Operation Mincemeat
Huelva, Spain, 1943
This case is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events in the game do not portray real people. The account below is a factual summary, based on public sources, of the case that served as inspiration.
In early 1943, the Allies had decided to invade Sicily and feared the target was too obvious. Two British intelligence officers then devised a deception: they obtained the body of a Welsh vagrant who had died of rat poison, dressed him as a fictitious Royal Marines officer and chained to the belt of his coat a briefcase of fake personal letters between generals. The letters named Greece and Sardinia as the targets and Sicily as a mere cover. Photos of an invented fiancée, love letters, theatre tickets and a bank demand completed the identity.
In the early hours of April 30, 1943, the British submarine HMS Seraph released the body into the sea off Huelva, a city chosen because a very active German agent operated there, with good contacts among Spanish officials. A fisherman found the body in the morning. Spain, officially neutral, performed the autopsy, buried the officer with military honours on May 2 and kept the briefcase. Under pressure from German intelligence, the letters were taken out of their envelopes without breaking the seal: rolled around a thin rod, drawn out from under the flap, dried, photographed, left to soak in salt water and returned. The copies reached the Germans on May 8.
Sources
In the game
Blotting Paper
Huelva, Monday, May 3, 1943, 10 pm. In the adjutant's office at the Naval Command, a black leather briefcase with a chain rests on the desk, beside three envelopes with black wax seals.
When the briefcase returned to London, the experts noticed that an eyelash placed on one of the letters had vanished, that the paper had extra creases and that, as it dried, it went back to its rolled shape. Decrypted German messages confirmed that the deception had been accepted. Hitler ordered reinforcements for Greece, Sardinia and Corsica, and when the Allies landed in Sicily on July 9, 1943, the island fell in 38 days, far fewer than the 90 predicted. The false officer's grave is still in the Huelva cemetery, where since 1997 the headstone also bears the man's real name.
