Posted on 12/29/2017 5:05:42 AM PST by DFG
Margaret Thatcher granted the deathbed request of a spy who masterminded one of the greatest World War II operations.
Ewen Montagu wanted to find out the official verdict on Operation Mincemeat, an audacious plan which helped change the course of the war by fooling the Nazis into diverting their troops to the wrong place.
Newly-declassified National Archives files reveal that Mr Montagu, a judge who volunteered for the Navy during the war, wrote to Mrs Thatcher from his deathbed with his request.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I loved the movie and the very real history behind it.
A bit of background is that the British Intelligence (MI5 & MI6) had ‘turned’ the majority of the German Spies within Great Britain by the time of this superb hoax. While they had to make sure that all of the props were in place to be discovered by any undiscovered agents, their turned spies were doing the job of confirming the bonafides of the hoax.
One wonders how the photo on his ID papers was made?
Apparently purely by chance. The mastermind knew that a photograph of the corpse used in the deception would look hopelessly dead, but at lunch in the MI6 cafeteria (guessing) he looked across the hall and spotted a man who was the spitting image of the deceased. This man was photographed and his likeness added to the fake ID papers.
The Germans had just one spy in Britain who didn’t get turned or hanged — the rest had been sent over to infiltrate by the Abwehr. As the UK’s Double-Cross network grew, passing some relatively harmless good info along with loads of rubbish, the sheer number of German spies feeding da faddahland with fake info made the fake info seem even more credible. Public hangings of those who refused to turn actually helped maintain the fiction that the spies were doing their job.
The other intel source the Nazis used was the Ostro Network, which consisted of a lone “spy” who sipped his morning beverage, overlooking the sea in Portugal, and building pretty plausible (and often dead accurate) “intel reports” simply by reading British and other newspapers (and this is despite the wartime censorship). That guy drove the British crazy, since he figured out their fakes while using no operatives, so he was only caught after the Soviet espionage network in the Third Reich identified him. Of course, the Soviets also riddled the UK with spies at the highest levels, and the last one was identified until decades after the war ended.
https://www.amazon.com/Druid-Nazi-Double-Crossed-Double-Cross-System/dp/0413402800
They handcuffed a briefcase to the wrist of the corpse which contained a fictitious letter from Gen. Sir Archibald Nye (Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff) written to Gen Harold Alexander (British Commander in North Africa) suggesting the invasion of southern Europe was to target Greece.
Before sealing the letter they made one final addition: a single human eyelash tucked into one of the folds. Since Spain was (officially) neutral, and since the body was British, the body’s belongings eventually would be returned to British hands. When that happened, if the eyelash was missing, they would know that the letter had been read.
The British had perfectly calculated the tides and the body — cast adrift from a submarine — washed up on a beach near Huelva. Huelva had been chosen because it was home to Adolf Klaus, the most effective Nazi spy in Spain. Just the man who could be counted on to take notice of a British courier being found dead on the beach.
The two masterminds of the operation knew that the greatest challenge would be getting past the autopsy because any experienced pathologist would recognize the body had the sort of decay that was indicative of weeks in cold storage, not days floating in the sea, so they enlisted the aid of the British Consul. He made a point of attending the autopsy in the hope he could prevent it being too thorough. As the day wore on, the room grew hotter and less pleasant, so the Consul suggested that His Majesty’s government would be satisfied with a ruling of Death by Drowning. Then he further suggested they call it a day and go out for drinks and tapas. The two Spanish pathologists bought it.
The briefcase was entrusted to the Spanish Navy, who locked it up. But the Nazis had a Spanish naval officer working for them, and presented the complete contents to the Nazis and gave them one hour to examine and photograph it.
The Nazi Spy who examined those contents was Karl-Erich Kühlenthal. MI5 were counting on Kühlenthal not to be particularly thorough because he had hidden Jewish ancestors, which they hoped might make him over-eager to please his Nazi masters. For whatever reason, without further questioning its authenticity, he immediately flew to Berlin and presented the photos of the letter to German Intelligence.
German Intelligence found no material evidence of fakery so it was passed to Joseph Goebbels. Goebbels wrote in his diary that he thought the letter was fishy but nonetheless he passed it along to Hitler.
Shortly after, Bletchley Park decoded a radio message from the German High Command to all Mediterranean commanders — citing an unimpeachable source — ordering them to prepare for an invasion through on Greece.
Despite this, all the German High Command doubted it was Greece because Sicily would have been much more strategically advantageous, but their opinion wasn’t the one that mattered.
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