A dead man washed ashore carrying Allied secrets. None of it had happened by chance.

His papers give a name and rank: William Martin, a major in the Royal Marines. His personal belongings offer more than a service number. There is a photograph, correspondence, evidence of a life left behind in Britain.

The briefcase also contains confidential letters. For German intelligence officers operating in Spain, a dead British officer carrying military documents presents a rare opportunity.

The body has been found in an officially neutral country. The papers should therefore be returned to the British, to whom they belong. Before that happens, however, they might be read, copied and passed on.

That is exactly what London wants.

Giving William Martin a life

The major does not exist. British intelligence has constructed his identity around the body of a man who died in London. Ewen Montagu and Charles Cholmondeley have developed the operation: pass the dead man off as an officer killed in a plane crash at sea.

A uniform and an identity card will not be enough. They invent a fiancée for him, Pam. A photograph puts a face to her name; letters give their relationship a life on paper. A receipt for a ring completes the picture.

They add theatre tickets and a tailor's bill. William Martin now has things to do, expenses and someone writing to him. His pockets do not contain only the papers needed for his mission. They resemble those of a man who had a life before he set off.

That private life lends credibility to the documents he is carrying. The intended targets must not feel that they are being handed a British message. They must believe they have intercepted one.

The letters in the briefcase

The Allies are preparing to land in Sicily. The British want to persuade the Germans to look elsewhere, towards Greece and Sardinia.

The letters entrusted to the false major therefore discuss those objectives in exchanges between senior officials. Sicily appears as a diversion. If genuine preparations attract German attention, the letters are meant to explain them away as part of a feint.

The operation is called Mincemeat. It belongs to a wider deception effort, Barclay, designed to conceal Allied intentions in the Mediterranean. The body and briefcase are to provide particularly convincing evidence for that false picture.

They still have to reach the right hands.

A journey arranged in London

Before its discovery in Spain, the body was transported in a metal container cooled with dry ice. It travelled to Scotland, then aboard the submarine HMS *Seraph*, which was to release it offshore.

Huelva was no random choice. The currents favoured the body's arrival on that coast, and German intelligence had local contacts.

The *Seraph* put the body into the water. The story of a drowned officer could begin to circulate along with his papers.

The Spanish authorities retain the briefcase. The British request their documents back through diplomatic channels. A top-secret request for their recovery is itself intended to be intercepted: it emphasises the importance of the supposedly lost papers.

The briefcase is not returned until 11 May. It goes back to London.

What the envelopes reveal

On their return, the letters are examined. Small signs show that they have been removed from their envelopes and put back. Their contents have not remained confidential.

Opening a letter, however, does not mean believing it. The British have another way to follow developments: intercepted German communications.

On 14 May, Hitler considers Sicily unlikely to be the next main target and calls for Greece and Sardinia to be reinforced. The false lead has reached the level where military decisions are made.

Mincemeat has contributed to the deception. It has not determined every German decision by itself: other deception operations and existing fears also matter.

On 10 July 1943, the Allies land in Sicily. Surprise does not spare them the fighting. The island is defended, and tens of thousands of Axis troops will manage to escape to the mainland. The success of the false letters has not made the campaign painless.

The missing name

William Martin is buried in Huelva. The operation supplied him with a fiancée, memories and a mission. It also left him a grave under an invented identity.

The man whose body the British had used was a Welshman who died in London. He had never been the major whose papers reached German intelligence.

In 1997, his real name is added to the grave, fifty-four years after the voyage of the *Seraph*.

Beneath Major William Martin, there is now a name that nobody invented: Glyndwr Michael.