During World War II, the British Allies would pull pranks on the Nazi's, or Nazi supporters, like using itching powder or laxatives, and things along that line. There was a book written by an English author, whose name I will divulge at the end of this post. It's better to reveal the author in the end, trust me. The book was titled The Trout Memo. The Trout Memo was a satire of war, and had humorous ideas on how to fool, or lure in (Like a Trout), the enemy. The exact chapter from The Trout Memo was Chapter # 28, A Suggestion (Not a very nice one).
The problem was, the Allied forces couldn't attack France, take it, and then work their way to Berlin, because the Nazis had fortified France and the surrounding countries that it would have taken another two years to build up enough soldiers and situations from all of the Allied countries, to be able to out man the Nazis.
The best idea they thought up would be to send soldiers by submarines and warships and attack Sicily, which is far south down in Italy, and then work their way through Italy, up into Germany, and defeat them that way, but still, the timeline would add at least two more years to the war, not to mention the body count. The problem with Sicily, is there were a lot of Nazis there as well, but The Trout Memo, Chapter 28, had an ingenious idea.
The idea was brilliant, and although the book might have been joking, Winston Churchill loved the idea, and put it into motion. The operation was titled Operation Mincemeat. The idea, use a corpse dressed in a British Military Uniform, the Royal Marines, to be exact, and then plant fake letters on the body, drop the body from an airplane near the coast in Spain, and see what would happen. Spain was chosen because they were neutral, and the allied forces knew that they were a tad more loyal to the Nazis over the allied forces.
Sicily was well fortified by the Nazis, and Sicily is located in the "Toe of the boot" in Italy, and in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, right between Greece and Sardinia. The fake papers would tell the Axis powers that the allied forces were going to attack and fortify in Greece and Sardinia, so that the Nazi's would abandon their posts in Sicily, which would allow the allied forces easy access into Italy, and then work their way into Germany, and win the war. The plan was decided on, but there were a couple details that needed to be changed. The idea was a joke, and not exactly ready to be put into practice, and this is where it gets cool...
The allied forces would go around and see what the soldiers would be carrying on their persons. For example, an allied soldier from the United States would have a picture of his girlfriend, or wife and kids. Some carried cigarettes, some had compasses, love letters, and some even had plans from the allied powers divulging plans on where to go and attack next. The soldiers carried any number of things. However, soldiers were also alive and fighting. In order for the plan to be carried out, the allied forces had to find a corpse.
After a pretty long search, the British found their way into an old building full of drug addicts, and even people on the edge of death. They found a man that no one knew. No body know his name, where he was from, no family or others came looking for him, and he had only been dead a couple of days. It was a perfect corpse to use, although, they had to work fast because the body would start to decompose, and they needed the body to look freshly dead. This poor dead man who died of a drug overdose was about to be a an amazing hero for the allied forces.
The allied powers did everything they could to make up a false identity for this poor dead guy. One of Winston Churchill's secretaries wrote fake love letters, and even sent sultry pictures of herself to use. They planted a compass, they planted other letters from home. They planted weapons. They planted cigarettes on the body. They used all of the ideas from other, living, soldiers. The most important part, they handcuffed a briefcase with fake intelligence letters from the higher ups, saying that they were going to attack Greece and Sardinia on a specific date. The man was also given a name, Captain (Acting Major) William Martin. However, there was one problem with the plan.
A pilot told them that not only would the airplane be seen, and that the body wouldn't look like it died from drowning. So, they shoved the body into a barrel, put it on a truck, drove it to a port, and loaded the barrel onto a submarine. The crazy thing was, the soldiers with the truck didn't know they were transporting the body. They just thought it was a routine cargo delivery.
What happened next was the most dangerous part of the operation. The submarine had to go under enemy waters in order to get the body in the best possible place that they could, and there were a lot of close calls with enemy submarines, but alas, they didn't get caught. They were submerged, got close to the coast of Spain, opened the barrel, and let the body float to the top.
The plan worked flawlessly. A Spaniard fisherman found the body, found the fake evidence planted on the body, and reported it to the Nazis, and just like planned, the Nazis left for Greece and Sardinia to catch the allied soldiers that never showed up, opening up Italy to be conquered by the allies, and within a few months, the war was won. Had the plan not worked, or no plan at all, It would have taken the allied forces another two years to end World War II.
Here's the crazy part that I talked about. The author of the Trout Memo was a new up and coming fiction writer named Ian Fleming, the author and inventor of the James Bond stories that we all know and most of us love. What started as a joke became a major victory, saving hundreds and thousands of lives, and a man no one knew or cared about got a hero's burial under the fake name given to him by the allied forces.
This is one of those blogs I hope a lot of my readers read. This true story is incredible, and when I found out about it, I got really, really obsessed with reading everything I could find on it.
Well, that's it. I hope you are all safe and still working on the pandemic with the variants and everything happening. I know it's a personal choice, but I have been vaxed and boostered, and I hope that everyone out there will do the same thing. I know it's scary, but so is Covid. I love you all, and I hope that you won't die from Covid, or anything else, but be careful.
Well, I will write another post here pretty soon. I have some half-written posts that I need to finish and share. They are just a little long. Anywho, talk to you all soon!
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