Historian claims to have finally identified wartime 'Man Who Never Was'
It was a turning point in the Second World War. As the Allies prepared to invade Sicily in 1943, they wanted to dupe the Germans into thinking that their attack would be aimed elsewhere.
To carry out the deception, a plan was concocted in which a body was dumped in the sea, to be discovered by Axis forces, carrying fake 'secret documents' suggesting the invasion would be staged in Greece, 500 miles away.
Incredibly, the trick worked and the diversion of German troops to Greece has been credited by historians with playing a major part in the success of the Sicily invasion. The episode was later immortalised in the 1956 film The Man Who Never Was.
Yet to this day, just whose body was used in "Operation Mincemeat" has remained a source of secrecy, confusion and conspiracy theory.
In a forthcoming book, a historian claims to have finally established beyond any reasonable doubt the identity of the person who 'played' the part of the dead man: a homeless Welshman called Glyndwr Michael.
The body, which was given the identity of a fake Royal Marine called 'Major William Martin', was dropped into the sea off Spain in 1943.
Winston Churchill had remarked that "Anyone but a bloody fool would know it was Sicily", but after the tides carried Major Martin's body into the clutches of Nazi agents, Hitler and his High Command became convinced Greece was the target. "You can forget about Sicily. We know it's in Greece," proclaimed General Alfred Jodl, head of the German supreme command operations staff.
"Mincemeat swallowed, rod, line and sinker" was the message sent to Churchill after the Allies learned the plot had worked.
In recent years, there have been repeated claims that Mincemeat's chief planner, Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu, was so intent on deceiving the Germans that he stole the body of a crew member from HMS Dasher, a Royal Navy aircraft carrier which exploded off the Scottish coast in March 1943, and lied to the dead man's relatives.
In 2003, a documentary based on 14 years of research by former police officer Colin Gibbon claimed that 'Major Martin' was Dasher sailor Tom Martin.
Then in 2004, official sanction appeared to be given to another candidate, Tom Martin's crewmate John Melville. At a memorial service on board the current HMS Dasher, a Royal Navy patrol vessel, off the coast of Cyprus, Lieutenant Commander Mark Hill named Mr Melville as Major Martin, describing him as "a man who most certainly was". Mr Melville's daughter, Isobel Mackay, later told The Scotsman newspaper: "I feel very honoured if my father saved 30,000 Allied lives."
However, Professor Denis Smyth, a historian at Toronto University, whose book Operation Mincemeat: Death, Deception and the Mediterranean D-Day is due to be published later this year, believes he has now finally laid to rest such "conspiracy theories".
During his research, he came across a "most secret" memo written by Commander Montagu, the significance of which appears to have been overlooked and which Professor Smyth says proves the body of Mr Michael, who was mentally ill and died after ingesting rat poison at the time the operation was being planned, was used. Mr Michael was first proposed as The Man Who Never Was by an amateur historian in 1996, but the evidence to support this failed to convince supporters of the Dasher theory.
Tellingly, the memo unearthed by Professor Smyth was written after the body had been buried in Spain and addressed fears among senior officers that it would be exhumed for a second post-mortem which would confirm 'Major Martin' was a fake.
In it, Commander Montagu reports a conversation he had with coroner Dr William Bentley Purchase: "Mincemeat [the body] took a minimal dose of a rat poison containing phosphorus. This dose was not sufficient to kill him outright and its only effect was so to impair the functioning of the liver that he died a little time afterwards.
"Apart from the smallness of the dose, the next point is that phosphorus is not one of the poisons readily traceable after long periods, such as arsenic, which invades the roots of the hair."
Professor Smyth said: "What they talk about is whether the traces of the rat poison this person had taken could show up. So the person buried in Spain died from taking rat poison, not drowning, and therefore it is Glyndwr Michael.
"People love a conspiracy and a group has emerged who argue that this body was entirely unsuitable because it would have been riddled with rat poison.
"I think I've demolished what they think is the case for the counter-argument, that this body wouldn't have passed muster in the post mortem. The post mortem verdict was precisely as the British had expected, it was deemed to be a victim of drowning."
Asked about the 2004 ceremony on HMS Dasher, Professor Smith said: "It is very embarrassing ... I think this seals it. I've also been able to establish, I think beyond any reasonable, any rational doubt, the identity of the corpse involved."
However John Steele, author of The Secrets of HMS Dasher, insisted Glyndwr Michael would not have passed muster as a Marine because he was an alcoholic – although Professor Smyth says there is no record of his illness – and said he remains convinced it was Melville.
"I've received a comprehensive report from a top dental expert regarding the teeth of Glyndwr Michael, what he would expect to find. There is no comparison whatsoever between the body of an alcoholic tramp and that of a Royal Marine," he said.
"I can tell you Montagu pinched a body. There's no way a brilliant barrister such as Montagu would take one slight risk that this operation would go haywire.
"Montagu was meticulous and would never have sent the body of a tramp.
"Bill Jewell, the commander of the submarine Seriph, said it was 'highly unlikely' the body of a tramp would have been used in this operation and he put it into the water with three of his officers."
He claims Montagu decided not only to fool the Germans but also his own commanders, whose "first reaction was this is macabre, this doesn't happen in England". "All the secrecy was imposed because the body used was from Dasher," Mr Steele said. "And we couldn't have the British public finding out that a body was stolen."
Mr Melville's daughter Mrs Mackay, 70, of Galashiels, in the Scottish Borders, said she agreed with Mr Steele. "The whole thing finished for me in Cyprus when the Dasher was honoured and the Navy asked me out there. That is it as far as it's concerned," she said.