In the spring of 1943, British intelligence officers Ewen Montagu and Charles Cholmondeley carried out one of the most audacious deceptions in the history of warfare. Their plan: dress the body of a dead man as a Royal Marines officer, plant fake documents on him suggesting the Allied invasion target was Greece and Sardinia rather than Sicily, and drop him off the coast of Spain where German agents would find him.
The man who would become "Major William Martin, Royal Marines" was Glyndwr Michael, a 34-year-old Welsh vagrant who had died in London from ingesting rat poison. He had no family to object, no identity that would be missed. Montagu and Cholmondeley gave him an entire fabricated life: a grieving fiancee (a real MI5 secretary who agreed to play the role), unpaid bills in his pocket, ticket stubs from a London show, even a stern letter from his bank manager about an overdraft.
The critical documents were letters from senior British generals to commanders in North Africa and to Admiral Cunningham, discussing plans for operations "Husky" and "Brimstone" — the fake names for the real Sicily operation — while heavily hinting that the actual invasion targets were elsewhere.
On April 30, 1943, the body was released from the submarine HMS Seraph off the coast of Huelva, Spain. Spanish authorities found him, examined the documents, and shared them (as the British knew they would) with German intelligence. Berlin was convinced. Hitler personally ordered reinforcements to Greece and Sardinia.
When the Allied invasion of Sicily began on July 9, 1943, German forces were in the wrong place. Field Marshal Kesselring reported that he had been "completely deceived." The Allies secured a foothold in Europe at far lower cost than they might have otherwise expected.
Glyndwr Michael was buried in Huelva under the name "Major William Martin." His grave remained marked only with the false name for decades. In 1998, his tombstone was updated to include his real name — a modest monument to one of history's strangest acts of posthumous service.