Original subtitles

[soft dramatic music]

- [Narrator] In the midst of World War II,

the Allies have successfully defeated the German Army

in North Africa.

- North Africa was the proving ground

for the Allied war effort, going against Hitler's machine.

- [Narrator] From here, the Allies plan to launch

a second European front.

- The question is, "Where in southern Europe do we attack?"

- [Narrator] The Allies have to deceive the Germans

of their true invasion plans,

as German defenses are too strong.

- We're not in the position to match the enemy yet

on continental Europe in a conventional military fashion.

- [Narrator] Two young British intelligence agents in MI5

propose one of the most secretive

and daring missions of the Second World War.

- Espionage was a major part of World War II.

The British perfected this to a science.

- Those were desperate times

and they called for desperate measures.

- [Narrator] If the Allies don't convince the Germans

to maximize their defenses in the wrong place,

it will be a disaster.

- If the Germans figure this out, it is mass casualties

for thousands and thousands of Allied soldiers.

- It's like a chess game.

It's not the person whose queen wins the game,

it's using every piece to its best advantage.

- [Narrator] Just one wrong move and this mission would fail

and many lives would be lost.

[reverent music]

In April 1943, a decomposing body in a Royal Marines uniform

is discovered off the coast of Huelva, southern Spain.

A black attache is chained to the body's wrist

containing top-secret documents

about an impending Allied invasion.

- Everyone knows what's going to happen,

just where is the invasion of Europe going to come from?

- [Narrator] But this is no ordinary body lost at sea.

This is part of one of the most ambitious missions

ever conducted by British intelligence, Operation Mincemeat.

- Operation Mincemeat becomes the great Trojan horse

of World War II.

It's an absolutely essential mission

that ends up saving thousands of Allied lives.

- [Narrator] Devised and put into motion

by Charles Cholmondeley and Ewen Montagu,

British intelligence agents working for MI5 in London.

Their unparalleled attention to detail

would be a major catalyst to the Allied victory.

- The German war machine was so overwhelming

to anyone who witnessed it

that the Allies would have to depend

on any means that they could

to get an advantage over the Germans.

- [Narrator] Espionage is a major part

of the British war effort.

They run a huge disinformation campaign,

feeding fake leads about the military plans to the Nazis

using double-agents.

- This is part of the war

that we don't talk about very much.

We focus on the battles and the invasions,

but the war of the mind we don't talk about,

the idea of, "How do we fool the other side,

creating false information

that they think they are getting through espionage?"

So, it's the double-cross of it.

- [Narrator] British intelligence

had already cracked the Enigma code

that the Germans used to send messages,

deciphered by a team based in Bletchley Park,

just northwest of London.

- Interestingly, Bletchley Park isn't so much a place

that respects or promotes military stripes,

but much more, in fact, great minds.

- Intelligence in this case

is meant to give the people on the ground

who are running the operation

as much forewarning and foreknowledge as possible.

- [Narrator] British intelligence

uses the intercepted information

to tailor upcoming espionage missions,

which are discussed in MI5 committees.

In 1942, 25-year-old Charles Christopher Cholmondeley

is the secretary for the top-secret Twenty Committee,

the group in charge of overseeing double-agents.

- And the Twenty is this incredibly fascinating

interdepartmental committee

that is responsible for managing

one of the most essential programs of World War II,

which is called the Double-Cross.

And they are responsible for managing at the top level

this program that has turned German agents

working in the United Kingdom,

keeping the Germans totally unaware

that they're now working for the Allies.

- [Narrator] They meet every Thursday in MI5 offices

at 58 James Street in London

to discuss the double-agent system

and explore new deception plans.

- Okay, there's a big emphasis from the get-go

in British thinking on deceiving the enemy,

that this is gonna be a long war,

it's gonna be a war that is going to require

thinking outta the box, ungentlemanly warfare, deception,

unconventional methods.

- So, in many ways, it's like a chess game.

It's not the person whose queen wins the game,

it's using every piece to its best advantage.

And the only way you do that in chess

is because you get to look down from above

and see how all the pieces on both sides are playing

to plan ahead.

When you can get to that level

with your intelligence information in warfare,

it provides you with a significant advantage,

especially if your opponent

doesn't have that same advantage.

- [Narrator] Cholmondeley was a flight lieutenant

in the Royal Air Force seconded to the MI5 security service.

- He was very shortsighted,

so if you'd caught sight of him, very thick spectacles.

Weirdly shy, almost secretive.

He was your quintessential English eccentric.

His shortsightedness a personal tragedy for him, obviously,

he wants to be out there in a flying machine,

didn't all the boys back in the day,

is actually a great boon, of course,

for British intelligence

'cause instead they acquire his alternative secretive mind.

- [Narrator] At the beginning of the war,

Rear Admiral John Godfrey,

the Director of Naval Intelligence,

circulated the Trout Memo.

Although published under Godfrey's name,

it bore all the hallmarks of his assistant.

His name: Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming,

who would after the war become the famous novelist

immortalizing British intelligence operations

through the adventures of James Bond.

He knows his commander is a keen angler,

so he compares the deception of an enemy in wartime

to fly-fishing.

- One of his sort of famous analogies is, he says,

"The fly-fisherman must outsmart the trout,

"outsmart the fish," and makes the point,

"If you've been fishing in one place,

"you need to leave it a while

"because the trout's gonna know you're there. [laughing]

"Let's strip this back to basic human nature.

"What can we make the enemy believe?"

- What the Trout Memo is, it's exploring types of espionage.

They develop, literally, a laundry list

of ways of duping the Nazis.

- [Narrator] October 31st, 1942.

Charles Cholmondeley presents the idea

of a Trojan horse to the Twenty Committee,

a plan to place falsified documents

of a highly-secret nature in the hands of the enemy

using a decoy: a dead body.

- There's two aspects to this mission.

On the first point,

what you need to do is trick the Germans.

And the other very important thing

is we know that the Germans have been tricked.

- This idea that you could plant evidence on a body

is totally new, and it's actually something

that Ian Fleming says can be seen as drastic.

But in war, anything is drastic.

- [Narrator] Cholmondeley's audacious idea

lands on the desk of intelligence officer Ewan Montagu.

At this time, Montagu has been briefed

that this plan could be used by the Allies

to deceive the Germans

in a forthcoming operation in the Mediterranean.

- And he was an intellect, he was a judge.

He had a keen passion for yachting, which is how he ends up

in this sort of volunteer naval division

and then is promoted into Naval Intelligence.

- [Narrator] Montagu is teamed with Cholmondeley

to develop the Trojan horse plan further.

- For me, one of the things that I've found most interesting

was that they were able to sell this,

and not to the Germans but to their own side

to move forward with it.

I mean, it's a crazy idea.

- Cholmondeley and Montagu are a really interesting duo

because they both love to read spy novels,

they both love fiction.

This is the opportunity to do something

which would only be seen in a novel,

and they'll go to tremendous lengths to make this work.

- [Narrator] Where Cholmondeley was awkward but charming,

Montagu was smooth and refined.

He was highly organized and attentive to details,

the perfect complement to Cholmondeley's

unusually imaginative brain.

At this time, the British Army

is also in the heat of action.

Beginning October 23rd, 1942,

the British Army attacks German forces

at El Alamein in North Africa.

- North Africa was the proving ground

for the Allied war effort, going against Hitler's machine.

It was a way for allies to work together

in that part of the world in a way they hadn't before.

- [Narrator] The British 8th Army,

under General Bernard Montgomery, is pushing for a victory.

On November 4th, the Germans suffer a comprehensive defeat,

which sparks the Allied invasion of North Africa,

Operation Torch.

- But very famously, Churchill says, "This ain't the end.

"This isn't the beginning of the end even.

"This is the end of the beginning,

"but it's still a pivot point.

"We've got the upper hand now."

- [Narrator] Troops begin to land near Casablanca,

Oran, and Algiers and form a large Allied army.

- After losing North Africa, the Germans become highly aware

that the invasion may come from North Africa

to one of two locations.

It's either gonna be Italy or it's gonna be Greece.

- [Narrator] For the Allies, the best option is Sicily,

the island situated just off the coast of Italy,

which will give them a stepping stone into mainland Europe.

Even Churchill remarked,

"Anybody but a damned fool would know it was Sicily."

In January of 1943,

US President Franklin D. Roosevelt

and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill

meet in the Anfa Hotel in Casablanca, French Morocco,

to plan the next phase of the Allied attacks

in World War II.

- At the Casablanca Conference,

Franklin Roosevelt and Churchill

start planning beyond North Africa, what's next.

The question is, "Where in southern Europe do we attack?"

Churchill and Roosevelt are working on

a southern invasion of Europe

and the Allies wanna hit Sicily.

They're worried about casualties,

so Operation Mincemeat is designed to make the Germans think

that we're not going to attack in Sicily.

The Allies are gonna attack somewhere else;

in this particular case, Greece.

- [Narrator] The key to success to capturing Sicily

is to convince the Germans

that Greece is the intended target,

hoping that troop numbers are then reduced on the island.

- There is this kind of recognition in mid-1942

that we're not fighting the war

in the same committed way that our enemy is.

By this stage, by 1942-43, it's about winning.

We're not in the position to match the enemy yet

on continental Europe in a conventional military fashion.

So, we've got to think outta the box

and that might not be very nice.

- [Narrator] With Operation Mincemeat

now given a green light,

Cholmondeley and Montagu need to act fast,

as Cholmondeley's idea has gone from being theoretical

to a full-blown mission.

The first order of business

is to find a fresh male body of military age

with no obvious injuries or ailments.

- The plot ultimately calls for a body at sea

that's supposedly to have been there through a plane crash.

So, now you need a body which is going to look

in a particular stage of decomposition

consistent with somebody who died

in a fairly recent air crash, and that's tricky.

- And this guy needs to be intact,

for want of a better expression,

so that we can therefore fake the death,

make it look like he's drowned, and that creates problems.

- In times of war, scruples are somewhat useless

because the aim of the people who are raging the war

is to win it.

And when we are speaking about a war

with Hitler and his Nazis, we're speaking about an enemy

who would not stop at anything.

And so, I think scruples were entirely unnecessary.

- [Narrator] On January 28th, 1943,

coroner Bentley Purchase alerts Ewan Montagu

about a potential candidate for Operation Mincemeat

in the St. Pancras Hospital morgue.

- When you are alerted by the coroner,

"Hey, we've got the guy for you,"

you are onto it pretty damn quickly.

There's another reason, of course,

why you've gotta be onto it pretty damn quickly,

because dead bodies deteriorate

and they deteriorate at the rate of naught,

and we need our man floating in the sea

to look like he's recently been drowned.

- [Narrator] The body is identified as Glyndwr Michael,

a homeless Welshman whose body was found

in an abandoned warehouse two days earlier.

Cause of death is believed to be suicide by rat poison.

- If this person died a certain way that doesn't coincide

with how we want the body to be presented as dying,

then it's not going to work.

- [Narrator] The toxicology report performed by Purchase

suggests that the rat poison will not be detected

in a body that was in the water.

To be sure the body won't betray the mission,

Montagu consults with Sir Bernard Spilsbury,

a world-leading forensic pathologist at that time.

Spilsbury took a look at the body of Glyndwr Michael

and confirms this is a good selection.

But it's not all good news.

He tells Montagu that a body that has drowned

will have telltale signs.

Fine white froth would be found

in the lungs and on the lips, water in the stomach,

and foreign material like sand and vomit in the lungs,

hemorrhages in the ear.

This body has none of those markings,

making this mission a risk.

- And this was one of the biggest ways

that the whole procedure may have failed.

If you go through the autopsy,

you could clearly tell that the body didn't drown.

Then the rest of the story,

like a house of cards, falls apart.

- [Narrator] But time is against them,

so Cholmondeley and Montagu take the risk.

- Purchase cautions them

that you're gonna have to use the body quickly

because, of course, decomposition sets in.

And so, they decide to keep the body on ice,

and that buys them time.

- You've gotta work with what you've got.

That's war.

It's all about compromise.

- [Narrator] On February 4th, 1943,

one week after the death of Glyndwr Michael,

Cholmondeley and Montagu present a draft

of Operation Mincemeat to the Twenty Committee,

which passes.

- What's at stake is massive,

and that's where I can imagine if I was a senior commander

hearing these two relatively unknown guys

come up with a plan of this nature,

I'd probably be hesitant too

'cause there's nothing short of the invasion plans

of southern Europe on the table.

- The big guns have put their cross, their name

by this operation.

That immediately, incidentally, raises the stakes.

This isn't just some little hobby

that a couple of eccentrics are having a go with

in the Double-Cross Committee.

No, by now, there's big guns engaged in this idea,

and it needs to succeed.

- [Narrator] With official approval of their Trojan horse,

Cholmondeley and Montagu have to change

the story and character of Glyndwr Michael.

- Because the Germans are so thorough,

you have to create a life from birth to death.

So, you have to think about where was this person born,

what was his family like, did he have siblings,

who were his parents, what did his parents do for a living?

You have to create this very elaborate life story

for this person and create enough crumbs

that the Germans are going to find

that it is believable and it seems like a legitimate person.

- [Narrator] Cholmondeley and Montagu

decide to make their Trojan horse

a member of the Royal Marines,

since Operation Mincemeat originated

in the naval military operations department.

Naval officers always wear their uniforms when they travel

and carry ID cards.

This means that he needs to be outfitted properly

and a legitimate-looking ID card must be fabricated.

But first things first: He needs a new name.

- They are conscious of the fact

that the Germans may have lists of senior commanders

in various British departments, including the Royal Marines,

which is ultimately the agency they decide upon.

So, anticipating that, they can't make up

somebody that nobody's ever heard of.

They have to take the identity of an existing officer,

a real-life guy.

- [Narrator] Searching through personnel files,

they come across nine high-ranking Marines

with the surname Martin.

And after careful research,

they choose Major William Norrie Martin.

At this time, the real Major Martin is in America,

training army personnel, so he is unlikely to find out

what is being done with his name.

- He didn't need to know about Operation Mincemeat.

If you wanna keep a secret, don't tell anyone.

- [Narrator] With the real Major Martin across the Atlantic,

Glyndwr Michael is confidently renamed.

- You can imagine William Martin's shock and surprise

to find out that his identity had been usurped by a corpse,

but that's the plan.

- [Narrator] He's issued ID card number 148228

by the British Admiralty, directed by Louis Mountbatten.

In order to cover their tracks,

they mark the new identity card as a replacement

to justify its fresh appearance.

- You know the Germans are going to ask questions.

You're covering that.

- If they had been sloppy

in organizing this person's character,

the Nazis would've caught on right away.

- [Narrator] To maintain authenticity,

the ID card needs a photo,

which poses another challenge to Cholmondeley and Montagu.

- There's no actual photograph of this guy for them to use,

and the only time that they could take

a photograph of him, he's dead.

So, that is a very significant logistical problem

that you have to overcome.

- [Narrator] After a while of staring at their friends

and acquaintances for a suitable lookalike,

in March of 1943, Ronnie Reed,

a former BBC technician and expert, is selected

as the man to pose for Major Martin's photo ID card.

Montagu thinks the resemblance is so strong

that they could be twins.

In the St. Pancras mortuary,

Cholmondeley measures Major Martin

to get the right-size battledress and boots.

He goes to the military tailors to get a full uniform,

complete with boots, braces, gaiters,

trench coats, badges of rank, and a beret.

- You can't have a pristine uniform on the body

because then it looks like it's a plant,

so this uniform has to be worn around for a while.

- [Narrator] Being of similar height and build,

Cholmondeley wear's Major Martin's uniform

every day for three months to break it in.

Now that Major Martin has an ID card

and military garb to look the part,

he needs a plaussible backstory.

Cholmondeley and Montagu decide that Major William Martin

is the adored son of an upper-middle-class Welsh family

who is brilliant but forgetful.

To establish this, Montagu approaches Ernest Whitley Jones,

the joint general manager of Lloyds Bank,

to write an angry letter about an overdraft.

The letter is addressed to the Pall Mall Army and Navy Club,

Martin's address when in town.

- And the material on him was meant to be found

and made accessible to the Germans.

This person would have to have

everything that a person normally has, which is a backstory.

And it's the little details of the personal life

which balance out the fact that there are clandestine

or secret confidential documents with this person.

- [Narrator] Cholmondeley and Montagu

decide Major Martin is engaged to a vivacious woman

working in a government office.

William had met Pam just five weeks earlier

and proposed with an expensive diamond ring.

His fictional father, John C. Martin,

did not approve of the match.

- And the story of his life,

that's what you're kinda going for

is trying to get people to see him as a person

instead of looking too closely as a body or as a ploy.

Every detail that was used confirmed an earlier detail

so that you built up this long chain

that at this point was almost unbreakable,

that everything here should be believed;

therefore, the papers must be real too.

- [Narrator] A receipt for Pam's engagement ring

is added to William Martin's wallet,

along with a flirtatious photograph.

This photograph was actually of Jean Leslie,

a 20-year-old working in the War Office

to help intercept enemy spies.

Love letters from Pam to Bill

are also planted in the wallet,

written by Jean Leslie's boss, Hester Leggett.

- They even put eyelashes in some of the letters

that are dropped in there

to look like he hasn't opened the letter yet.

It's almost like a mad scientist's way of doing spycraft.

They're building someone up from nothing.

- Because of their positions

of relative power and intelligence,

they can call in on very specific levels of assistance.

- [Narrator] To ensure William Martin's backstory

is consistent, Cholmondeley carefully gathers

supporting items that a wartime officer

might carry in his pockets,

what could be referred to as 'wallet litter'.

Contained within is a booklet of stamps, a pencil stub,

keys, a pack of Player's Navy Cut cigarettes and matches,

and a used two penny bus ticket.

But there's still the problem that if there's a postmortem,

it will clearly show Martin never drowned,

but Montagu and Cholmondeley have a plan

to hopefully prevent a full autopsy from happening.

- So, they made Major Martin a Catholic

and put a cross on the body

so when it was discovered, to respect the Catholic faith,

they didn't do the type of intensive autopsy

that they otherwise would have.

- [Narrator] With Major Martin's personality fleshed out,

it is time to develop his role in military operations.

It is decided that Martin is a courier,

carrying an attache containing confidential personal letters

between high-ranking Allied officials.

Building on the Allied Army's success in North Africa,

it is decided that the first fake letter

from Major Martin's briefcase

will be sent from General Sir Archibald Nye in Britain

to General Sir Harold Alexander in Tunisia.

These two generals are privy

to highly-classified battle plans

and the Germans will know who they are.

For authenticity's sake,

General Nye drafts the letter himself.

- If you're the British, there is a very high probability

that the Germans have seen letters

written by General Nye before.

So, they know how he writes, they know the voice he uses,

so it's a really smart decision

to have him write the letter himself

so that whatever those little unconscious tendencies

that you have when you're writing come through.

- [Narrator] The letter indicates

there are two assaults planned:

the bombing of airfields in Sardinia,

codename Operation Brimstone,

and an Allied invasion of Greece, Operation Husky.

In fact, Brimstone only existed on paper

and Operation Husky's true objective

was the island of Sicily.

The hope is that if Germans find anything else called Husky,

they'll believe it is about an attack on Greece.

- Nobody other than a very small group knew all the details

or would see how all the pieces fit together,

and you'd only do that if you're really afraid

that there were double-agents or German spies

that had infiltrated British command.

- [Narrator] Information about military attacks

is typically shared over wireless using coded messages.

But for Operation Mincemeat to work,

the body needs to have written documents planted on it

for the enemy to discover.

To dispel any questions about why a courier

is carrying such confidential information

about upcoming military attacks,

the letters in Major Martin's briefcase

need to be considered personal,

written with just enough informality.

- It has to be believable for the Nazis to respond to it.

Everything has to look right.

If something is off, then the whole mission fails.

- [Narrator] With Major Martin's meticulous backstory

and falsified military plans complete,

Cholmondeley and Montagu now need to choose

the best spot to drop the body,

where it is sure to land in the right hands

and make its way up to Hitler in Germany.

British intelligence decide on neutral Spain,

where the country was led

by right-wing dictator General Franco.

- Spain depended on the United States

and to some extent did not want to anger the United Kingdom,

so it was ostensibly neutral.

Franco's neutrality cannot be really taken at face value

because we know that the Nazis and Mussolini

fought on Franco's side during the Spanish Civil War.

So, we know that Franco was a sympathizer

to a limited extent with what was going on in Germany.

- [Narrator] But to pinpoint an exact location,

they need someone well-connected on the ground.

- It's gotta be tough.

Who do you know who to trust?

- [Narrator] Montagu and Cholmondeley

meet with Don Gomez-Beare, a British Navy captain

who has a large Spanish network.

He advises that the best place to launch a dead body

into German hands is Huelva,

a fishing port off the Spanish coast.

It is home to a large German community

where the chief of police is very pro-German,

but it has one very important German resident.

- They were targeting a very specific member

of the German spy network,

somebody who was highly trusted, highly ranked,

and who had a lot of connections

in the area that they were dropping off the body.

- [Narrator] This is Adolf Clauss

a Nazi spy that's made Huelva his home.

Supposedly there under the guise

as an agricultural technician,

he was an efficient and effective operative for the Abwehr,

a German equivalent of Britain's MI5.

- If you can convince him

that this is a real lucky opportunity,

then anything he passes back towards Germany

is going to be taken from a trusted source.

- [Narrator] In 1943, Clauss is running the largest

and most efficient spy ring in Spain.

If anything of importance washes up near Huelva,

Clauss will surely hear about it.

- The Abwehr was everywhere.

I mean, agents were spanning the globe

because Germany was very invested

in maintaining the support of the nations

which had not joined the Allies.

They needed some kind of neutral powers

where they could collect information about Allied activity,

and they would stop at nothing to get what they needed.

- [Narrator] After choosing Huelva as the target location,

British intelligence decides

that rather than being dropped from an airplane,

it's best to release the body of Major William Martin

into the ocean by submarine.

- This body just has to appear,

and what's a great way to do that along a coastline?

Utilize a submarine,

because a submarine can be silent,

it can come to the surface at night,

drop off whatever needs dropped off,

and then go back underwater and escape.

Because if you're spotted dropping it, it's game over.

Everything is for nothing.

- [Narrator] At this moment, the HMS Seraph is docked

in the port of Greenock, Scotland.

This submarine was specifically designed

to patrol the restricted waters of the North Sea

and the Mediterranean Sea.

It is captained by Richard Jewell,

who can be relied upon for discretion.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can't underestimate

the importance of secrecy.

I mean, there's double-agents everywhere,

and nobody knows that more than Cholmondeley.

Why, because he is an integral part

of the Double-Cross committee.

It's all about controlling double-agents,

in some cases triple-agents.

Who do you trust in war?

- [Narrator] But there's a problem.

The body of General Martin is in London

and the submarine is in Scotland,

so they need to come up with a way to covertly move the body

and avoid further decomposition during transportation.

However, they know just the man for the job.

Charles Fraser-Smith is the master

of disguising ordinary objects.

After working in different positions abroad,

he returns to the UK to design clothing,

props, and gadgetry for British intelligence.

He is Ian Fleming's inspiration for 'Q',

the gadget expert in the "James Bond" series.

Fraser-Smith is tasked with creating a canister

to transport the body,

the world's first underwater corpse transfer.

- So, how do they keep the body from decomposing?

If it's completely decomposed,

the Germans wouldn't believe it was real or credible.

- And they devise a plan: Put this body on dry ice

in a large steel container and take the oxygen out of it

'cause you need oxygen to decompose.

- [Narrator] Fraser-Smith works with Charles Cholmondeley

to draw up blueprints for a tubular canister 6'6" long.

One end will be welded closed

and the other has an airtight steel lid

and a box wrench is clipped to the lid

to make for easy removal.

Throughout design and construction,

Fraser Smith isn't told what the canister is for.

And when requested to add a Mae West life jacket,

he's told it's for a floating weather station,

though the life jacket makes it clear

this isn't the real reason.

- Information on a need-to-know basis.

The more you know, the more potential you have

to compromise the mission.

- [Narrator] Secrecy is key.

But before the body has left London,

there is one more hurdle to be faced

and the chance for the operation to be exposed,

as all MI5 secret activities

need approval from British Parliament

before being put into action.

On April 13th, 1943,

the British Parliament's Chief of Staff Committee

gathered to approve the falsified military letters

for Operation Mincemeat.

- You don't have a lot of time.

The Nazis continue to build their fortifications

along the coast and even further inland.

At some point, it's going to be

perhaps impossible to do this.

- [Narrator] Churchill needs to give final approval.

- Churchill knows that we can't have a conventional war,

not until the enemy's been really weakened,

so there's got to be thinking out of the box.

- [Narrator] April 15th, at 10:15,

Churchill officially signs off.

- Now, many people in Parliament know what is going on,

and that could be a significant hindrance

to the secrecy of this.

That's probably one of the most nerveracking parts

for the intelligence operation.

- [Narrator] A few hours later, General Dwight Eisenhower

also gives his approval for the operation.

After all, it's going to be his troops

leading the landing on Sicily

and will need Operation Mincemeat to be a success.

With all the necessary approvals in tow,

the body of Major Martin is ready for final preparations.

After Cholmondeley and Montagu dress him,

Martin is transferred to Hackney Mortuary,

where Fraser-Smith's canister is waiting.

Next stop is the port of Greenock.

But to get the canister there,

Cholmondeley and Montagu enlist the help

of an intelligence officer who is a former racing driver.

- To make the story all the more fascinating,

the person selected to transport the body

is a famous race car driver

with the unusual name of Jock Horsfall.

And to make that more interesting

is he's basically legally blind.

- [Narrator] He lives life on the edge,

often refusing to wear a helmet or protective clothing,

preferring to drive in stylish suits.

It is widely speculated that Ian Fleming

borrowed many of Horsfall's traits for James Bond.

His reputation as a tightlipped daredevil

grabs the attention of British intelligence,

who recruit him as a special agent during World War II.

- This is a piece of evidence

showing how this was a total war

and everybody wanted to get onboard

and do whatever they could.

So, being told, "You are helping us

"fight the Nazis doing this," that an easy sell.

- [Narrator] For Operation Mincemeat,

he needs to drive 420 miles from London

to the Greenock Scottish Naval Yard

with a specially-constructed canister

full of dry ice in tow.

- Time is not on our side, and we have thousands of people

who wanna open up a second front.

He's already encased, ready to go,

but now we have to understand

that this has to get to the dock quickly.

- [Narrator] But Operation Mincemeat's importance

goes beyond Sicily.

At this time on the Eastern Front,

Russia's Red Army are fighting the Nazis tooth-and-nail

to hold on to the Ukrainian city of Kharkov.

In March of 1943,

the Red Army loses control of the city to the Nazis

and are then pushed back over 160 kilometers.

After the Red Army loses this battle,

they begin to rebuild their forces

to prepare for a major offensive.

All Russian males, even male children,

are called to fortify the Russian forces.

- The Red Army is a massive nightmare for the Nazis.

- [Narrator] If the Allies are to be successful

on the Eastern Front, it will require Operation Mincemeat

to convince Germany to divert forces to Greece.

- The more troops that are moving around on the German side,

the more that they have to reposition people,

the better it is for you as you're making these plans.

- [Narrator] Back in London, with time running out,

Jock Horsfall knows the perfect vehicle

to drive the canister to Greenock: a large 1937 Fordson van

that he uses to transport his racing vehicles.

On April 19th, 1943,

the canister is loaded into Horsfall's Fordson

just after midnight.

Around 2 a.m., Cholmondeley and Montagu buckle up tight

as Horsfall races against time.

- Pray to the big man you're gonna get up to Greenock

in one piece 'cause, I'm telling you what,

that was not guaranteed with Horsfall at the helm.

- [Narrator] Horsfall comes within inches

of totalling his 3,400-pound Fordson several times.

- At this point, they just want the body to get there.

- [Narrator] That morning, after their harrowing ride,

Horsfall, Cholmondeley, and Montagu arrive at Greenock Dock.

Here, the crew of the submarine

help them load the canister onto the vessel,

but are not told what's in it.

On April 19th at 1600 hours, after three full months

of crafting their fictional character,

Cholmondeley and Montagu

bid the fictional Major Martin goodbye,

hoping to fool the Germans against all odds.

- Everything is in motion now.

- For two people who have controlled

every little detail of this, this has gotta be stressful.

It's outta your hands, you gotta hope for the best,

and you hope you get a message back at some point.

- [Narrator] The HMS Seraph slips out of the moorings

and sails out from the port of Greenock.

- They've served off the coast of North Africa,

they've been in the Battle of the Atlantic.

They know what combat is like.

They understand their previous missions

and understand the importance of every mission,

even though most of the crew don't know what's going on

with this canister that's now showed up onboard.

- [Narrator] On April 30th,

the HMS Seraph stealthily approaches

the shores of Huelva in southern Spain.

- So, there are U-boats everywhere,

so the decision to launch this body underwater,

there's a lot of risk in that.

- [Narrator] Two hours later,

they reach the drop spot off the Poril Pillar,

but where the body should be released are fishing boats.

It's a tense wait for them to leave.

Once the coast is clear, three men onboard the Seraph

hold the canister up through the torpedo hatch.

The body of Major Martin is lifted out of the steel tube.

- After a 10-day journey under the ocean,

the body is gonna be relinquished to the seven seas

in the hope that it washes ashore

in suitably German-sympathetic southwest Spain

and is handed on up the food chain,

arriving, of course, at German intelligence,

but there's lots that could possibly go wrong.

- [Narrator] At 4:30,

when the HMS Seraph is practically aground,

the body is dropped off the coast of Huelva

before the submarine disappears out of sight.

Now, back in London, Cholmondeley and Montagu

are nervously waiting for news.

- That must've been an excruciating time for them

as they waited for word of what happened.

- [Narrator] Just a few hours after being jettisoned

from the submarine, the body of Major Martin washes ashore.

A local fisherman discovers it

just 14 kilometers from Huelva.

- What's going to happen to the documents?

Are they gonna end up in the right place or not?

- That's the hope, that one cadaver,

one extraordinary cleverly-laid trap

will reel in a whole shoal of fish for the Allied forces.

- [Narrator] Based on the uniform,

the fisherman knows this is a man of military importance.

The body, along with the chained attache,

are rushed to the morgue cemetery in Huelva.

- The next day, the autopsy of Major William Martin

by Dr. Fernandez is scheduled.

Since this was the body of a British soldier,

the Spanish authorities contacted Francis Haselden,

the British vice-consul, to oversee the proceedings.

Haselden knew that this body

was a crucial part of a larger British strategy.

Dr. Fernandez goes through the pockets

and puts everything on the table

beside the locked attache case,

all of the items Cholmondeley and Montagu

have painstakingly chosen for the fictional Major Martin.

Then the briefcase is opened.

The contents are soaked,

but the writing on the envelopes is still legible.

Haselden examines the names and the letters

and registers their importance.

The Spaniards offered the case and its contents to Haselden,

but Haselden declined,

requesting that the handover go through formal channels,

possibly a suspicious move on his part, but essential.

The letters from the briefcase

are then passed on to the Spanish Navy.

Though most of Spain is pro-German,

the Spanish Navy is actually fairly pro-British,

the most out of all of neutral Spain's military divisions.

However, the top German spy in Spain, Adolf Clauss,

has heard about the dead British officer's body

being washed up with potentially important documents on him.

- People who are working in the spy network

are trying to show their worth.

And if you provide information that ends up being used,

then often there are rewards for you in the system.

And then, lo and behold,

here's some of the best key intelligence.

Everybody's going to want to pass it on

and want to believe it.

- [Narrator] But with the letters in the Navy's possession,

it becomes increasingly more challenging

for him to get his hands on them,

putting Operation Mincemeat in jeopardy.

The Abwehr, of course, is very, very impatient,

but the Spaniards have to follow the procedures.

They cannot allow it to be seen

as if their sovereignty's being challenged by the Germans

or as if they are not, in fact, neutral

but have some kind of back channel to the Abwehr.

That would have exposed that neutrality to be false.

- [Narrator] Cholmondeley and Montagu's plan

to avoid a full autopsy

by making Major Martin Catholic has failed,

as the Spanish doctor decides to conduct a full one.

But Haselden has hung around

to try to stop this from happening.

Haselden knows a few details about Operation Mincemeat,

but understands that the more rigorous the autopsy,

the likelihood the doctor will find the real cause of death,

which is not drowning.

Dr. Fernandez is competent and familiar with drowning,

since Huelva is a coastal city.

He examines the lungs, which have fluid in them,

but he is unsure if this is water.

Haselden takes matters into his own hands,

saying that the extremely hot day

has done enough damage to the body

and he is satisfied with the autopsy.

Dr. Fernandez relents and issues the death certificate.

- With a typical military operation, you know the results

almost in real time of what is happening.

With this, you don't.

They have a long wait before they know

if their plan has been successful.

That wait time must have been excruciating.

- [Narrator] On May 2nd, 1943, the official military burial

for Major William Martin is held.

Many esteemed guests attend,

including the British vice-consul, Haselden,

along with the British Navy captain Don Gomez-Beare.

- So, Glyndwr Michael dies twice.

A homeless Welshman ends up getting

a full military funeral and honors

and a burial in Spain as a Royal Marine.

- [Narrator] Haselden and Captain Gomez-Beare

notice Adolf Clauss watching the funeral processions

in the shadows.

- We know that Adolf Clauss has been tipped off

and is across what's going on.

- Clauss is very interested in figuring out who this is,

what's the importance of these documents,

and notifying the proper channels

because that ensure that he has a job,

that he stays safe, and that he has status in this system.

Someone has taken the bait.

- [Narrator] Now that the briefcase

is in the hands of the Spanish Navy,

London and the British Embassy in Madrid

need to become increasingly agitated

about the top-secret documents that are inside.

- Deception only works if everyone plays their part.

If they had shown indifference towards the material

found on this deceased major's person,

it would have rung alarm bells,

saying, "Why are they disinterested?

"Why are they treating it as if this was a laundry list

or just some random memo?"

- [Narrator] From Huelva, Haselden communicates

with the embassy in Madrid.

Cables from London are also sent

pointing out the urgency of these documents to be returned.

- One of the worst things that could happen

is if in asking for it back,

Spain says, "Okay, sure, here you go."

- [Narrator] The British allow

their false retrieval attempts

to be intercepted by the Germans

and their fake desperation fools Clauss and the Abwehr,

who become desperate to get their hands

on copies of these letters.

Three days have passed

since Major Martin's funeral on May 2nd.

Adolf Clauss still knows nothing

of what those sealed military documents say.

- The Abwehr is kinda like this secondary arm

of the intelligence wing.

They don't get as much funding.

They're not seen as being as elite, quote-unquote,

as the SS intelligence arm is.

This is a huge deal, finding this body.

Clauss could put the Abwehr on a different level now

by saying, "I know where they're going to invade.

"Here's the document."

- [Narrator] With no progress being made, Wilhelm Canaris,

the head of the Abwehr headquarters in Berlin,

is forced to get involved.

He is a well-connected admiral

and leans heavily on his Spanish naval connections

to access the contents of the letters.

This is nearly a full week

after Clauss learned of their existence,

an embarrassing failure for the German agent.

- Lo and behold, Clauss is given access to the briefcase.

He makes copies of the important documents

and sends them up the chain of command.

- They are taken so seriously that they are sent to Berlin.

You're not going to pick up the phone

and call and say, "I have intelligence

"that the Allies are going to invade Greece."

That has to be sent straight to Berlin,

straight to the intelligence offices.

- [Narrator] The letters are passed to Fremde Heere West,

also known as the F.H.W,

which is the linchpin of the German military intelligence.

- They know almost everything going on on the continent.

They have spies everywhere.

They have informants.

The Gestapo is working overtime

to try to find out counterinsurgency plots,

enemies of the state.

They're locking down Europe.

It is going to be hard to break through

and fool them into thinking

that this is what's going to happen.

- There is a high level of paranoia in the German state.

In any dictatorial society,

you are second-guessing yourself

'cause you put a step wrong, [tongue clicking]

it's game over.

- [Narrator] Based on the letter's contents,

it determines they have two to three weeks

to reinforce the Greek coast before the Allies attack.

- It has to be fully trusted before it gets to Hitler.

And at any point along that chain,

if somebody doesn't believe in it,

then the whole mission fails.

- There's a lot of anxiety on the British side.

What's happened to the intelligence?

Do they believe it?

- [Narrator] The decision is made.

Hitler is to receive this intel.

Operation Mincemeat has made its way

to the top German commander.

On May 12th, the Bletchley Park offices in London

intercept a German message.

It states an enemy invasion on a large scale

is projected in the near future

in both east and west Mediterranean.

But has Germany taken the bait

or is this an attempt to deceive the Allies?

- How do you know the Germans have fallen for this ruse?

- It's very possible that if Mincemeat goes wrong,

you're gonna be walking into a trap,

and the trap being it's always tough

to have a landing from the ocean.

If you are caught on those beaches,

you're gonna have high casualties

and then it's really hard to get out of there.

- If the Germans figure this out, it is mass casualties

for thousands and thousands of Allied soldiers.

- [Narrator] Finally, Cholmondeley and Montagu

receive a crucial update

on the outcome of their deception plan.

- With Cholmondeley and Montagu's letter in hand,

Hitler issues a decree and 90,000 German soldiers

are sent to Greece to dig in at great expense

with fortifications constructed

to prepare for the Allied invasion of Greece,

which doesn't happen.

- But once Hitler has said yes, there was no one

in the entire National Socialist military establishment

who was gonna question him.

- That's the golden prize

'cause that means that they've bought the deception plan.

- [Narrator] At Bletchley Park,

they intercept plenty of German communiques,

giving them a clearcut idea

of what German defenses look like in Sicily.

The coast will be armed with 300,000 troops

defending 600 miles of coastline.

More than two-thirds are Italians who are poorly trained

and ill-equipped for this attack.

- Many of the troops in Sicily,

their heart is not in the effort anymore,

and that will show when the Allies do invade.

- [Narrator] Then, on July 9th, 1943,

the Allies launch Operation Husky, an attack on Sicily.

This is the culmination of all their efforts

from Operation Mincemeat.

Two American and two British airborne troops

carry out attacks just after midnight.

In the early hours of July 10th,

the amphibious assault begins their landings

spread along 105 miles of the southern

and eastern coasts of the island.

British and Canadian forces are in the east

and Americans are towards the west.

- It's a smash-and-grab.

Within six weeks or so, we are now the occupying force

and we've got the perfect landing stage

via which to launch into that so-called soft underbelly,

in fact, very tough gut that is Italy.

And it's very important that that initial operation

into Sicily isn't too costly because the Italian war is.

- [Narrator] The attack opens up

the Mediterranean Sea lanes for Allied forces.

- Think of how man lives are saved

by that movement from the Allied side.

If 90,000 or 100,000 Germans had been left

on the Italian frontier,

it would have been a bog of epic proportions.

- [Narrator] Although having been caught out,

on August 6th, 1943, German troops pour into Italy

to shut down any possibility of a peace treaty.

But all that extra manpower

means they have to loosen their grip on the Eastern Front

and they begin to withdraw from Russia and Ukraine.

- If you're being attacked

so hard by the Soviets on one side

and now you're being pushed hard from Sicily,

you have a two-front war.

And this pincer movement is starting to push in,

and that means that you can't move troops

from the Eastern Front to Italy and vice-versa

because they're both necessary

and needed to keep the operation going.

So, you can't utilize your interior lines anymore,

and this causes a major problem for Nazi Germany.

- [Narrator] With the Nazi troops

withdrawing from the Eastern Front,

the Red Army now has the numbers

to move to a crucial offensive.

- It's not looking pretty for Germany.

You've got the American who've come into the war

on the Western Front

and you've got the extraordinary capacity of Russia

to absorb German firepower.

That had not been anticipated.

- [Narrator] Back on the Western Front, on July 25th, 1943,

Benito Mussolini is arrested.

Less than two weeks later,

Italy indicates there may be potential

to sign a peace treaty.

- Fascist Italy falls in a very short amount of time,

so now the Germans have another worry.

Now their ally to the south is knocked out of the war.

- [Narrator] On September 8th, the surrender of Italy

to the Allies is announced by General Eisenhower

and then by the Italian government

in the Badoglio Proclamation.

Operation Husky is a success.

If Operation Mincemeat hadn't convinced the Germans

to pull troops from Sicily,

the Allies may never have captured it.

On the Eastern Front, Operation Mincemeat's success

gives Russia an upper hand on German forces.

- Without as many German troops on the Eastern Front,

it allows the Red Army to march in

and make progress towards moving toward Germany.

- [Narrator] On August 23rd,

the Russians win the Battle of Kursk,

the largest tank battle in history.

This marks the decisive end

of German offensives on the Eastern Front,

paving the way for the massive Soviet offenses

in 1944 and 1945 that will end in Berlin's capture

and the Nazis' defeat.

- Everyone was driven by a sense of desperation

to end the war, and Operation Mincemeat

certainly expedited the German defeat.

- What I still can't get my brain around

is that MI5 allowed these two young 20-somethings,

Cholmondeley and Montagu,

to just run with this seemingly farcical idea

of planting evidence on a dead body,

and they were given free rein to run with this mission

and it ended up working.

- War is fought on the ground, certainly,

but it is also fought at home.

It's fought in intelligence, it's fought in the mind.

- And what Operation Mincemeat is,

it's an example of being able,

being given the space to think outside the box,

being given the freedom to come up with a solution

that's literally going to outsmart your enemy

and in the end, in the end,

bring this god-awful conflict to a quicker finish.

- [Narrator] Both Cholmondeley and Montagu

were given honors for their part in the successful mission,

but they weren't the only ones.

In 1998, a new inscription was added

to the gravestone of General William Martin,

recognizing the part that Glyndwr Michael had played

in Operation Mincemeat,

a man who helped change the course of World War II

and, in his death, saved the lives of thousands more.