William Martin (Royal Marines officer)

Major William Martin was a persona invented by British Military Intelligence for Operation Mincemeat, the Second World War deception plan that lured German forces to Greece prior to the Allied invasion of Sicily.

Also known as "the man who never was", Martin's personal details were created to lend credence to the scheme, which involved a body, dressed as a British officer and carrying secret documents, to wash up on shores of neutral Spain, apparently the victim of an air crash.

It was intended that these documents, containing information that suggested an Allied assault on Greece was planned, should fall into the hands of German intelligence.

The identity of the body employed as Major Martin was kept secret during and after the war, and was the source of some speculation.

Montagu formally states in his book that, in 1942, there was no shortage of bodies, but none they felt they could take.

On 30 April 1943, Lt. Norman Jewell, captain of the submarine HMS Seraph (P219), read the 39th Psalm, and "Martin"'s body was gently pushed into the sea where the tide, aided by the push of the submarine's propellers, would bring it ashore off Huelva on the Spanish Atlantic coast.

Attached to Martin's body was a briefcase containing secret documents that had been fabricated by the British Security Service.

The purpose was to make German intelligence (which was known to have operatives in Huelva) think he had been a courier delivering documents to a British general.

The documents were crafted to deceive the Germans into thinking that the British were preparing to invade Greece and Sardinia, rather than Sicily.

Martin's body was found by a fisherman and, as planned, the documents he was carrying found their way into the hands of German Intelligence.

The operation was judged a success, as the invasion of Sicily was accomplished more easily and quickly than its planners had expected.

Ewen Montagu, the officer in charge of Operation Mincemeat, was faced with the task of finding a body to give substance to the persona of William Martin.

In this he was assisted by Bentley Purchase, coroner of St Pancras District.

Several different accounts of this have been given.

In Montagu's book, The Man Who Never Was, written in 1953, he states that in 1942 there was no shortage of bodies, but none they felt they could take.

He states that the body of a young man who had died of pneumonia was found, and that permission to use the body was given.

Pneumonia was important because it meant the presence of liquid in the lungs which, in the event of autopsy, would appear consistent with death by drowning.

The body was released on the condition that the man's real identity would never be revealed.

However, historian Ben Macintyre states that the dead man's parents had died and no known relatives were found.

Anna Pukas states that neither of Montagu's claims, that the man died from pneumonia and that the family had been contacted and permission obtained, were true.

Montagu stated that the body was released on the condition that the man's real identity would never be revealed.

The body was identified in 1996 as that of Glyndwr Michael, a Welsh homeless man, and recognised as such by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

The aim of Operation Mincemeat was to allow documents pertaining to Allied operations in the Mediterranean to fall into the hands of German Military Intelligence, to mislead them regarding the target of the intended invasion of southern Europe.

In order to convince the Germans of the veracity of the documents, it was decided they would be on the body of a Marine officer, which would also carry documents and personal items attesting to his identity.

Finding a usable cadaver had been difficult, as indiscreet inquiries would cause talk, and it was impossible to tell a dead man's next of kin what the body was wanted for.

A suitable body was identified, and considerable effort was made to create Martin's persona: identity card and discs, personal letters, a photograph of a fiancée, St. Christopher medal, some bills and theatre tickets.

However, in 1996, Roger Morgan, an amateur historian from London, uncovered evidence in the Public Record Office that the identity of the corpse was a Welshman named Glyndwr Michael.

Michael was born in Aberbargoed in Monmouthshire in South Wales.

Before leaving the town, he held part-time jobs as a gardener and labourer.

His father Thomas, a coal miner, killed himself when Michael was 15, and his mother died when he was 31.

Homeless, friendless, depressed, and with no money, Michael drifted to London where he lived on the streets.

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 34 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.

After being ingested, phosphide reacts with hydrochloric acid in the stomach, generating phosphine, a highly toxic gas.

One of the symptoms of phosphine poisoning is pulmonary edema, an accumulation of large amounts of liquid in the lungs, which would satisfy the need for a body that appeared to have died by drowning.

Purchase explained, "This dose was not sufficient to kill him outright, and its only effect was to so impair the functioning of the liver that he died a little time afterwards".

When Purchase obtained Michael's body, it was identified as being in suitable condition for a man who would appear to have floated ashore several days after having died at sea by hypothermia and drowning.

After the identification of Michael as Major Martin, doubts began to surface.

It seemed odd that an operative as meticulous as Montagu would risk the success of the operation by using a body of a man neither physically fit (as might be expected of a Marine officer) nor having died in the manner suggested (drowned, or as a result of an air crash).