smoking cigars. No, you're not. Despite Gene Hackman doing it in Crimson Tide. Yeah, what a bad idea. Yeah. So we're off the coast of Spain. We're off the coast of Huevla. Not an easy word to say, but it's a port in Spain. And again, this is where Nazi agent Adolf 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 read somewhere else that the canister itself was fired on with submachine guns on a sub.

40:31So you could just call them machine guns there. Yeah. And it was sunk, and the body drifted off toward Rebula. Oh, I thought they just dumped the body. Yeah, I'm not sure. Because I found a book on Google Books. It was like from 2007, and it was a history book. Gotcha. And it made it sound like the people working on the sub all knew what was going on. But that's in stark contrast to everything else we've seen. So they may or may not have sunk the weather buoy. 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.

41:13Yeah, and at this point, the Brits started sending telegrams about a very important missing person. Frantic. Yeah, like they wanted these to get intercepted, obviously. And that worked as well. This is all really going exactly as they had planned. So they sent the British council in Spain, in Huevla, or in Spain to Huevla, and said, this is really important. and you need to get your hands on the briefcase. Find out what happened to this guy and get your hands on his briefcase. Yeah, and Klaus is going, briefcase? Right. His monocle popped out. And the British Council in Spain didn't even know what was going on.

41:51Yeah. They thought like this, like they saw everything from the same aspect of reality that the Nazis saw. Yeah, need to know basis. Exactly. So the British Council are trying to get this briefcase kind of frantically. And the Spaniards were like, you know what? We are just going to keep this on lockdown for now as we investigate the whole thing, but we got it covered. Remember, we're neutral, so your briefcase is safe. The British consulate said, well, okay, one thing. This is very important. This guy was Roman Catholic. You can check out the medal in his pocket. Yeah. So please don't dissect him.

42:27It's against Roman Catholic beliefs and traditions to dissect or autopsy a body. I hadn't heard before, but apparently in the 40s that was the case. And Spain was way down with 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 Glendur hadn't died of pneumonia. Yeah, and the other way they got around it was they had a plant in the office who talked to the coroners and was like, guys, it's hot, and this body is going to start rotting real soon, so how thorough do you really want to make this? And they said, you're right, let's go have some wine.

43:04What do they call it over there? And wine? No, what's the fruity? Sangria. Yeah, let's go have some sangria and knock off early. And that's exactly what happened, thanks to the plant. So this is going on. There was a small wrinkle at this point. The briefcase went to Madrid. Spain wasn't going to hand it over to anyone. But the Brits were trying to get it in the hands of the Nazis, and they were actually having trouble getting it into the hands of the Nazis until a guy named Carlo Kulental. He was Hitler's most trusted guy in Spain. He got wind of it and kind of took over for Klaus. Was like, I'm going to get this briefcase.

43:44And he did. Nine days later, after the body washed ashore, the letter ended up in the hands of the German. The German, you know, worked his way up the chain. Yeah, to Hitler himself. Yeah, went to Goebbels first. And Goebbels, even in his diary they found later, had suspicions about it. Oh, yeah? Because he was a corkscrew thinker. And he was like, wait a minute. This is pretty convenient. Yeah, this is really fishy here. But apparently he never said anything to Hitler. He got distracted. He wrote about it in his diary. By his kittens. The documentary said his thinking was, well, if Hitler believes it, then that's good enough for me.

44:21Huh. That seems like a bad idea. Yeah. And homeboy, Carlo Kulental, 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 of the war, and it's all mine. Oh, yeah. So no one will ask any questions about me after this. Huh. Wow. Wow, that worked out really, really well. Yeah, very convenient. And thanks to the Enigma machine, they knew, the Brits knew pretty quickly that this was working.

45:01And I guess Montague and Chumley sent Admiral Godfrey a transmission that said, Operation Mincemeat swallowed rod, line, and sinker. Yeah. It's so cool seeing these old, like, apparently you're not supposed to say 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 a thing. Yeah, older adults. So they're interviewing these older adults, these British ladies that are in their 80s now, and they were just all so still excited. They said when they, because, you know, with the Enigma machine, they were basically reading their emails.

45:40Right. And they were like, they knew. They were buying it. They're buying it. Yeah. And everyone was just, like, flipped when it came through the office. It was just, like, party time, basically. So the Operation Mint Me really, really worked really well. So much so that apparently Hitler moved a panzer division, which totals about 90 ,000 troops, from Sicily to Greece. Yeah. And all the artillery and armaments and everything, not just soldiers. So long, Sicily, we're going to Greece. And then up came the Allies through Sicily. 160 ,000 allied troops stormed Sicily and only 7 ,000 lives were lost, which is still a lot of people who died.

46:25But 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. Yeah. Had Hitler not swallowed Operation Mintzme. Yeah, they expected 10 ,000 casualties in the first three days and 300 boats sunk in the first two days. and it ended up being 1 ,400 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 U.S. high schools that much.

47:04No. The Operation Husky, it was that penetration of Europe's underbelly, right? Yeah. And suddenly Hitler said, I'm about to storm Russia, but I really need these troops down here in Europe because I got big problems. Yeah. And that allowed basically Russia to topple the Nazi regime. And Mussolini get toppled by the Brits. Yeah. It completely changed the face of the war. Yeah. This one idea cooked up by Ian Fleming in part. Isn't that crazy? It's pretty awesome. You got other stuff? there's a book called Operation Mincemeat by a guy named Brett McIntyre that came out in 2010 that's a very good well cited book that we inadvertently cited here or there and then there's The Man Who Never Was which was written by Ewan Montague which is not just about Operation Mincemeat but also about basically how to carry out deception plans alright remember earlier when I said don't feel too bad for Glendor Michael Yes.

48:08Even you said, well, the dude died possibly of suicide because he was penniless and going nowhere. Yeah. Or hungry. I feel bad about that. But 50 years after he was buried in 1997, the British government added, they basically buried him with military honors. The Spanish did. Oh, yeah. He was buried in Spain. Yeah. But the British, it came from the Brits, I think, to do so. His headstone came from the Brits, but the Spanish buried him with a 21-gun salute and everything. Yeah, it says, Glendor Michael served as Major William Martin R.M., Royal Marine. Pretty cool. Yeah. So this alcoholic drifter.

48:51Who never served in the military. Never served in the military. Buried with full military honors. Yeah, and completely changed the face of the war thanks to being a body that fit the bill. And if you like ghoulish photos, there's a very famous photo of him being propped up in his life jacket and uniform as they were basically loading him into the cylinder 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 was going on with that weird role playing there. Dude, that's odd.

49:24Bill and 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. Yeah, older adult. Older adult. 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. As I said, Stuff You Missed in History class, it's time for Listener Mail. I'm going to call this bread crust. We had that discussion about the crust and the end pieces. Oh, I remember.

50:04So this is from a dad. Dear Chuck and Josh, your discussion of the end slice of bread in the body language episode brought a ridiculous grin to my face as I walked around my neighborhood. Don't worry, though. My neighbors have thought me to be eccentric for years now. Look at that guy. He's smiling. What a weirdo. He must be a pinko. So when our daughters were still tiny, my wife and I realized we were doomed to 18-ish years of eating bread crust pieces ourselves if we didn't figure something out and quickly. Our solution? We started calling those pieces the lucky piece. And boy, did we rook our innocent, trusting toddlers.

50:41Turns out your supposition is correct, Chuck, at least for children under 11 years old. even if they're honor students, as mine were, they will fight you for the right to eat that savory, oh-so-desirable piece of luck. Nice idea. Younger adults. Rock on, guys, and please keep my goofy grins coming. That is from Ted C-O-I-N-E with a little, uh... Coine. What do you call that? Coine. Coine. Coine. Is that an accent goo? No, I don't know. I didn't take French. A legume. What do you call that, a legume? Accent legume? Yeah. So thanks, Ted. I'll just call you coin. Yeah. Thanks, Ted. Coin A, coin A.

51:22I don't know. Let's say coin. Yeah, thanks a lot. Ted contacted us on Twitter. Oh, he did? He wanted to send us this email. So there you go, Ted. Wow. If you want to get in touch with us, you can send us an email to stuffpodcast at iheartradio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

52:14It's the Italian Alps for the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympic Winter Games. Open your free iHeartRadio app. Did we mention it's free? Search Two Guys Five Rings and listen now. When segregation was a law, one mysterious Black club owner, Charlie Fitzgerald, had his own rules. Segregation in the day, integration at night. It was like stepping on another world. Was he a businessman? A criminal? A hero? Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him. Charlie's Place, from Atlas Obscura and Visit Myrtle Beach. Listen to Charlie's Place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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