MY 15 MINUTES OF FAME, OPERATION MINCEMEAT 1996
See https://www.xenophon.org.uk/mwnw.html
I read many books books from Stratford upon Avon library – mainly non-fiction and science fiction; amongst them was 'The Man Who Never Was', Ewen Montagu, 1953. One of a genre of immediately post war books on 'How I Won The War'. But this one was different – it had the stamp of authority. It told the story from the inside of a Naval Intelligence deception operation OPERATION MINCEMEAT in 1943, designed to convince the Germans our next target was NOT to invade Europe via Sicily, when it actually was. It employed the WWI 'Haversack Trick'; a dead body with the false name 'Major William Martin' was floated ashore on nominally neutral Spain clutching a briefcase of forged High Command letters implying the invasion would be at three different points on Sardinia and the Dardanelles in Greece - anywhere but Sicily. The Spanish were certain to hand them over to the Germans; and so it proved. We invaded Sicily and encountered less resistance than expected (though the reasons for this are disputed). At that time I was vaguely aware this had been made into a feature film in 1956 which I had never seen, but it caught my imagination.
As an adult (described by my ex-girlfriend Joy in her memoirs as 'an obsessive researcher') I decided to see if I could identify the corpse - the idea of the British government officially requisitioning a corpse was intriguing. I read six books and what National Archive files had been released; obtained a VHS of the film; found and interviewed participants or their descendents; researched pathology and coroners; submarines; Huelva in Spain; deception; and amassed a large amount of information on the back story. I even interviewed Ewen Montagu himself. All this research was published in an article 'The Man Who Almost Is' in 'After The Battle' magazine 54 in 1986, with a photo of the grave slab in Huelva on the cover.
But I hadn't found the name. At that time as I was single, poorly paid, and in any case had not been used to taking holidays in my childhood, I took my annual leave as a Friday off every alternate week, and spent it in the National Archives scanning the lists of newly opened files for anything interesting or odd. And what gems there were; then I sold my compilations - I even had a customer in Russia, I did have some doubts about that, it was clearly the Russian Secret Service and this was previously secret information not easily available. As it happens, nowadays the NA puts all this on-line so anyone can access it easily - which is why I stopped doing it.
After doing this for about five years, I was just perusing the new list as usual when I saw 'Naval Intelligence WWII 3 volumes' - it seemed too good to be true, but just to be sure I ordered them. Admiral Godfrey, ex-Director of Naval Intelligence, had been tasked after the war with sitting in the Admiralty Citadel compiling the wartime files into three amateur bound Top Secret volumes, one of which he called 'Montagu's History of Deception' – things were looking better. I opened this rather tatty book, and without much hope scanned down the index page, and there it was, about 2/3 of the way down 'Operation MINCEMEAT' I turned to it and immediately saw 'His name was Glyndwr Michael' - I was astonished; Montagu had claimed in his two books, and in the several interviews he had given down the years, and to me, that the father had only released the body to him if he promised the name would NEVER be revealed.
With a name of course, and an unusual one, I could get a lot more information - a death certificate, mortuary record, his addresses and genealogy. I and Berthe had a trip to Wales to photograph locations and see if anyone remembered the family. This was all published as 'The Second World War's Best Kept Secret Revealed' in 'After The Battle' 94 1996. A minor sensation ensued as all the papers and TV channels took up the story in a feeding frenzy for about two weeks. A plaque was been put up in Taff Wells. Unfortunately, working from what records I had found, I characterised Glyn as a 'Homeless Welsh Tramp' - the word TRAMP was taken up with glee by the media, with the concomitant assumption 'alcoholic'.
About 3 months later I was contacted by a relative who claimed to be a nephew of Glyn, and this checked out, so I was introduced to his surviving family. They said they had often wondered after the war what had happened to him, and denied absolutely his father had been asked for his body by Montagu; they were also very angry at the press' description of him as an (alcoholic) tramp, but unfortunately there was no way I could take that back. However, the exact circumstances of his death remain obscure, and there are conspiracy theories which claim he is not the body finally used. Also very angry was a member of Montagu’s team who had returned to New Zealand and had maintained his silence for 50 years, he accused me of betraying the promise made to the father, but as I pointed out to him it wasn’t me who released the file with the name un-redacted (actually I think it was a mistake - the retired MI5 men who vet the files work from a list of names of MI5 operatives - clearly Glyn’s name wouldn’t be on such a list and the vetter hadn’t read ‘The Man Who Never Was’). It may be he was actually piqued that I had pre-empted him telling the story.
Apparently Huelva is developing quite a tourist industry to cater for visitors. It is now clear that the Big Secret was not, as Montagu was forced to maintain for the rest of his life, that he had asked the father for permission, but that Montagu had stolen the body without asking.
Over the coming years two or three media companies came to me with proposals for a documentary, but nothing ever came of it, though Adrian Jackson's 'Cardboard Citizens' put on a play the script of which is available as a paperback, and then Ben MacIntyre phoned me up - the result was his book 'Operation Mincemeat' (launching him as the new 'Nigel West'); a TV documentary; and ultimately recently a full length feature film.