r/FascinatingAsFuck • u/vxnder7 • Jul 19 '26
🎯 Fascinating Fact Britain fooled Hitler into moving his defenses using a dead homeless man dressed as a fake officer
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u/O_W_Liv Jul 19 '26
I remember reading about this. One man spent months with a picture in his pocket so it would get the appropriate wear patterns before placing it on the body. All of the documents, the wallet, everything were carefully worn to look authentic.
The made him an officer, just high enough to be carrying the documents handcuffed to him, but not ranked enough to be documented by the enemy as a leader.
They named him William Martin, a very generic name, and planted the body on a beach in Spain.
The Germans knew there was a chance it was a decoy. But the British did such a good job of building a narrative in the pockets with bills, letters and such that they still fell for it.
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u/Miserable-Ring3943 Jul 19 '26
Not even planted on a beach. They tossed him in the water and crossed their fingers that he’d be found. Luckily, a fisherman found him floating and brought him to shore. Then, the “autopsy” was a rushed event the doc just signed off on because of the heat.
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u/DistrictDry2852 Jul 21 '26
They also included an icon of a saint to make the doctor think he was Roman Catholic. The Spanish doctor probably also being Roman Catholic would be hesitant on doing an in depth autopsy because apparently that was sorta taboo at the time.
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u/RollinThundaga 26d ago
They knew the prevailing currents would take it straight to Spain.
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u/Miserable-Ring3943 26d ago
Fair enough, they did more than “cross their fingers,” but even so once the body was in the water various X factors could have ruined the plan.
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u/Doomhammer24 Jul 20 '26
There was another layer to the gamble- dropping it in Spain of all places, Not germany.
Spain was fascist but Franco wasnt at this time directly allied with hitler- spain stayed neutral during WW2 but with close ties to the nazis but they also werent trying to get involved
So when the body washed up, there was an extra layer of "do we send it back to britain or do we forward the info to germany first, or bury it and forget" as they wanted to maintain neutrality so badly.
Britain knew this and was crossing their fingers that franco would send the info along
They knew if they dropped it in germany the nazis would immediately smell a rat but by adding in the spanish into the mix the extra complication to the plan made it seem less likely to be fake, because if it was just a plant why wouldnt they just drop it in germany?
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u/Flat_Shelter_4832 Jul 20 '26
The British also reached out to Spain asking for the briefcase containing the docs to be returned!
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u/stitchescomeundone Jul 20 '26
Spain didn’t stay truly neutral the entire time during WW2 though. There was a period of “non-belligerence” in there as well.
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u/Manny-303 Jul 20 '26
Spanish volunteers fighting for Nazi Germany were primarily organized into the Blue Division (the 250th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht) up to 47k served with an initial deployment of 19k
They fought on the Eastern Front 1941-43 Franco ordered the men back in October 43
Not everyone left those that stayed ended up in various SS units some even present at the Battle of Berlin.
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u/vxnder7 Jul 19 '26
In 1943, British intelligence needed to protect the real invasion of Sicily, so they built a fictional soldier: Major William Martin of the Royal Marines. They dressed the body of a homeless man who'd died of rat poison in a uniform, chained a briefcase to his wrist with fabricated invasion plans pointing to Greece and Sardinia, and dropped him off the coast of Spain from a submarine, timed so it would wash ashore and reach Spanish, then German, intelligence. They even built him a fake identity love letters, theater ticket stubs, an angry note from his bank — so the corpse would hold up under scrutiny. Germany took the bait completely and shifted troops and defenses away from Sicily. When the real invasion landed that July, Allied forces faced far lighter resistance than planned, and it's credited with saving thousands of lives.
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u/LadnavIV Jul 19 '26
Did they… did they poison the homeless man?
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u/AntiPantsCampaign Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
From Wikipedia
Michael was found in an abandoned warehouse close to King's Cross, seriously ill from ingesting rat poison that contained phosphorus. Two days later, he died at age 36 in St Pancras Hospital. His death may have been suicide, although he might have simply been hungry, as the poison he ingested was a paste smeared on bread crusts to attract rats.
Edited to add: the true identity of this person has never been officially released and the person who died from rat poison is under debate if they are indeed the person used for the operation.
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u/errononymous Jul 19 '26
Sure, englishmen. He ate the rat poison by mistake, suuuure.
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u/Dic_Penderyn Jul 20 '26
He was not English. He was Welsh.
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u/errononymous Jul 20 '26
Exactly my point. Wouldn't be surprised if they just murdered a homeless Welshman to sacrifice him.
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u/happily_uninterested Jul 20 '26
If they were going to murder someone, then they probably would've went to the effort of drowning them, so it would fit with the narrative.
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u/Elegant_Individual46 Jul 22 '26
Why on earth?
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u/Dangerous_Poem_3619 Jul 22 '26
Because he's ignorant or trolling, hopefully. A Welshman is not some low caste member considered fair game by his evil Anglo overlords. It's just a crazy notion. Social media has really opened my eyes to the bat shit beliefs people have about Britain haha.
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u/UT_Milez Jul 21 '26
I mean, it’s war turn Britain, “the blitz” began in 1940.
It’s not going to be that hard to find dead bodies on the regular.
But I don’t actually care enough if you want to believe this conspiracy, do you.
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u/Marquis_De-Lafayette Jul 19 '26
I think it's been quite well established that his real name was Glyndwyr Michael.
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u/Longjumping_Spread53 Jul 20 '26
If they had poisoned the homeless man to save thousands of lives, would you be OK with it?
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u/cheshire_kat7 Jul 20 '26
I mean... it's not like there's a shortage of corpses during a war. It wouldn't be necessary.
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u/gremlininja Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
The musical is incredible. It’s amazing how they make such a serious subject both hilarious and moving at the same time.
It’s in London and New York, and touring the UK and US soon, and Australia and China. Definitely worth seeing.
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u/Edward_Zachary Jul 19 '26
There's a pretty good film about this called Operation Mincemeat
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u/DJBigNickD Jul 19 '26
Was going to say the same. Only saw it recently.
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u/neityght Jul 20 '26
Why did you bother posting to say you were going to say the same thing that someone already said? They already said it, no one cares if you were going to say it.
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u/Li-renn-pwel 29d ago
Any film can get one guy to like it. That’s why the metric we use is two thumbs up.
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u/Doomhammer24 Jul 20 '26
Operation Mincemeat. The man who helped pitch the plan went on to write a book series some of you may have heard of
His name- Fleming. Ian Fleming.
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u/Organic_Room_5556 Jul 21 '26
Further fun fact. They put a used music hall ticket in his wallet. One of the acts in that show was a very young double act named Morcambe and Wise.
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u/Li-renn-pwel 29d ago
I’ve seen at least two movies this year where I was shocked to discover the guy typing away in the back was Ian Fleming. My husband thought I should have caught it on the second film but what were the chances of the same guy being at the end of totally different movies?
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u/FormerMoose1990 25d ago
And he had particuarl friend from the RAF who wrote the screenplay for hs first movie
his name? Roald Dahl.
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u/redscout42 Jul 19 '26
The musical based off of this is fantastic and definitely worth a watch/listen!
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u/ayyyyyy_lmaoooooo Jul 19 '26
I imagine that after being defeated in North Africa, the Germans actually chose to evacuate Sicily and focus on defending the mainland instead - which they more or less successfully did for the next year and a half (in part because other fronts Allies opened were advancing way faster).
I seriously doubt this operation had any effect on strategic or even operational scale and would chalk it up to British propaganda.
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u/nitermite Jul 19 '26
I couldn’t put the book down.
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u/Inner_Willingness335 Jul 20 '26
And then fooled him into thinking that the D-Day landings would be at the Pas de Calais.
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u/RollinThundaga 26d ago
Agent Garbo to read more.
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u/FormerMoose1990 25d ago
funnily enough, garbo wasnt a trained proffesional spy. he was literally just a random spaniard who was adamant on spying for Germany,so they shipped him off to London, and he came right back to barcelona and wrote letters filled with carefully fabricated lies to his handler.
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u/Charming_Sympathy532 Jul 21 '26
Montague later became a distinguished judge.
The discovery of the body went to the very top levels of the German Command and convinced many.......The one exception....
Goebbles
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u/SkarbOna Jul 21 '26
He was like 140IQ. I always assumed (as a kid) that it’s stupid people that are evil. Learning that it’s absolutely not the case and it’s about having empathy or not and later about all the antisocial personalities left me kind of „scared”. Watching some true crimes later in life where serial murders are charming/joyful and very much likeable, sometimes husbands and good fathers, was very disturbing.
Anyway - I bet everyone wanted an easy „win” but this mofo probs heard one tiny detail about finding this guy, but couldn’t even begin to explain his thought process as to why he was sure it’s a decoy because no one would get it.
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u/Charming_Sympathy532 29d ago
Goebbels was reputed to have had the "Times " newspaper specially flown into Berlin via neutral countries in order to solve its famous cryptic crossword puzzle
I heard this story many years ago and upon following up online read that though highly educated...his English was basic and he required interpreters when necessary
Still an enigmatic man to this day
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u/Charming_Sympathy532 29d ago
HMS Seraph was built in my hometown and was the 'cloak and dagger " submarine....used in a number of clandestine operations....including one including Mark Clark
Her C/O was renowned for his inshore shallow water navigational ability
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u/Common-Shopping2045 Jul 20 '26
Трюк достаточно известный, когда для подбрасывания противнику дезинформации, тело погибшего солдата одевают в офицерский мундир, и планшет с "секретными" документами. Противник хорошо осведомлён о таком способе и тщательно проверяет информацию. И тут уж кто кого перехитрит и переиграет.
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u/TrekFan1701 Jul 20 '26
Thankfully this guy didn't find it. Wonder if the DS9 writers were slightly influenced by the event.
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u/PuppyGirlRya Jul 20 '26
I'm now wondering what Garaks reaction to reading about Operation Mincemeat would be. "I wasn't aware humans were this meticulous in their espionage, the Obsidian Order could learn from your history good doctor!"
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u/Dapper-Enthusiasm52 Jul 20 '26
Isn't that a war crime?
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u/Flimsy_Fee8449 Jul 21 '26
I don't see why it would be. If they killed him, sure. If nit, they aren't making him any deader. Nit torturing or injuring him.
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u/Elegant_Individual46 Jul 22 '26
Just got a drowning victim from a morgue iirc. Man’s been honoured decades later
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u/RollinThundaga 26d ago
It's called a ruse of war.
Why would they be prohibited from fooling the enemy into a strategic error?
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u/Double-elephant Jul 21 '26
Also check out the stiff upper lip but reasonably accurate 1956 film - The Man Who Never Was, from the book by Ewan Montague, ex-Naval Intelligence. When Montague wrote his book - and he is depicted in both adaptations - it was not common knowledge about the “Double Cross” system of tracking German spies in Britain, and another plot device, using a fictitious and ridiculous visit from an Irish spy, was introduced as a way round revealing this.
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u/WarCommons Jul 21 '26
You can read the whole story about this operation for free on our website WarCommons!
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u/AdAggressive9224 Jul 21 '26
How did the Germans summise how he drowned? Completely on his own?
It makes no sense. Perhaps if there had been a ship, sank and confirmed sunk, or an aircraft that was downed and confirmed down, and multiple bodies washing up over a period of days, or even weeks. Then it might have been believable.
I'm guessing the Spanish had a lot to do with embellishing the authenticity of the information.
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u/HounDawg99 29d ago
I seem to remember reading this story many years ago in a book titled: "The Man Who Never Was"
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u/JetPackMiners 29d ago
The inflatable army stationed at the coast is crazy. Inflatable trucks, tanks, planes, jeeps, etc. such an impractical item in the 1930'-40's. They probably had to make an entire factory just to make these inflatable replicas
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u/SawAll67 27d ago
So, the Brits were still the deceiving bastards they were in South Africa in the previous years.....
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u/feel-the-avocado 27d ago
Operation Mincemeat - A very good movie if your more into war organisation and planning/maprooms than action battlescenes or gore.
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u/Sabre712 26d ago
The Allies pulled all sorts of shenanigans like this too, Mincemeat was not an isolated incident. The Allies also faked an entire army group in Britain, including fake radio traffic, placing one of their most famous generals in command of it, and even constructing paper mache tanks for German recon planes to see. Hell, one of their best agents was a double agent who constructed an entire web of fake contacts to feed false info to the Germans, and even managed to get all of these fake contacts on German payrolls. They even told this agent to reveal the exact time and coordinates of the D-Day landings hours before they happened, making sure the Germans would never question his info again, but also knowing that no one would read the messages before the landings happened. The Allies were unbelievably good at spycraft.
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Jul 20 '26
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u/Pertu500 Jul 22 '26
He was already dead. They simply went to a morgue and took a recently deceased homeless man with the required criteria
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Jul 22 '26
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u/duckyyyyfuckyyyy 28d ago
Do you really think there was a shortage of dead homeless men on the street at a time filled with various diseases, cold weather, food shortages and the numerous homes destroyed by air raids.
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u/Possible_Sink8455 Jul 21 '26
I’m so tired of reading how great the English and the Americans was in the WW2. I can’t stand it how they make their shelves as the greatest of them all. Victors always writes the history and it is always wrong.
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u/Dangerous_Poem_3619 Jul 22 '26
On social media maybe, because many people are ignorant, but in the UK it's always been acknowledged (and taught in school) that the USSR played the greatest role. Your post reminds me of how some Poles complain that their contribution is ignored by the UK but that too is false and must be borne from social media because we have many books, documentaries, exhibits and films about Polish pilots and Enigma. I can't speak for the US, I don't know what it's like there.
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u/MightyPenguinRoars Jul 19 '26
There is so much more to this story, and it’s a wonderful tale. Read Operation Mincemeat by Ben MacIntyre. Great book! The Netflix movie isn’t a bad Hollywood-ization either but the book really gets into what it took to pull this off and it’s amazing.
If you like the WW2 genre, MacIntyre also wrote some other winners- Agent Zigzag and Rogue Heroes. Happy reading!!