On this day in history, 30 April 1943, Operation Mincemeat was performed

On this day in history, 30 April 1943, Operation Mincemeat was performed.

Operation Mincemeat, he codename for the British deception operation aimed at tricking the Germans into believing that the Allies were planning an invasion in two places. The first one in Greece, followed by an advance to the Balkans, the second one in Sardinia to act as a base for an invasion of southern France. Sicily, the actual target, was mentioned as a diversionary operation. The operation was conceived by Ewen Montagu, a security officer of British Section 17 F of the naval intelligence service at the Admiralty in London. For this purpose, a body of a British national who had just died of pneumonia was used, so that it appeared as if he had drowned. The corpse was given the fake name William Martin and the rank of Major of the Marines, staff officer at Combined Operations Headquarters. The corpse was put in the sea by the British submarine P219, HMS Seraph, under the command of commanding officer N.L.A. Jewell, at the Spanish port of Huelva with the intention of having it washed ashore. A rubber rescue boat with only one aluminum paddle was also put overboard. The German consul in Huelva, who was known as a skilled NS spy, had to receive the documents, according to plan, that Martin carried in a leather bag with a chain attached to his wrist. The contents included a collegiate letter from General Archibald Nye to General Harold Alexander, stating that Nye feared the Germans had learned that the next Allied attack was on Greece. The plans to attack Sardinia and Corsica, combined with an attack on southern France, also turned out to be not unknown to the Germans. In order to preclude the mistrust of the Germans that an ordinary major could go on a journey with such important papers, Lord Louis Mountbatten enclosed a personal letter in the bag.