Speaker 1: Everybody. It's me Josh and for this week's s Y
Speaker 1: s K Selex, I've chosen our episode on Operation Mincemeat
Speaker 1: from February two thousand sixteen. It's a really great example
Speaker 1: of English drollness pulling through for the rest of the
Speaker 1: world is featuring Ian Fleming or Ian Fleming, depending on
Speaker 1: your preference, and roll Dahl. It's just a Bonker's history
Speaker 1: episode all around, so I hope you enjoy it. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles
Speaker 1: w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry Rowland. This is Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know. Chuck, Yo, I'm thirty nine years old and
Speaker 1: I still can't say my own name correctly because in
Speaker 1: my stupid thick tongue. Oh you're gonna be forty crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he used to make fun of me, and now you're old. Well,
Speaker 1: you're still older than me. I know what I can
Speaker 1: do about that. It's cool though. Yeah, you're aging very well. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: you're aging really well. What you mean the teeth falling out,
Speaker 1: the weight gain and the gray beard. I still say
Speaker 1: you're aging very well. I appreciate it. But let's get
Speaker 1: your take off your hat. I still got good hair booms.
Speaker 1: Look at that got hat head now beautiful? Okayle think
Speaker 1: I'm bald? Some people do, like you're always wearing that hat.
Speaker 1: Why do you why? I don't know suspicious people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like the drummer for the Chili Peppers, Anthony Keytis Flee, Nope,
Speaker 1: the guy from Jane's Addiction, Nope, I don't know them,
Speaker 1: Not John for Shaunty, Chad Smith, the guy that looks
Speaker 1: like Will Ferrell. He's always Ferrell. He's always got that
Speaker 1: hat on backwards and um he's bald. Yeah, totally like
Speaker 1: Brett Um. Michael's bald. Remember he always wears a do rag.
Speaker 1: Super bald. So I get why people are suspicious. If
Speaker 1: you're a public figure that has a patented hat piece,
Speaker 1: then it's probably because you're bald, but not in my case.
Speaker 1: What a weird way to start the show, especially this show,
Speaker 1: Operation mincemeat Yep, which is a ghoulish gallows humor awesomely
Speaker 1: World War two British name for this this operation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this will live alongside our our Nazi spies and Invading
Speaker 1: Florida podcast and the history Girls covered this this very
Speaker 1: topic as well. Yeah, man, there's nothing I love more
Speaker 1: than little known history. This is this is it. But
Speaker 1: this is great little known history. And this shouldn't be
Speaker 1: middle known because it was after the Trojan War, maybe
Speaker 1: the largest and most successful military deception plan in history. Well,
Speaker 1: there was also have you seen that documentary Ghost Army
Speaker 1: about Operation Fortitude. No, they used a bunch of blow
Speaker 1: up tanks and planes, like inflatable tanks and planes to
Speaker 1: make it look like there's a whole Allied division over here,
Speaker 1: so that we could invade Normandy More He's it's like
Speaker 1: a Looney Tunes cartoon. Awesome. But yes, this ranks up
Speaker 1: there with literally with the Trojan Horses. It's that ingenious
Speaker 1: and that wonderful. But so let's set the stage right.
Speaker 1: So in early nine UM, the war was very much undecided.
Speaker 1: It could have been anybody's like your. Europe was under
Speaker 1: the control of Hitler, huge amounts of Europe. They called
Speaker 1: it Fortress Europe because he the Nazis were just had
Speaker 1: just overrun the place, right dug in and um, the
Speaker 1: the Allies knew that they needed to get into Europe
Speaker 1: to topple Hitler or else like they weren't going to
Speaker 1: win the war, so um Churchill suggested attacking Europe's underbelly,
Speaker 1: which is maybe Italy, Greece. He called it the underbelly,
Speaker 1: not very flattering, but he called it Europe's underbelly. So everybody,
Speaker 1: the Allies, the Greeks, the Nazis, the Japanese, um, the
Speaker 1: people uh in Hawaii. Everybody knew, yeah, they weren't American
Speaker 1: quite yet. Everybody knew that the Allies were gonna attack
Speaker 1: somewhere in that area. Yeah, come up through the Mediterranean.
Speaker 1: Even Hitler feared this the most, but was key right,
Speaker 1: And and I mean everybody knew the Allies were coming,
Speaker 1: and they were going to come there. But this, this
Speaker 1: land mass, this area of land and see is large
Speaker 1: enough that you can't just be like, oh, they're coming
Speaker 1: down there. We got it covered, cover it all. You
Speaker 1: need to know kind of specifically where they were covering.
Speaker 1: And there were just a few places where they could
Speaker 1: have come. One was Greece, that was where Hitler always suspected.
Speaker 1: One was Sardinia, right, and then another was Sicily. And
Speaker 1: in nine I think January, the Allied powers met in
Speaker 1: French Morocco and held um a conference, the CASA Blanket Conference,
Speaker 1: very sexy naming. Yeah, it really was. And um, they said, okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to invade Sicily this July. We're gonna call
Speaker 1: it Operation Husky. Now we have to do everything we
Speaker 1: can to not let the Nazis know that that's where
Speaker 1: we're going. And that actually hatched eventually what's called Operation Mincemeat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what. The studying this stuff and I'm not
Speaker 1: a big war buff um, although I'm getting more so,
Speaker 1: but reading up on this stuff, like the old wars
Speaker 1: are so much like the board game risk that it's startling. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's literally when you look at the stuff, it's like
Speaker 1: moving troops to where you think people are going to
Speaker 1: attack you and rolling the dice a bit and if
Speaker 1: you're right, then great, If not, you're screwed very much though,
Speaker 1: which is why it's such a huge shift that we're
Speaker 1: seeing now in moving to unconventional warfare, because that's scary stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think pretty much all war is scary. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: of course I'm not saying like Normandy was a gig
Speaker 1: walk or anything, because they knew what there was going on. Man,
Speaker 1: I watched Saving Private Ryan again the other day. God,
Speaker 1: it's crazy. That thing's almost a snuff film. It's not
Speaker 1: as bad as We Were Soldiers, which is a snuff film,
Speaker 1: but it's I never saw that one gie, Yeah, dude,
Speaker 1: it's it's the most graphically violent mainstream movie ever made. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: Like there's a part where there's there they have a shot,
Speaker 1: a camera shot over this guy's shoulder, right, so his
Speaker 1: helmets in the in the near foreground, and that guy
Speaker 1: takes a hit to the head and like blood spray
Speaker 1: covers the camera lens for the next like a little
Speaker 1: while his brains just cover the camera. It's disgusting. Did
Speaker 1: you like Saving Private Ran again? Though? Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: great movie, but it is like really like violent. That's
Speaker 1: another thing about getting older is that stuff affects you
Speaker 1: more and more. The more you come to terms with
Speaker 1: your own mortality, the more valuable life becomes. The more
Speaker 1: valuable even a care after in a movie's life becomes
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? That stuff gets to agreed,
Speaker 1: It's called growing up, my friend, I'm becoming human, isn't
Speaker 1: it grows? Alright? So on September twenty nine, ninety nine, Uh,
Speaker 1: there was a director of British Naval Intelligence name Admiral
Speaker 1: John Godfrey, and he distributed something called the Trout Memo,
Speaker 1: and um, it was written by his assistant Lieutenant Commander
Speaker 1: Ian Fleming. Familiar name, Yeah, creator of James Bond. That's right,
Speaker 1: the guy. And uh, I think most people know that
Speaker 1: he served at this point. Yeah, but um, if you didn't,
Speaker 1: that's a nice little factoid for you. So he he
Speaker 1: wrote the Trout Memo and they called it the Trout
Speaker 1: memo memo because they pointed out in the intro that
Speaker 1: this that the trout fisherman fishes very patiently, but he
Speaker 1: changes venue frequently and he changes his bait very frequently too,
Speaker 1: And so they wanted to they're charged with deception. They
Speaker 1: wanted to come up with all these different ideas, all
Speaker 1: this different bait and venue changes that they could come
Speaker 1: up with. Yeah, and this was a time too. We
Speaker 1: should point out that, UM, spying, spying is always vital,
Speaker 1: but man, in World War Two, it was going on
Speaker 1: all over the place in a huge, huge part of
Speaker 1: the war. So, um, we need to do one on
Speaker 1: the Enigma machine. By the way, at some point we do,
Speaker 1: because that's one of the unsung heroes in this operation. Absolutely. Um, alright,
Speaker 1: so with the trout memo, Ian Fleming wrote, uh well,
Speaker 1: co authored fifty one different operations suggestions, and number twenty
Speaker 1: eight was one called a suggestion parentheses not a very
Speaker 1: nice one. The following suggestion is used in a book
Speaker 1: by Basil Thompson. I'm so pleased that you said, Basil
Speaker 1: in staid a Basil Uh In fact, that was seven novel,
Speaker 1: The mill Milliner's Hat Mystery. And he was actually a
Speaker 1: World War One spy. Oh really yeah? So he was
Speaker 1: it a spy writer that Ian Fleming the reader of
Speaker 1: James Bond Doug Crazy. So that's where this originate. So uh,
Speaker 1: here's here, that's right. The following suggestion is used in
Speaker 1: a book by Basil Thompson Colin a corpse dressed as
Speaker 1: an airman with dispatches in his pockets could be dropped
Speaker 1: on the coast, supposedly from a parachute that had failed.
Speaker 1: I understand there is no difficulty in obtaining corpses at
Speaker 1: the Naval hospital, but of course it would have to
Speaker 1: be a fresh one. So the idea is, let's get
Speaker 1: a dead person, let's dress him up like a soldier,
Speaker 1: give him some sensitive documents that leak this invasion fraudulent, fraudulent,
Speaker 1: very important, that leak the invasion of Greece, which is
Speaker 1: not really happening, and they're gonna mount up troops there
Speaker 1: and we'll actually go in secily. They're gonna find this body.
Speaker 1: They're gonna think they've stumbled upon this great happy accident
Speaker 1: and we're going to fool him. So yeah, that was
Speaker 1: the That was the whole idea. That was the general
Speaker 1: basis of it. And Churchill loved the idea because apparent
Speaker 1: he liked what he called corkscrew thinkers, because he knew
Speaker 1: Hitler thought in a straight line. Yes, and by corkscrew thinkers,
Speaker 1: I think that would be our equivalent of outside the box. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Churchill was like, this is great. I love Churchill. Let's
Speaker 1: drink some scotch and do it. Yeah, let's look like
Speaker 1: a bulldog. So um, the the the well. The idea
Speaker 1: was roughly outlined by Ian Fleming and then the the
Speaker 1: Churchill's corkscrew thinkers, the XX Committee, led by um you
Speaker 1: and Montague and um Chumley. Yeah, which is his name
Speaker 1: is not spelled chumbley? No, how's it spelled? Are you
Speaker 1: ready for this? Charles C. H O l m O
Speaker 1: n d e l e y pronounced Chumley. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: apparently when he met people he would say, uh, Lieutenant
Speaker 1: Charles Chumley c h O l m O n d
Speaker 1: e l e y. He would spell it out, what
Speaker 1: do you really? Yeah? Are you making fun of me?
Speaker 1: Or is there for real? No? No, no. He was
Speaker 1: a very quirky guy, and that's how he described himself
Speaker 1: as toothpaste, as if it had been squeezed from the tube,
Speaker 1: like he self described. He would go hunting with a
Speaker 1: revolver like bird hunting. Is a weird guy. I actually
Speaker 1: watched a quickie BuzzFeed video on this and they pronounced
Speaker 1: it Charles Charlomondley. Did they really? Yeah, I'm glad we
Speaker 1: did our research exactly, shout out with the BuzzFeed. So
Speaker 1: you and Montague right, Yeah, the other guy. He is
Speaker 1: noteworthy in a number of ways to apparently it's just
Speaker 1: the greatest guy ever, most interesting man on the planet.
Speaker 1: Um And he actually wrote the book, the first book
Speaker 1: on Operation Mincemeat, because he was one of the people
Speaker 1: who came up with this and implemented it. The man
Speaker 1: who was never there, the man who never was got
Speaker 1: right so became a movie too, Yeah, of the same name,
Speaker 1: starring Montgomery Cliff, I believe, no starring Cliff with Cliff
Speaker 1: Cliff web but not Montgomery Cliff. Those two are virtually
Speaker 1: interchangeable there. So, um what you and Montague was already
Speaker 1: notable because at school he and his brother had created
Speaker 1: the rules for um ping pong. No way, I did
Speaker 1: not know that, among other things. And his brother equally interesting,
Speaker 1: equally um rambunctious went on to become a spy for
Speaker 1: the Soviets. Yes, so he turned yes against England, Yes
Speaker 1: against everybody except for the Soviets. Well, Montague was uh,
Speaker 1: he was formerly a barrister, an attorney, and um, this
Speaker 1: is why he actually did not go serve on a ship. Um.
Speaker 1: And the other guy, Chumley, never flew a plane. One
Speaker 1: was air Force, one was a navy. Uh. And apparently
Speaker 1: Montague was as an attorney, was very good at just
Speaker 1: seeing all the angles. So they say, you, sir, are
Speaker 1: perfect for this job. Ask all right, Chuck. So we
Speaker 1: have the rough outline that Ian Fleming came up with
Speaker 1: the XX committee led by you and Montague and Charles Chumley.
Speaker 1: The part of m I five, I believe. Okay, Um
Speaker 1: said we're going to take this particular idea and really
Speaker 1: run with it, Um, And like you said, they were
Speaker 1: going to, Well, the first thing they did was start
Speaker 1: setting about creating a backstory. Yeah. Well they had three months,
Speaker 1: so that the clock is chicking at this point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because here's the thing. They set the invasion right in January,
Speaker 1: and they set the invasion for July. Now, you needed
Speaker 1: enough time to um plant this, this corpse, this fake
Speaker 1: dead courier um in the Nazi hands and give the
Speaker 1: with enough time so that the Nazis could digest it,
Speaker 1: analyze it, decided it was truthful, and then react the
Speaker 1: way you wanted them to, which meant that they had
Speaker 1: no later than May or else this plan was out
Speaker 1: the window. Yeah, you wanted them. The ultimate goal was
Speaker 1: to have the Nazis put their troops in the wrong place,
Speaker 1: and that takes time, right, So they looked around and
Speaker 1: they decided that the best place to carry out this
Speaker 1: operation was Spain, and Spain during World War Two was
Speaker 1: allegedly ostensibly neutral, but they had a lot of access, sympathies,
Speaker 1: a lot of connections to Nazi Germany, and there was
Speaker 1: a particular Nazi agent, a spy working in a port
Speaker 1: called Um Whoever, Whoever, La Whoever La right, Um, And
Speaker 1: his name was Adolf Klass. And Adolph Klaus was known
Speaker 1: to be very methodical, pretty brutal, brutal and ruthless, extremely gullible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was a straight line thinker. He was hitler. He
Speaker 1: wasn't one that could think outside the box and think,
Speaker 1: maybe this is an elaborate hoax that that guy didn't
Speaker 1: even own a real corkscrew, you know, like they targeted
Speaker 1: this guy cut the top off of wine bottles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they specifically targeted, which is amazing. So they wanted this guy,
Speaker 1: who was fairly gullible but also known as like a
Speaker 1: very respected Nazi agent in Spain, um to be the
Speaker 1: one who came up with this corpse and could ever
Speaker 1: so before they ever had any corps or could have
Speaker 1: or anything like that, Montague and Um and Chumbley start
Speaker 1: setting about creating a backstory, and they created this guy
Speaker 1: named Major Um Martin, William Martin, that's right. And they
Speaker 1: created Major William Martin, and they created this whole persona.
Speaker 1: And this wasn't the first time they've done it, that
Speaker 1: they had actually they had um chops with this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. So they had created a fake spine network
Speaker 1: that made Nazi Germany think that they had a whole
Speaker 1: double double agent network in the UK. And all of
Speaker 1: them were fictitious, not real people that you and Montague
Speaker 1: and Charles Chumley had created these fake personas and it
Speaker 1: fed the Nazis misinformation through these people that didn't really exist.
Speaker 1: So they took that that understanding and that thinking of
Speaker 1: what it takes to create a fake persona, and they
Speaker 1: said about creating one for Major William Martin. Yeah, and um,
Speaker 1: if you there's a great BBC documentary on this, and
Speaker 1: they interview a lot of the players, um, including a
Speaker 1: lot of the women who worked at m I five
Speaker 1: in the office, and they were all just so delighted
Speaker 1: that they all described this as like the most exciting
Speaker 1: adventure they'd ever had. I'm sure it was like something
Speaker 1: out of a spine novel and they were living it right,
Speaker 1: And so they all had great fun creating these characters,
Speaker 1: that these made up people. Um, they wanted to give
Speaker 1: him a fiance because the idea is that they find
Speaker 1: this body with what not only these documents in a briefcase,
Speaker 1: the important documents. But to make it believable, he had
Speaker 1: to have believable what they called pocket litter or wallet litter,
Speaker 1: which is if you find any person on the street
Speaker 1: asked him to open their wallet, you're gonna be able
Speaker 1: to tell a lot about them. So just stuff to
Speaker 1: legitimize it. So they said, let's give him a fiance,
Speaker 1: and all the women in the office wanted to be
Speaker 1: the fiance, so they all submitted photographs. They picked this one,
Speaker 1: lady Jean Leslie. Uh, secretary, Okay, that's the lady on
Speaker 1: the beach. Yes, pickture of her in a bathing suit
Speaker 1: on the beach. So this was going to be planted
Speaker 1: on his body. Uh. They all wanted to write the
Speaker 1: love letters back and forth, but they picked a woman
Speaker 1: named Hester Leggert, the head secretary of m I five,
Speaker 1: and she wrote even though she was a spinster, she
Speaker 1: wrote all these like heartfelt love letters. The first couple
Speaker 1: of drafts were really dirty, and they were like, you
Speaker 1: gott to tone this down a little, like is that
Speaker 1: what you think happens in a relationships? Like, no, not me, lady.
Speaker 1: So everyone's really excited in the office. Um Chumley is
Speaker 1: wearing what would eventually be the uniform of Martin every
Speaker 1: Day to give it that worn in look. Monte Hue
Speaker 1: actually ended up having an affair with the secretary who
Speaker 1: gave him the photo as the fiance. They had a
Speaker 1: real life affair as Bill and Pam. Pam is the
Speaker 1: made up fiance. It got a little weird that it
Speaker 1: is a little weird, like they wrote each other love letters,
Speaker 1: had a real life affair calling each other Bill and Pam.
Speaker 1: So there was some like strange role playing going on.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he was married at the time. His family
Speaker 1: had been shipped to America, so he was not doing
Speaker 1: the right thing there he was he was allows in
Speaker 1: that department. Well you know also um Roll Dahl, the
Speaker 1: guy who wrote James and the Giant Peach and Charlie Factory.
Speaker 1: He was a spy for the British. He was in
Speaker 1: the British military and his whole job was to basically
Speaker 1: bed um the wives of American officials here in Washington.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, did he do so? Oh? Yeah? Oh wow?
Speaker 1: Oh he made his way through Washington society apparently with
Speaker 1: great zeal. Alright, so they're cooking up this backstory. Uh,
Speaker 1: they get other great things for the wallet litter like uh,
Speaker 1: theater ticket stubs and an overdraft letter from his bank
Speaker 1: and just these things that make it seem like super realistic.
Speaker 1: And what else they I think they gave him a
Speaker 1: st Christopher Metal. Maybe they wanted to strongly imply that
Speaker 1: he was Roman Catholic and that will come up, uh
Speaker 1: very it will become very important in a minute, right,
Speaker 1: very much. So they've got this backstory and apparently like this.
Speaker 1: They were working feverishly on this stuff, having the weirdo affair,
Speaker 1: wearing the uniform, all that stuff before they'd even gotten
Speaker 1: final approval, just because they didn't want to stop work
Speaker 1: and then have to pick it up feverishly. They wanted
Speaker 1: this to to keep going. So they finally got final
Speaker 1: approval from Admiral God for um to carry out this
Speaker 1: thing for real. And when they got final approval, they said, okay,
Speaker 1: we need a body and they figured no problem they
Speaker 1: were looking at first they needed somebody who um, who
Speaker 1: had relatives that didn't care what happened to the body
Speaker 1: after death and could keep their mouth shut. Um. They
Speaker 1: needed a body that was of military age, didn't have
Speaker 1: any signs of visible trauma um right um, and that
Speaker 1: that preferably they would have died of pneumonia. And the
Speaker 1: reason that they wanted him to die of pneumonia is
Speaker 1: because they were going to make it look like this
Speaker 1: guy had been in a plane crash. Um, but it
Speaker 1: survived the plane crash, but it drowned at sea. And
Speaker 1: if he had pneumonia, then his fluids would be filled
Speaker 1: with long so that when the Spanish conducted an autopsy
Speaker 1: on them. Yeah, so that when the Spanish conducted their autopsy,
Speaker 1: they'd be like, this is the most amazing thing I've
Speaker 1: ever seen. I've never seen fluid filled with lungs, but
Speaker 1: that's how much fluid there is. The problem is is
Speaker 1: they didn't get their hands on a guy with pneumonia,
Speaker 1: and they didn't even know exactly where to get a
Speaker 1: person at first. It wasn't until they turned the guy
Speaker 1: who ran the more g at St. Pancras Hospital, which
Speaker 1: is the worst hospital name of all time. Um, they
Speaker 1: turned him and got him to assist them that they
Speaker 1: finally got their hands on a body. Yeah. His name
Speaker 1: was sir uh, Sir Bentley Purchase, which is a great name,
Speaker 1: and uh it was. He was a corner of the
Speaker 1: largest mortuary at St. Pancras terrible and he had apparently
Speaker 1: a wicked sense of humor. It was pretty complicated to
Speaker 1: give directions to his office. So when he gave Montyue
Speaker 1: the directions, he said, or he could just get run
Speaker 1: over by a bus. Nice man. The British during wartime
Speaker 1: where they're having a sense of humor was wonderful. So
Speaker 1: they got Bentley purchased and he said, I've got a dude.
Speaker 1: Um his name is h Glenn Door Michael. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is not how that's spelled either. No, it is g
Speaker 1: l y n d w r super Welsh. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was a Welshman born in nineteen o nine. He was
Speaker 1: the son of a coal miner. His father killed himself
Speaker 1: by stabbing himself in the throat. I hadn't read that
Speaker 1: and it didn't say like slit your throat, said he
Speaker 1: stabbed himself in the throat, which is weird and sad.
Speaker 1: So his dad died when he was a teenager. Mother
Speaker 1: died when he was thirty. Uh, alcoholic had a rough
Speaker 1: go because of the depression and was basically basically killed
Speaker 1: himself by ingesting rat poison. So that is not necessarily resolved.
Speaker 1: What whether it was suicide yeah, so they they they
Speaker 1: Bentley Purchased wrote down that he, um, he killed himself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was ruled a suicide. Okay, But the way that
Speaker 1: he ate the rat poison, it was on a crust
Speaker 1: of bread, so he was hungry, they wondered, So he
Speaker 1: he may have been so death. The touoth that he
Speaker 1: ate a crust of bread that he found in an
Speaker 1: abandoned warehouse, and it was smeared with rat poison, and
Speaker 1: that's what he died of. But they found him in
Speaker 1: this cold January night in nineteen forty three, Um, in
Speaker 1: this abandoned warehouse in London, and um, he had just
Speaker 1: eaten some rat poison. But he survived for two more days.
Speaker 1: And so Bentley Purchased got his hands on him and said,
Speaker 1: I think I found your guy. Dudes, Yeah, and they did. Um.
Speaker 1: There were some issues, of one of which is they
Speaker 1: needed a photo of the guy for an I d
Speaker 1: He didn't have any photos. Oh, and every time they
Speaker 1: took a picture of the dead guy's face, they were like,
Speaker 1: he looks like a dead guy. Yeah really, So they
Speaker 1: scoured You can see your fingers holding his eyes up.
Speaker 1: So they scoured London looking for a look alike and
Speaker 1: eventually found a guy at a fellow intelligence officer who
Speaker 1: looked just like him. They used his face. Aw, it's
Speaker 1: all coming together, Yes it is. I'm sure they were like, Wow,
Speaker 1: Providence is really smiling on this. And if you're feeling
Speaker 1: bad for glennd Or just hang tight. Yeah, I still
Speaker 1: think you can feel bad for Glenn do or talk
Speaker 1: about a rough life man? Sheez? Do you remember that
Speaker 1: one Saturday Night Live where Robert Duval was like super
Speaker 1: special guest. It wasn't even hosting or mentioned. He just
Speaker 1: showed up on this game show called Who's More Grizzled?
Speaker 1: And he talks about like it was him and Garth Brooks.
Speaker 1: How do I miss that? And um he talks about
Speaker 1: how when one Cold Winners, his wife died and he
Speaker 1: had to keep her out in the barn until the
Speaker 1: ground thaw so we can bury her out back. What. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just weird like that. It wasn't even really funny.
Speaker 1: It was more just like, wow, that really is hard.
Speaker 1: But the whole game show was Who's more grizzled anyone?
Speaker 1: Of course, because it's Robert Duval. Yeah, he's more grizzled
Speaker 1: than Garth Brooks. Even even Yeah, yeah, poor grubber Guard,
Speaker 1: poor Garth Brooks, what are you talking about. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the Chris Gaines thing. He chose to do it.
Speaker 1: He's a wealthy man in Yeah, I don't feel too
Speaker 1: bad for him, but I think that was evidence that
Speaker 1: he was surrounded by yes men at the time. That
Speaker 1: was a weird thing though. Yeah, he faked a soul
Speaker 1: patch that wasn't even real. No, I mean, even if
Speaker 1: it was real, it was part of his character. It's
Speaker 1: like I thought you meant it was sharpie. Maybe, Okay,
Speaker 1: the hair was definitely colored with sharpie. All right, So
Speaker 1: where where are we here? We've got a body. We
Speaker 1: finally got the photograph of him, yeah, which is that's amazing.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that part. And um, there's another thing
Speaker 1: we found this awesome. A military analysis of it that
Speaker 1: was kind of cool. Somebody wrote a military analysis of this.
Speaker 1: I don't remember who, so I can't come a shout out,
Speaker 1: but we'll put it on our podcast page. But they
Speaker 1: point out that one of the reasons this was so
Speaker 1: successful this operation was one these guys at Excess commit
Speaker 1: x X committee just had free run to break the law.
Speaker 1: Um bend morality do all sorts of stuff. Um, they
Speaker 1: just were able to go do their thing. But the
Speaker 1: other thing was is that they really kept this lid
Speaker 1: on this stuff and it was all disseminated on a
Speaker 1: need to know basis. So when they had this guy,
Speaker 1: they had him, they had, they got glinder, kept him
Speaker 1: on ice for three months as they finished his backstory.
Speaker 1: They're running up against like go time, and then I
Speaker 1: think in um, February or March April maybe I'm not
Speaker 1: sure the date. Do you know that what happened when
Speaker 1: they finally carried out Operation Minced Meat. Let's just say spring,
Speaker 1: because I know that they kept him on ice for
Speaker 1: a few months. Yeah. And they so they're up to
Speaker 1: the point where the d comp is about to give
Speaker 1: away that this guy didn't just recently die. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that was a big fear that the Spanish uh corners
Speaker 1: would be able to tell to which will come up
Speaker 1: in a minute, Okay, And um, they're also getting to
Speaker 1: the point where they're reaching the end of the amount
Speaker 1: of time that they need to give the Nazis to
Speaker 1: absorb this MINS information. So they finally they get the
Speaker 1: guys persona in place. They have the body and now
Speaker 1: it's time to actually carry out the operation. And like
Speaker 1: I was saying, they kept a lid on all this,
Speaker 1: so it was a need to know basis. So they
Speaker 1: got their hands on a sub commander who could keep
Speaker 1: his mouth shut, and they gave him a metal cylinder
Speaker 1: um with the corpse of glendor Michael now Major William Martin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you say subcommander, you mean submarine. Yes, not a
Speaker 1: commander below regular commander, that submarine commander. They gave him
Speaker 1: the cylinder and they said, we're gonna tell you what's
Speaker 1: in here. Do not tell anybody else. So apparently the
Speaker 1: people uh staffing this sub um I thought this was
Speaker 1: some sort of weather buoy. Yeah, it was marked optical instruments. Um.
Speaker 1: But you're right. He was the only one on board
Speaker 1: supposedly that knew there was a body inside. Yep, And
Speaker 1: they put a life jacket on him, stuffed him in
Speaker 1: the cylinder, put him on the sub and took him
Speaker 1: over to Spain under a on a submarine. Well, let's
Speaker 1: back up for one second, because we we forgot to
Speaker 1: cover the main letter in the brief. This was the
Speaker 1: all of operation mince Meat. It did not hinge on
Speaker 1: theater ticket stubs or bank overdraft letters. That's merely pocket litter.
Speaker 1: It hinged on a letter h hinting strongly that the
Speaker 1: invasion was going to come up through Greece Sardinia. Right.
Speaker 1: And that was the other thing too. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: official document invasion is going to come through Greece. It
Speaker 1: was a letter from one general or admiral to another
Speaker 1: high ranking guy, I think general nye Uh. They composed
Speaker 1: a bunch of different letters themselves, and finally they said,
Speaker 1: why don't you write it in your own words, in
Speaker 1: your own language, in your own handwriting everything. So it
Speaker 1: really was written by this this um high ranking US
Speaker 1: military official or British military official, um who who who
Speaker 1: wrote this fake letter? And he made a joke of
Speaker 1: out sardines, a terrible joke, which was the little hint
Speaker 1: that was just clever enough to work, right, And so
Speaker 1: in it it basically says, um, we're we're coming up
Speaker 1: the you know, we're going to strike through Grease that's
Speaker 1: where the invasion of Europe is going to be. Um.
Speaker 1: But we're also going to tell everybody that Cecily is
Speaker 1: the cover. Right. And this was a stroke of genius
Speaker 1: because in this this false letter. Not only does it
Speaker 1: show that they're coming through Greece, which they weren't, but
Speaker 1: it says that Cecily is the cover, which would make
Speaker 1: the Nazis think that if anyone ever did actually leak
Speaker 1: the real invasion plan of Sicily, the Nazis would think
Speaker 1: that that was misinformation. Dude, it was so ingenious. That's
Speaker 1: crazy genus and I think about here now, Chuck, we
Speaker 1: get to the point where we should talk about the
Speaker 1: Enigma machine and the role it played, right, Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: basically we all know that the Enigma machine was the
Speaker 1: codebreaking machine invented uh in the UK two decipher Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: the Enigma machine wrote the code, I think, oh it
Speaker 1: wrote the code. Yeah, and then the deciphered code that
Speaker 1: they had gotten they deciphered it at Bletchley Park. But
Speaker 1: I think the Enigma machine was the actual code writing
Speaker 1: the encrypting machine. Okay, I could be wrong, but okay, well,
Speaker 1: so we definitely need to do a podcast on there, right,
Speaker 1: because we're mixed up already to get it straight. But
Speaker 1: at any rate, the longest short of it is in
Speaker 1: Beckley Park. Was at Beckley Park, I always say Bletcherly.
Speaker 1: It was there an Ellen. There I draw the whole
Speaker 1: ugly word out. Uh. They basically had they could. It
Speaker 1: was like reading the Nazis email essentially on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: on an hourly basis, hourly basis, they knew exactly what
Speaker 1: was going on, so they would know if they were
Speaker 1: buying this whole thing as it happened in real time.
Speaker 1: But even before that they were able to craft this
Speaker 1: this misinformation based on the Nazis assumption. So everybody wants
Speaker 1: to hear that there are assumptions that they're believes are correct.
Speaker 1: People are more apt to buy that things that confirm
Speaker 1: their suspicions of their beliefs already. Right, Yeah, Hitler was
Speaker 1: worried about Sicily. He he was, so he he already
Speaker 1: thought that Greece was going to be where we invaded.
Speaker 1: And then secondly he was he we knew that he
Speaker 1: had heard rumors that Mussolini was going to be toppled soon,
Speaker 1: so he was reticent to commit troops to Italy Sicily. Right, So, this,
Speaker 1: this revelation that came in the form of this letter,
Speaker 1: this false letter, completely supported everything that Hitler and the
Speaker 1: Third Reich believed as far as this European invasion was
Speaker 1: going to go and we're able to do that thanks
Speaker 1: to the smarties at at Bletchley Park, Right yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: this letter to it's Um here's another little tidbit. They
Speaker 1: put a single eyelash in the fold of the letter
Speaker 1: so they would know when they eventually got this letter back,
Speaker 1: if there was no eyelash, they would know that the
Speaker 1: Nazi said in fact opened it. Um. And because the
Speaker 1: idea was they would open it and reseal it and
Speaker 1: act like we never saw it. But there wasn't that
Speaker 1: eyelashed and they'd know not so rudim entry. But it worked.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so, um, should we take another break? Let's
Speaker 1: take a break? Sk shouldn't? Okay? So Chuck, we are
Speaker 1: at sea aboard a submarine that's right, Chili down here,
Speaker 1: and dark it is, and you're not supposed to be
Speaker 1: smoking cigars. No you're not, despite Gene Hackman doing it
Speaker 1: and Crimson tied. Yeah, what a bad idea. Um. So
Speaker 1: we're off the coast of Spain. We're off the coast
Speaker 1: of whoever la not an easy word to say, but
Speaker 1: it's important Spain. And again this is where Nazi agent Adolph. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they kind of want to float the body right up
Speaker 1: to this guy's backyard basically, so they did. He was
Speaker 1: released from this canister. I read somewhere else that, um,
Speaker 1: the canister itself was fired on with submarine submachine guns
Speaker 1: on a sub, so you could just call the machine
Speaker 1: guns there. Um, And it was sunk and the body
Speaker 1: drifted off towards Oh. I thought they just dumped the body. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure because I I found a book, um
Speaker 1: on Google Books. It was like from two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: and it was a history book and it made it
Speaker 1: sound like the sub the people working on the sub
Speaker 1: all knew what was going on. But that's in start
Speaker 1: start contrast to everything else we've seen. So they may
Speaker 1: or may not have sunk the weatherbooy, who knows, but
Speaker 1: either way, Major Martin was released into the current that
Speaker 1: took him right to whoeverla and he went. I think
Speaker 1: he was found by a fisherman that same day. Uh. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And at this point the Brits started sending telegrams about
Speaker 1: a very important missing person frantic Yeah, like they wanted
Speaker 1: these to get intercepted obviously. Uh, and that worked as well.
Speaker 1: This is all really going exactly as a planned, so
Speaker 1: they said, the British Council in Spain in Huevla, um
Speaker 1: Or in Spain to Huevla and said, you need this
Speaker 1: is really important. You need to get your hands on
Speaker 1: the briefcase. Find out what happened to this guy and
Speaker 1: get your hands on his briefcase. And class is going
Speaker 1: briefcase right as monocle popped out, and Um the British
Speaker 1: Council and Spain didn't even know what was going on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they thought like this, like they were they saw everything
Speaker 1: from the same aspect of reality that the Nazis saw exactly.
Speaker 1: So the British Council are trying to get this briefcase
Speaker 1: kind of frantically um, and the Spaniards were like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know what we are just going to keep this
Speaker 1: on lockdown for now is we investigate the whole thing.
Speaker 1: But we got it covered. Remember where neutral, so your
Speaker 1: briefcase is safe. The British Consulate said, well, okay, one
Speaker 1: thing this is very important. Uh this guy was Roman Catholic.
Speaker 1: You can check out the metal in his pocket. UM,
Speaker 1: so please don't dissect him. It's against Roman Catholic beliefs
Speaker 1: and traditions to um dissector autopsy body I hadn't heard before,
Speaker 1: but apparently in the forties that was the case in
Speaker 1: Spain was way down with that super Roman Catholic and
Speaker 1: they said, oh, yes, of course we won't do that.
Speaker 1: So apparently that's how they got around the fact that
Speaker 1: glend Her hadn't died of pneumonia. Yeah. And the other
Speaker 1: way they got around it was they had a plant
Speaker 1: in the office who talked to the corners and was like, guys,
Speaker 1: it's hot and this body is going to start riting
Speaker 1: real soon, so health thorough, do you really want to
Speaker 1: make this? And they said, you're right. Let's go have
Speaker 1: some some wine, some uh what they call it over there. No,
Speaker 1: what's the pretty sangria. Yeah, let's go have some sangria
Speaker 1: and knock off early. And that's exactly what happened thanks
Speaker 1: to the plant. Uh so this is going on. There
Speaker 1: was a small wrinkle at this point. The briefcase went
Speaker 1: to Madrid. Spain wasn't gonna hand it over to anyone, um,
Speaker 1: But the Brits were trying to get it in the
Speaker 1: hands of the Nazis. And they're actually having trouble getting
Speaker 1: it into the hands of the Nazis until a guy
Speaker 1: named Carlo Kolin Tall. He was Hitler's most trusted guy
Speaker 1: in Spain. Uh. He got wind of it and kind
Speaker 1: of took over for Klaus. Was like, I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: this briefcase, and he did nine days later after the
Speaker 1: body washed Ashore. The letter ended up in the hands
Speaker 1: of the German. The German, uh, you know, it worked
Speaker 1: his way up the chain. Yeah, to Hitler himself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I went to Gebel's first, and Gebel's even in his
Speaker 1: diary they found later had suspicions about it because he
Speaker 1: was a corkscrew thinker and he was like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: this is pretty convenient. Yeah, this is really fishy here.
Speaker 1: But he apparently never said anything to Hiller. He got distracted.
Speaker 1: He wrote about in his diary, but the documentary said
Speaker 1: his thinking was, well, if Hitler believes it, then that's
Speaker 1: good enough for me. It seems like a bad idea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and um, homeboy Carlo Coolin Tall. There was always a
Speaker 1: lot of speculation on why he just ran with it
Speaker 1: and didn't ask more questions because that was his job.
Speaker 1: And it turns out his grandmother was Jewish and he
Speaker 1: was very paranoid about this being found out, so he
Speaker 1: thought this is it. I've come upon the greatest find
Speaker 1: of the war and it's all mine, so no one
Speaker 1: will ask any questions about me after this. Uh wow,
Speaker 1: that worked out really really well. Yeah, very convenient and
Speaker 1: thanks to the Enigma machine where they knew, Um, the
Speaker 1: Brits knew pretty quickly that this was working. And I
Speaker 1: guess Montague and um chumbley uh sent and Admiral God
Speaker 1: for you transmission that said Operation Mints me swallowed, rod
Speaker 1: blind and sinker. Yeah that when when the it's so
Speaker 1: cool seeing these old like apparently you're not supposed to
Speaker 1: say elderly anymore, by the way, we got an email.
Speaker 1: I knew that or seniors. We're supposed to call them
Speaker 1: older adults. Seniors. I didn't know that that was the thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: older adults. So they're interviewing these older adults, these British
Speaker 1: ladies that are in their eighties now, and they were
Speaker 1: just also still excited, they said when they because you know,
Speaker 1: with the Enigma machine, they were basically reading their emails
Speaker 1: and they were like they're they knew they were buying it,
Speaker 1: they're buying it, and everyone was just like flipped when
Speaker 1: it came through the office. It was just like party
Speaker 1: time basically. So the operation meants me really really worked
Speaker 1: really well, so much so that apparently Killer moved a
Speaker 1: panzer division which totals about ninety troops from Sicily to
Speaker 1: Greece and and all the artillery and armaments and everything,
Speaker 1: not just soldiers. So long Scily, We're going to grease.
Speaker 1: And then up came the Allies through Sicily. Hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty thousand Allied troops storm Sicily, and only seven thousand
Speaker 1: lives were lost, which is still in a lot of
Speaker 1: people who died, but apparently, as far as military historians
Speaker 1: are concerned, and I think the military at the time,
Speaker 1: that was a way fewer lives lost than they expected
Speaker 1: had they had Hitler not swallowed Operation mince Me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they expected um ten thousand casualties in the first three
Speaker 1: days and three hundred boats sunk in the first two days,
Speaker 1: and it ended up being fourteen hundred in that first
Speaker 1: week soldiers and about a dozen ships in that first week.
Speaker 1: So that's not bad. Yeah, And not only that, but
Speaker 1: it had another effect, big one the Soviets. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: this is not something that they teach in American history
Speaker 1: classes in US high schools that much the the Operation Husky.
Speaker 1: Uh well, it was. It was that penetration of Europe's underbelly, right,
Speaker 1: And suddenly Hitler said, Um, I'm about to dorm Russia,
Speaker 1: but I really need these troops down here in Europe
Speaker 1: because I got big problems. And that allowed basically Russia
Speaker 1: to topple the Nazi regime and Mussolini get toppled by
Speaker 1: the Brits. Yeah. It completely changed the face of the war.
Speaker 1: This one idea cooked up by me and flaming in
Speaker 1: part that crazy. It's pretty awesome. You got other stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a book called Operation Mincemeat by guy named Brett McIntyre. Alright,
Speaker 1: it came out in two thousand ten. That's a very good,
Speaker 1: well cited book, um, that we inadvertently cited here there. Um.
Speaker 1: And then there's The Man Who Never Was, which was
Speaker 1: written by you and Montague, which is not just about
Speaker 1: Operation Mincemeat, but also about basically how to carry out
Speaker 1: deception plans. All right. Remember earlier when I said, don't
Speaker 1: feel too bad for uh, for glennd or Michael even
Speaker 1: you said, well, the dude died, possibly of suicide because
Speaker 1: he was penniless and going nowhere. Yeah, I feel bad
Speaker 1: about that, but uh, fifty years after he was buried
Speaker 1: in the British government added they basically buried him with
Speaker 1: military honors. The Spanish did, Oh, yeah, he's buried in Spain,
Speaker 1: but the British it came from the Brits, I think
Speaker 1: to do so. His headstone um came from the Brits,
Speaker 1: but the Spanish buried him with like the twenty one
Speaker 1: gun salute and everything. Yes, says Glendor. Michael served as
Speaker 1: Major William Martin, r M. Royal Marine. Pretty cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this alcoholic drifter who never served in the military,
Speaker 1: ever served in the military, buried with full military honors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and completely changed the face of the war thanks to
Speaker 1: being a body that fit the fit the bill. And
Speaker 1: if you like ghoulish photos, is a very famous photo
Speaker 1: of him being propped up in his life checket and
Speaker 1: uniform as they were basically loading him into the cylinder
Speaker 1: um that you can see by searching. I'm sure Major
Speaker 1: Charles Martin, that's right, Charles Martin. No, William Martin, William Martin,
Speaker 1: something like that. I still want to know what's going
Speaker 1: on with that weird role playing there with the dude.
Speaker 1: That's odd. Dylan Pam. Yeah, yeah, because they interviewed the
Speaker 1: lady and she was just like, oh, it was all
Speaker 1: very exciting. Yeah, that's a great British lady accent. Older
Speaker 1: person yeah yeah, older adulder adult, yeah, oldie. If you
Speaker 1: want to get or no, if you want to know
Speaker 1: more about Operation Mincemeat, just type that word into your
Speaker 1: favorite search engine or go check out the stuff you
Speaker 1: missed in history class. Episode. And I said, Steve, you
Speaker 1: missed in history class. It's time for listener mail. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna call this bread crust. We had that discussion about
Speaker 1: the crust and the in pieces, So this is from
Speaker 1: a dad. Uh. Dear Chuck and Josh, your discussion of
Speaker 1: the in slice of bread and the body language episode
Speaker 1: brought ridiculous grin to my face as I walked around
Speaker 1: my neighborhood. Ah, don't worry, though, my neighbors have thought
Speaker 1: me to be eccentric for years. Now. Look at that
Speaker 1: guy smiling. What a weirdo. We must be a pinko.
Speaker 1: When our daughters were still tiny, my wife and I
Speaker 1: realized we were doomed to eighteen ish years of eating
Speaker 1: bread crusts pieces ourselves if we didn't figure something out
Speaker 1: in quickly um our solution. We started calling those pieces
Speaker 1: the lucky piece, and boy did we look our innocent,
Speaker 1: trusting toddlers. Turns out your supposition is correct, chuck, at
Speaker 1: least for children under eleven years old, even if their
Speaker 1: honor students is mine, where they will fight you for
Speaker 1: the right to eat that savory, ohso desirable piece of luck.
Speaker 1: Nice idea younger adults. Rock on, guys, and please keep
Speaker 1: my goofy grands coming. That is from Ted c O
Speaker 1: I n e with a little uh. We call that
Speaker 1: a coin a a I sent to do? No, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I didn't take French. What do you call that?
Speaker 1: A lagoon? Accent? Lagoom? So thanks Ted, I'll just call
Speaker 1: you coin Yeah, thanks quin quin. Don't let's say coin there?
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, thanks a lot ted. Ted contacted us on
Speaker 1: Twitter so he wanted to send us this email. So
Speaker 1: do you go, Ted? Wow? Um. If you want to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us, you can try all the
Speaker 1: ways like Ted did. You can contact us on Twitter
Speaker 1: at s Y s K podcast. You can send us
Speaker 1: an email to Stuff Podcast at how Stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff.
Speaker 1: You Should Know, and you can hang out at our
Speaker 1: luxurious home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot Com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of I heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.