All language subtitles for World.War.II.with.Tom.Hanks.S01E09.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH.track2

[dramatic music]

♪

- 1939, war with Germany
is looming,

and the British know
they will need every advantage

to stop the Nazis.

They create one
in a small group

of brilliant mathematicians
and scholars

assigned to work secretly
in a quiet country home

called Bletchley Park.

With the help
of a discovery first made

by Polish
intelligence officers,

this team will work
to break the key

to the Enigma code,

the encryption used for German
military communications.

This crucial step
is the first of many

in the intelligence war
waged by the Allies.

♪

- All wars change the world,

but none of them
changed the world

like the Second World War did.

- Japan is on the march.

Germany is on the march.

- No one can imagine
the nightmare

they're about to unleash--

the most destructive war
in human history.

- Suddenly, the world
is turned upside down,

and all hell is let loose.

♪

- The West is stunned
by the speed of the advance.

- You get the Allies,
led by the big three--

Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin--

men who are dealing

with immensely complicated
questions.

- It's the biggest military
operation of human history.

-The Allies have to
come together

not just militarily,

but industrial scale

it's a global perspective.

- They have to fight
in every climate

from the Arctic
to the jungles of the Pacific

to the deserts of Africa
and the depths of the ocean.

♪

- But there was
no certainty of victory.

It was going to be
a horrific bloodbath.

- We see humans
at their absolute worst,

how they treat other
human beings.

And we see them
at their absolute best,

willing to give their lives
that others might live.

- World War II was a struggle
in which there could be

one victor and one vanquished.

[explosion,
air-raid siren blaring]

♪

[bells tolling]

♪

- In the summer of 1940,

Great Britain is threatened
by Nazi Germany.

♪

Adolf Hitler's armies

have torn through Poland,

Scandinavia,
and Western Europe.

♪

Even France has fallen.

♪

Prime Minister
Winston Churchill fears

Britain will be next.

- The first few weeks
of Winston Churchill's

prime ministership
are probably the worst

and most disastrous weeks
in the history of Britain--

the most catastrophic defeat
on the continent of Europe.

Outclassed
by the German Wehrmacht

the Luftwaffe
in the skies above...

♪

Britain is facing defeat
and starvation.

[explosions]

- By 1940,
the British position

looks practically hopeless.

They've met the Wehrmacht
a couple of times,

and on both occasions--
Norway and Dunkirk--

they wound up running away,

evacuating from the continent
under fire.

[air-raid siren blaring]

- I think when you face
the enormity of the challenge

that Britain faced in 1940,

if you're up against
a stronger army,

you've got to find other ways
to get round them.

- The British
have been working to crack

enemy military codes
since the outbreak

of World War I in 1914.

Alastair Denniston

leads the British government's
code and cipher school,

located at Bletchley Park--

an old manor house
in the English countryside.

He served as an intelligence
officer in the Royal Navy

in World War I

and has spent his entire
career in cryptology.

♪

Denniston predicted
that accurate cryptanalysis

of the Wehrmacht's codes
would be an important weapon

in any war with Germany.

[explosion]

- We talk about
the German way of war.

Sometimes we say blitzkrieg
or lightning war.

It's about tanks.
It's about aircraft.

It's about mobile infantry,
and, of course, artillery...

♪

All working together in
the greatest possible harmony.

[gunfire]

♪

They need to be able
to communicate

with each other in real time.

Vast technical improvements
in radio in the '20s and '30s

make this possible.

The radio is as important
to the blitzkrieg

as the tank
or the Stuka dive bomber.

It is Alastair Denniston
who realizes

that this German reliance

on technical means
of communication

is also a real Achilles' heel.

If someone can step
into that communications loop,

they can intercept
German reconnaissance reports,

German orders.

They can intercept,
in a sense,

German intentions.

- Denniston understands

that signals intelligence
is essential

to combat Germany's
new mechanized tactics.

- If you don't have
vast numbers of tanks

and you don't have the luxury
of overwhelming military force,

you need to find a way
to win a war.

And that can involve using
a bit of this--intelligence.

- It provides an incredible
force multiplier,

particularly
when you're outnumbered,

that may give you that chance

that you never thought
you had before.

♪

- But cracking
the German ciphers

is seemingly impossible.

They're created
by a complex device...

♪

The Enigma machine.

♪

- The Enigma machine itself

looks like a cross
between a cash register

and a typewriter.

And it's
an electromagnetic machine

that scrambles plaintext
into a code.

♪

- You press the key,

and that instigates
an electric pulse

that would run
through a set of rotors.

As they turn, it produces
what we call ciphertext.

♪

If you press the D...

it will come out as a T.

♪

If you press the D again,

it would not come out
as a T again.

It would come out as a Z...

or some other random letter.

- The word "Hitler,"
for example,

if used in a message,
is scrambled.

♪

This version is sent
using Morse code

to the operator
of another Enigma machine

with the same settings.

When the encoded word
is typed in,

it's possible to decipher
the original message.

♪

- It's a unique machine.

Germany was leading the world
in this.

♪

- It turns every German front
line position in World War II

into a veritable data- and
information-processing center.

And to make the entire
process secure,

there is the Enigma machine.

- The Germans believe
their signals are secure

because of the complexity
hardwired

into the Enigma machine.

♪

- The great thing
about the Enigma machine

is the vast number of ways that
it can be set up every day.

If I've got three rotors,

each rotor can have one
of 26 positions.

So that's 26 times 26
times 26,

which is 17,500 different ways
of setting that up.

That sounds like a big number,
but it's not.

Here is where it gets fun,

because on the front
of the machine,

the Germans have installed
an extra device,

which is called the plugboard.

If you had 10 cables,

it's 150 million million
different ways

to set up the plugboard.

So, if you multiply all these
different options together,

you end up with 156 million
million million different ways

of setting it up,
which is more, I think,

than there have been seconds
in the universe.

- The Germans figured,
and I think justifiably,

that it was unbreakable.

♪

- But Denniston believes
it's possible

to crack the Enigma codes.

♪

He spends years
recruiting mathematicians,

linguists, and scholars

from Britain's
top universities.

- He reached out
to the academic communities,

to Cambridge and Oxford,

and he'd go
to dinner with them.

And he was kind of
sussing out, you know,

who's good at this,
who might be useful,

looking especially
at mathematicians.

It was a professional
challenge.

You're a mathematician.
You've got a problem.

You want to solve
that problem.

And here's the added benefit
that you're doing it

for your country
and for your family

so that they don't have
to grow up speaking German.

♪

- A key recruit
to Bletchley Park

is a young academic from
the University of Cambridge,

an eccentric genius
named Alan Turing.

- Let me tell you a bit
about my uncle Alan Turing.

He has always been interested

in everything to do
with science and maths.

He likes the planets.
He likes chemistry.

He likes genetics.

But what
he's really interested in

is logic problems,
mathematical logic.

- Turing is only 27 years old,

but he's already
a world-renowned leader

in the solving
of mathematical problems

with the help
of mechanical devices.

- One of the greatest
contributions

that Alan Turing brings
to code breaking in this era

is to understand that
to attack the Enigma machine,

the British are going
to need their own machine.

♪

- Turing begins by studying
the critical work

of Polish code breakers.

Before the war,
these men built a machine

that could sift
through the many variations

of the early Enigma settings.

In 1939,

fearing the Nazis were about
to invade their country,

the Poles presented
their device

to the British and French
intelligence services.

♪

Turing now assembles

a radically upgraded
British version

of this machine, the Bombe.

♪

- It's huge.

Imagine a wardrobe,
maybe a bit bigger--

very noisy, very clunky.

- The British feed intercepted
German signals into the Bombe.

Then it rotates
through the millions

of possible Enigma settings...

♪

And, by a process
of elimination,

reduces these
to a smaller number

that can be deciphered,

revealing
the original message.

♪

- This is a sort of behemoth,

the like of which
has never been seen before.

It's got 100 rotating drums.

It's got one million
soldered connections.

♪

How is this monster
going to deliver?

- Turing and his team
are in a race against time

and Adolf Hitler.

In August, 1940,

his Luftwaffe begins to attack

Royal Air Force bases
in the south of England.

The Battle of Britain
has begun.

♪

♪

[air-raid siren blaring]

- Hitler has ordered
the Luftwaffe

to destroy the Royal Air Force
and its bases

before he invades
Great Britain by sea.

♪

The defense of the country

depends on the young
RAF pilots and airmen

sent up to defend Britain.

[gunfire]

At Bletchley Park,
Turing and his team

have been working
to improve the Bombe.

And now they're decrypting

the Luftwaffe's
Enigma signals.

♪

- You have got these
extraordinary individuals,

certainly not your carbon-copy
military types,

who have achieved

what was believed to be
impossible.

♪

- Turing calls
his new machine Victory.

♪

After decryption,

teams decode
the German signals,

then feed the intelligence

to the Royal Air Force
fighter command.

- Bletchley Park
is absolutely vital

for the British defense
in the Battle of Britain.

♪

Why? Because it reveals
the Luftwaffe order of battle,

who's going where when.

♪

And better still, it also
reveals that the Germans

have these direction-finding
beams for their aircraft.

And if you can intercept
those beams,

you know where the aircraft
are going in advance,

and you can therefore
defend those targets

far more adequately.

It also reveals the true extent
of German aircraft losses.

Now, that's a really important
piece of information

for the RAF because they know

that the Germans
are getting hammered.

♪

So it is absolutely vital.

- The work at Bletchley Park
is crucial

to the RAF's victory
in the Battle of Britain.

Hitler indefinitely postpones
the invasion.

The scope and scale
of the code-breaking operation

expands with its success.

- The initial stage
is the collection

of the signals themselves

at interception sites

dotted all around the UK
and overseas.

Any signals that are encrypted

would be relayed
via teleprinter

or via dispatch rider,

who would relay the material
back to Bletchley Park.

♪

- Now Alan Turing's
Bombe machine

starts the key part
of your encryption process.

Then specialized teams
will finalize that

and decrypt that message.

But it's in German now,
so now you've got translators

who are working to translate
the message into English.

- We needed linguists.

We needed people who were good

at clerical, administrative
tasks and typing,

which is why the site
mushroomed

in terms of numbers and scale.

- Finally, you need
to analyze the message

and send it out
to commanders in the field

so that they can put it
into use.

[cannons blasting]

- This was to produce
intelligence

for all theaters of war.

♪

It wasn't just producing
material for Europe,

it was producing intelligence
from North Africa,

the Middle East, the Far East.

This was a global war,

and it needed
global intelligence.

- The Enigma
signals intelligence

generated by Bletchley Park
is given a name--

Ultra, for ultra secret.

Winston Churchill
is its biggest champion.

He has long believed
that intelligence

will help the Allies
win the war.

- For a general
or a politician,

to be able to read
the innermost thoughts

of your enemy
is like a superpower.

Churchill would look
at these intelligence reports

in his bath, in his bedroom,
out in the garden.

He wanted to see
the raw intelligence.

He was fascinated by it.

And Churchill could see
that in Bletchley Park,

he had a potentially
war-winning tool.

He made sure they had
the resources they needed.

He made sure
they had access to him.

He said that they could get
in touch with him

any hour of the day,
no matter what.

♪

- Churchill understands

how important
military intelligence can be.

He was Home Secretary
and led MI5--

Britain's domestic
intelligence service.

- [speaking German]

[all speaking German]

- Hitler, on the other hand,
has long been skeptical

of the usefulness
of military intelligence.

- I don't think
Hitler values intelligence

in the same way
that Churchill did.

Hitler is a guy who believes
in his instincts.

He believes in his vision.

- Hitler is so caught in his
own ideological thinking

that he rejects out of hand
intelligence

that doesn't go along
with his worldview.

He doesn't rely on it
all that much.

♪

- German military
intelligence, the Abwehr,

is led
by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris.

Canaris has planned
German espionage campaigns

all over the world,

including
in the United States.

- By all accounts, Hitler is
largely very impressed by him.

Canaris is very sophisticated.

He is really on top of his job.

He is terrifically
well-informed.

And he has some good ideas.

♪

- But Canaris is a realist.

And the Abwehr's intelligence

is often too candid
for the fuehrer.

♪

- He keeps coming up
with reports that suggest

that a war with Britain
would be a long, hard war,

that a war
with the United States

would be unwinnable,

that even a war
with the Soviet Union

would be much more difficult.

Nobody wants to hear
from pessimists right now,

especially
an invincible Hitler

at the height of his power.

- Hitler believed predominantly
in military might,

the great German
military machine.

And to be honest,
he has great reason

to believe in the might
of his army,

because it's achieving things

that have never
been achieved before.

- In Britain,

Churchill doesn't have
the military resources

to attack Germany
on the ground,

so he creates

the Special Operations
Executive,

which launches espionage
and sabotage campaigns

throughout
Nazi-occupied Europe.

♪

But Churchill knows
that this is not enough.

He needs an ally.

He needs the United States.

♪

- After months
of Luftwaffe attacks,

Prime Minister
Winston Churchill

is determined to persuade
the United States

to enter the war.

[crowd cheering]

Without America as an ally,

he fears Hitler will
defeat Great Britain

and absorb the British Empire.

♪

One way for Churchill

to gain American confidence
and support

is to share critical
intelligence and information

with the United States.

- Churchill is so desperate to
get the Americans into the war

that he does really
anything he can to woo them.

He wants the Americans
to be impressed.

He wants the Americans
to enter this alliance,

come into the war
with confidence.

And what could be
more persuasive

than showing off
for the Americans,

telling them
that you're on the way

to building
a pretty complete picture

of everything your enemy
is doing and thinking

and saying in private?

That's an ally
you want to have.

♪

- In February, 1941,

the first American delegation

comes to Bletchley Park.

Winston Churchill gives
authorization.

From then, the American
and British partnership

really started to move at pace.

It blossomed.

- Intelligence officers
from both countries

work together throughout 1941.

[airplane engines roaring]

But in December,

when Japan attacks
Pearl Harbor...

cooperation evolves
into alliance.

♪

America is now
at war with Japan...

and, days later, with Germany.

- America has almost
no intelligence service

before we enter the war.

So there's army and navy
code breakers,

but there's no equivalent

of the British
Foreign Intelligence Service.

American intelligence is
like a cottage industry.

You know, it's
the preindustrial stage

before Pearl Harbor occurs.

♪

- Now the United States
work with Britain

to establish the OSS--

the Office
of Strategic Services.

♪

But as the Americans
enter the war,

the Germans still control

a large portion
of Soviet territory.

♪

And the Japanese continue
to sweep through the Pacific

and Southeast Asia.

- By 1942, you have
an unprecedented

transatlantic collaboration--

intelligence sharing
on every level.

Americans are in every
department in Bletchley Park,

working alongside Britain.

So this is
a really significant,

enduring partnership.

♪

- Ultra's success gives
the Allies an advantage,

especially in the crucial
Battle of the North Atlantic.

♪

It reveals the location
of Nazi U-boats,

allowing Allied navies
to avoid German wolfpacks

and safely reroute
the all-important convoys.

♪

- It has an incredible impact
on the Battle of the Atlantic.

As a matter of fact,
it swings the entire battle

in the Allies' favor.

♪

- Despite this, most
of the German high command

still believe the Enigma codes
are unbreakable.

♪

But Admiral Karl Donitz,

the commander
of the Nazi U-boat fleet,

cannot understand
how Allied ships keep sailing

around his submarines.

♪

- Admiral Donitz is by far

the most security-obsessed
military leader

in the German war machine.

And he sniffed out

the fact that we're rerouting
our convoys.

- Admiral Donitz orders
an examination

into the integrity

of the Enigma codes
and ciphers.

His intelligence officers
insist

that the system is
impregnable.

They argue that the Allies are
using radar to track U-boats

or that there are spies
in the German navy.

They launch investigations
to identify possible traitors.

♪

- The Germans are so convinced
that it is unbreakable

that they don't see
what's going on,

even if it stares them
into the face.

They never try to prove
that it has been broken.

They always try to prove
that it cannot be broken,

meaning that they always end up
at their preferred answer--

everything is fine.

♪

- In February, 1942,

Donitz orders
a security upgrade

to the Enigma machine.

♪

A fourth rotor is added,

strengthening the encryption
even further.

♪

- In 1942,
the German U-boat flotillas

changed from the M3
to the M4 Enigma,

adding a fourth rotor,

which added a huge layer
of complexity

to attacking the cipher.

- Basically, it takes the odds

of 150 million million million
to 1

from the 3 rotor

up to an unfathomable
92-septillion-to-1 shot.

- This addition is a major
setback for Bletchley Park

in the North Atlantic.

♪

- It's almost like
the lights going out

on a grid
of an electrical pattern.

You can't find
submarines anymore.

♪

- Once again,
German U-boats

pose a grave threat
to Allied shipping.

♪

Intelligence officers
at Bletchley Park

are no longer able to decrypt
German naval signals.

To utilize Ultra

in the Battle of the Atlantic
again,

the British will attempt
to seize the codebooks

the Germans use to set
their Enigma machines.

the Germans use to set
their Enigma machines.

♪

♪

- The Allies are
on the verge of losing

the Battle of the Atlantic.

The first half of 1942
is once again referred to

as the "Happy Time"
by German U-boat commanders.

♪

One thing that can help
the Allies

is to restart Ultra
in the Atlantic.

But they need to decrypt
the new Enigma messages.

- This code material
is absolutely priceless

for the code breakers
at Bletchley Park.

It was used to set up
the machine.

It shows how it's supposed
to be configured

for every single day
of every single month.

♪

- The British launch
secret raids

to extract any intelligence
they can find

on German submarines, ships,
and military facilities,

including Enigma codebooks.

They call the raids
"pinch operations."

- "Pinch" is British slang
for "stealing."

- British intelligence officer

Lieutenant Commander
Ian Fleming

helps to coordinate
pinch operations.

- Ian Fleming ends up

at the Department
of Naval Intelligence

almost by accident.

He's got no experience
in intelligence work,

but he very quickly finds
his feet.

He has this gift
for analysis

and weighing up
intelligence options.

- Fleming, who later writes
the James Bond novels,

plans a pinch operation

in connection
with an allied raid.

♪

Operation Jubilee will be
a large amphibious landing,

essentially a dress rehearsal

for the expected invasion
of Europe.

It involves 1,000 aircraft
and more than 230 ships.

♪

Their target
is the heavily fortified

French port of Dieppe.

- The Allies know
they're going to have to stage

a landing in Western Europe

in order to win the war
against Hitler's Germany.

It's a test to see
if you can seize a port.

- At the center of this was
the Royal Marine Commando,

which were a British unit,

but the vast majority
were Canadian infantry.

And then, of course,
this was the debut

of the United States
of America.

They were
50 United States Rangers

that were going to go
into combat on European soil

in the Second World War
for the first time.

- Lieutenant Commander Fleming

and a small team
called 30 Assault Unit

are part of the raiding force.

♪

They have
a specific objective.

♪

With Fleming coordinating
aboard ship,

30 AU will attempt to enter

the German navy's
regional headquarters

and a nearby supply depot.

♪

Both will likely contain
codebooks

for the new Enigma machines.

- From a pinch perspective,

what is really important
about Dieppe

is that they have
all these codebooks

waiting to be distributed,

not only for the next month
but months in advance.

♪

- But after initial success,

the landing at Dieppe
disintegrates.

♪

- It is absolutely hell.

♪

You've got to run up
this beach,

carrying all your kit
and a rifle.

♪

And, of course, you've got
German machine guns,

mortars, artillery,
you name it firing at you.

[cannon blasting]

♪

It becomes
an absolute slaughter.

♪

- Over half
of the Allied forces at Dieppe

are killed, wounded,
or captured.

Most of 30 Assault Unit's men
are killed.

- At the end of the day,
they come away with nothing,

despite all the bloodshed.

♪

- The raid on Dieppe is
a failure from every angle.

♪

But the British still need
German codebooks

and intelligence
to revive Ultra.

Allied ships are ordered

to make seizing
German intelligence

a part of every mission
when possible.

♪

In the fall of 1942,

HMS "Petard" is one
of a small destroyer group

sent to hunt Nazi U-boats.

♪

When they locate U-559,

they launch depth charges

and force it to the surface.

The U-boat crew abandoned
their submarine.

- It's sinking slowly.

And this gives the opportunity
for the crew of HMS "Petard"

to actually board the U-boat

and try to pinch
and capture the material

from the sinking U-boat
as it's going down.

♪

- Three men rush inside--

Lieutenant Tony Fasson,

Able Seaman Colin Grazier,

and a 16-year-old canteen
assistant, Tommy Brown.

♪

- They're down there
working with flashlights,

ransacking the place,
looking for anything.

But it's a race against time

because the U-boat is starting
to fill with water.

- The three British sailors

have minutes to find
useful intelligence.

♪

♪

- Three British sailors
desperately search

a crippled U-boat
as it begins to sink.

♪

What they find
could help win the war.

♪

- They go down
to the signals office.

Then they go
into the captain's cabin

and, sure enough, find
the material and a lot of it.

- These guys--
freezing cold, petrified--

are below deck,

feeding crucial,
rich signals intelligence,

these cipher books,
up the conning tower.

- Almost like a conveyor belt--
one guy to another to another.

- Suddenly, the submarine

takes on this huge rush
of water...

♪

The pressure of which
pushes the teenager, Tommy,

out of the conning tower
like a cork from a bottle.

But, tragically,
it kills the two men

who have done
this vital work below deck.

♪

- They're actually trapped

as the water starts
to come in.

And they give their lives

to affect the pinch operation,

which changes the course
of the intelligence war.

♪

- The courage
of these three British sailors

means Bletchley Park can
once again decode

the German Navy's
Enigma messages.

But now the code breakers
become victims

of their own success.

The number of enemy signals
they intercept and decode

grows so rapidly
that the Bombe machines

can no longer handle

the sheer volume
of material fed into them.

♪

The Allies need to process
military intelligence

on an industrial scale...

so Great Britain
turns to its ally,

the United States.

♪

- We send
our most precious asset

the other side of the Atlantic.

We send Alan Turing to America.

♪

[car horn honks]

- In the winter of 1942,
Turing meets Joe Desch,

an electrical engineer
at the National

Cash Register Company
in Dayton, Ohio.

♪

As a result,
the Bombe machines evolve

into an electrical,

as well as a mechanical weapon
against the Third Reich.

♪

- Desch's machine is
transformative technology.

He's invented the first
electronic computer memory.

♪

- The new machines are
six times faster

and are mass-produced
in the hundreds.

♪

By decrypting messages
at such speed and scale,

the Allies are able to access
key German information.

And in combination

with a mosaic
of intelligence operations,

deception, espionage,
and sabotage,

they can corroborate

that their secret war
is working.

♪

In the spring of 1943,
Allied forces,

under the leadership
of Dwight Eisenhower,

have forced the German
and Italian armies

out of North Africa.

The Allies' plan is
to next invade

the island of Sicily.

- The only real problem
with Sicily

is that it's somewhat
of an obvious target.

If you're looking at a map,
Sicily is the first big island.

The Allies believe
it's necessary

to spread a little
disinformation around,

make Hitler
and the German planners

think the landing
is coming somewhere else,

perhaps in the Balkan
Peninsula to the east,

anywhere but Sicily.

♪

- In February, 1943,

Ian Fleming and other
British intelligence officers

formulate a plan.

♪

It emerges
from a list of ideas

known as the Trout memo.

♪

- The Trout memo is so-called
because it uses fly fishing

as a kind of analogy for
conducting deception operations

against the Germans.

Now, it's widely believed
that this was largely written

by Ian Fleming.

It's very much in his style.

And it shows
that very imaginative thinking

for which he's later going
to be absolutely renowned,

of course.

Most of the suggestions in it
are pretty far-fetched.

But there's one that
actually does catch the eye.

And that's this idea of putting
false information on a corpse

and then allowing it
to be discovered by the enemy.

♪

- Intelligence officers
believe this could be a way

to feed the Germans
false plans

for an Allied invasion
of the Balkans.

♪

- It's a fiendish
and dastardly idea.

If the Germans believe
the false documents,

they will have the wrong idea

of what the Allies are
going to get up to.

♪

- The British name the plan
Operation Mincemeat

and present it to Eisenhower.

- Eisenhower's buy-in
is required

because Eisenhower is
essentially

the theater commander
in the area.

It's also indicative
of American trust

in this particular operation.

♪

- With Eisenhower's approval,

British intelligence moves
to the next stage.

♪

- They find the corpse
of a homeless man in Britain,

and they build
an entire story for him--

a lifetime that he never
actually enjoyed in person.

They give him a uniform.

They give him a career.

They put identity cards
in his wallet.

They give him pictures
of an imaginary girlfriend--

the lovely Pam.

He becomes Major Martin,
British intelligence officer.

♪

- The final step is
to give Major Martin

a briefcase
containing fake plans

for an Allied invasion
of the Balkans.

♪

The Allies must now get
Major Martin's documents

into the hands of Germany's
intelligence chief...

Admiral Canaris.

♪

- In the early hours
of April 30, 1943,

a British submarine
drops a corpse

dressed in the uniform
of a Royal Marine

into the sea
off the west coast of Spain.

♪

A briefcase is attached
to the corpse

by a security chain.

♪

The British hope
the documents inside the case

will make their way
to Adolf Hitler in Berlin.

♪

They've chosen
Francisco Franco's Spain

because they suspect
the Spanish

will pass the information
to the Germans.

♪

- The British know the German
intelligence agencies,

especially the Abwehr
under Wilhelm Canaris,

have a really good relationship
with the Spanish.

So this is a far more clever
and subtle way

of getting deception
information

into German hands.

Rather than just dumping it
off the coast of Germany,

put it off the coast of Spain,

and you've got
a more plausible way

of that information
coming through the pipeline.

♪

- A Spanish fisherman
finds the body.

Soldiers guarding the coast

take it to Spanish
navy officers,

who tell German
intelligence agents in Spain

what they found.

♪

But signals decrypted
at Bletchley Park

show the Germans are
skeptical.

- The German agents in Spain
simply don't take the bait.

Back in British intelligence,

there's this terrible panic

that Mincemeat is
going to fail.

You know,
it's just going to be ignored.

♪

- To ignite interest
in Major Martin,

British intelligence
writes a letter

to the Spanish authorities

demanding the return
of the briefcase

and the document inside.

♪

- They want to make it
look as though

the British are
deeply worried,

as though, you know,
this really is a proper officer

with real plans on him.

This is a really daring gambit

because it may seem
too obvious.

But, actually,
the British are lucky.

What that does is to get
the local German agents

to get hold of the plans that
"Major Martin" is carrying.

They photograph them.

And they send those photographs

back to their boss in Berlin,
Wilhelm Canaris.

♪

- Canaris is interested.

♪

He examines the plans
for days,

then hands them to Hitler.

The fuehrer already suspects
the Allies will attack

through the Balkans,

so he's inclined to believe
the information.

But propaganda chief
Joseph Goebbels is wary.

- Goebbels is smart.

And Goebbels, after all,
is, you know,

the minister for propaganda,
for lies.

He knows what it means
to deceive people.

He thinks it's a bluff.

- The information
Canaris gives Hitler

confirms his instinct.

[telegraph beeping]

♪

Two days later,

Bletchley Park decodes
a message.

The Germans are moving troops
toward the Balkans.

♪

Operation Mincemeat
is working.

♪

- The work of Bletchley Park

feeds into a deception campaign
like this

in a really important way.

Ultra allows you to understand

whether your enemy is
buying the deception

you're trying to sell.

- We can see, thanks to our
Bletchley decryptions,

that Hitler is pulling
Panzer units

to the Balkans, to Greece,

directly because of
one dead corpse

that's left floating
off the shores of Spain.

♪

[cannons blasting]

- Two months later,
the Allies land in Sicily

and capture the island
more quickly than anticipated.

♪

The depleted number
of German defenders

is a critical part
of their success.

♪

- This is one
of the most successful

intelligence operations
of the Second World War.

♪

- Canaris's reputation
begins to suffer

after Operation Mincemeat.

- As the war goes on
after that,

Canaris will be

more and more disliked
and distrusted by Hitler

and the other elites
of the regime.

- In 1944, the Third Reich
abolishes the Abwehr,

and Canaris is accused
of being involved in a plot

to kill Hitler.

A year later, he is hanged,

just weeks before
the end of World War II.

♪

Accurate intelligence is
critical to military victory.

But, ultimately, the outcome
is determined by combat.

The decisive battle of the war
against Nazi Germany

is about to be fought

at terrible cost

in a strategically important
Soviet city on the Volga River.