The Man Who Never Was Trivia Quiz

Answer: Operation Husky

Following the successful conclusion of the North African campaign in late 1942, Allied planners began to consider the next planned target. With an invasion of France not considered feasible until 1944, Winston Churchill proposed to use the forces in North Africa to attack what he called 'Europe's soft underbelly', with the potential targets being either Sicily, from where control of the Mediterranean could be achieved, or Greece, sandwiching the German forces between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union's forces.

In January 1943, Sicily was selected, a choice that was regarded as obvious, with Churchill supposedly commenting "Everyone but a bloody fool would know that it's Sicily". So, a major deception operation, codenamed Operation Barclay, was launched in an effort to fool the Germans into thinking that the target was elsewhere. Part of this deception operation was the plan that ultimately evolved into Operation Mincemeat.

Answer: Ian Fleming

The 'Trout Memo' was a document originally issued at the end of September 1939, and is believed to have been authored by Admiral Godfrey's personal assistant, Lt Commander Ian Fleming, wherein the concept of deceiving an enemy in wartime was compared to trout fishing.

In it, it describes how a trout fisherman may have to change lures or move location, or sit quietly if the trout has been scared off, but that he will always have a need to attract the fish, and that a deception operation is similar as a process.

It then goes on to describe a number of different ways that the enemy may be fooled. One of these germ ideas, number 28, was to have fake documents planted on a corpse that fell into the hands of the enemy. It was this idea that was initially developed by Flight Lieutenant Charles Cholmondeley into what eventually became Operation Mincemeat.

Answer: Barrister

Ewen Montagu was the second son of Baron Swaythling, and had qualified as a barrister in 1924. A keen sailor, he had joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in 1938 but, on the outbreak of war was prevented from gaining a seagoing assignment as it was felt the skills he had as a barrister made him an ideal candidate for intelligence work. Montagu was assigned to Section 17M of Naval Intelligence, which had responsibility for intelligence gained from the 'Ultra' intercepts, as well as representing Naval Intelligence on the 'Twenty Committee', which ran double agents.

It was through the Twenty Committee that he came across Charles Cholmondeley, an RAFVR officer who served as the committee's secretary, and who had begun to develop the documents on a corpse idea. Montagu was assigned to work with Cholmondeley to develop the idea further, and together they came up with the concrete proposal for Operation Mincemeat.

Answer: Greece

Because Sicily was such an obvious target for attack, the need to divert attention somewhere else was pressing. At the time, Hitler was concerned about the possibility of an invasion in the Balkans, which supplied a significant proportion of raw materials needed for the German war effort, including oil, copper, chrome and bauxite. Knowing of Hitler's worries, the Allies formulated their deception plan to persuade the Germans to transfer defensive forces away from Sicily to reinforce Greece and the Balkan area of operations. Operation Mincemeat and the fake documents carried by Major Martin was a part of this; other elements included the setting up of a fictional formation, the Twelfth Army, in Cairo; the stockpiling and issuing of Greek maps and currency by the Allies; manoeuvres undertaken in Syria using dummy armoured vehicles; and reduced radio traffic from the Allied Headquarters in Tunis, which was to run the Sicily invasion.

Answer: Wales

Glyndwr Michael was born in 1909 in the town of Aberbargoed in South Wales. Coming from a poor family, his father had killed himself in 1924, while his mother died in 1940. Homeless and with no money, he found himself in London where, in January 1943 he was found in a warehouse near Kings' Cross Station, having ingested rat poison, dying two days later. Michael's body was chosen to play the corpse of Major William Martin after Montagu and Cholmondeley were made aware by Sir Bentley Purchase, the coroner of St Pancras - Michael's body was used as it resembled that of someone who had died by drowning.

The body was released to Montagu and Cholmondeley on condition that the identity not be revealed; Montagu subsequently wrote in his book "The Man Who Never Was" that the man had died of pneumonia, and that his family had given permission for the body to be used.

Answer: Royal Marines

From the beginning, it was decided to make Martin an officer in the Royal Marines. There were two major reasons for this - first, because the Royal Marines was part of the Naval Service, any messages and inquires about his death would come to the Admiralty, and thus could be routed easily to Montagu in Naval Intelligence. Second, Royal Marines officers wore battledress, which came in standard sizes and was easily obtainable, unlike officers of the Royal Navy, who always traveled in full service dress, which was made-to-measure. Martin was made a major, as it was thought that a man of such rank would be trusted with conveying secret documents, but was not so senior or prominent that people would expect to know who he was.

He was then assigned to HQ Combined Operations under Admiral Louis Mountbatten, with an identity card issued to him, using a photograph of Ronnie Reed, an MI5 case officer. To reinforce the deception, Montagu spent several weeks giving Major Martin's identity documents a worn look, while Cholmondeley (who was of a similar build to the late Glyndwr Michael) wore in the uniform to give it a used look.

Answer: Pam

As with William Martin, 'Pam' was a construct from the imaginations of Montagu and Cholmondeley based on a number of different elements. The first was a photograph - having put out a call to young women across the various intelligence organisations for photographs of themselves, they selected one of Jean Leslie, a clerk at MI5, which was taken in 1942 at a spot called Wittenham Clumps in Oxfordshire. Martin also carried two letters from Pam in his wallet, which were written by Hester Leggett, the most senior woman in Montagu's department. From these, the identity of Pam was constructed as "a vivacious young woman working in a government office, who was excitable, pretty, gentle, and really quite dim", who Martin had met very recently and almost immediately proposed to. To reinforce this, a further element was added to Martin's wallet, a receipt for £53 10s 6d from a jewellers for an engagement ring.

Answer: General Dwight Eisenhower

The main deception document carried by Major Martin was a personal letter from Lt General Sir Archibald Nye, the Vice-Chief of the Imperial General Staff, to General Sir Harold Alexander, the commander of the 18th Army Group in Tunisia. In it, Nye explicitly mentioned the reinforcement of a number of formations for a planned attack on Greece, while also indicating that Sicily would be the cover target for a deception assault. Added to this was a second letter, this time from Admiral Louis Mountbatten, Major Martin's commanding officer, carried as an introduction to Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Cunningham, the Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, to whom Martin was being loaned for the duration of the campaign, as he was identified as a landing craft expert.

However, it was felt necessary to justify carrying these documents in a briefcase, which it was felt was the surest way to get the attention of the Germans. So, a third letter was included, this time from Mountbatten to General Eisenhower.

This asked the American general if he would be willing to write the foreword for the American edition of "Combined Operations", a pamphlet about Mountbatten's department and its operations. Two proof copies were then included among the documents in the briefcase.

Answer: HMS Seraph

On 17 April 1943, the corpse of Glyndwr Michael, having been stored for more than two months, was finally prepared to play the role of Major William Martin. The body was dressed in the uniform, with overcoat and lifejacket, and the various small elements that made up the life of William Martin, including the letters and photgraph of 'Pam' were put into his pockets, before the briefcase was secured around his waist and chained to his wrist.

The body was then put into a specially constructed container filled with dry ice and, accompanied by Montagu and Cholmondeley, was taken in a van driven by St John Horsfall, a noted pre-war racing driver, to Greenock in the West of Scotland.

There, the container was loaded aboard HMS 'Seraph', a submarine being made ready to deploy to the Mediterranean. 'Seraph' and her captain, Lt Bill Jewell, had previous experience with special operations, and so were seen as ideal for the task of releasing Major Martin on his own journey.

However, so secret was the mission that the crew were not told what the contents of the container, which was labelled 'optical instruments', actually were. 'Seraph' sailed on 19 April, taking ten days to reach the destination planned for Major Martin's release.

Answer: Huelva

Early in the morning of 30 April, HMS 'Seraph' surfaced and, using just the officers, Major Martin was released into the sea approximately 500 yards off the coast of Huelva. Huelva was chosen as the location where Major Martin would come ashore as it was a hotbed of espionage activity, with a major operative of the Abwehr (the German military intelligence service) named Adolf Clauss operating there. Major Martin's body was initially handed over to the Spanish Navy, with an autopsy carried out. the local British consul, Francis Haselden, persuaded the Spanish doctors to end the procedure quickly, and a death certificate was issued stating that the corpse had died by drowning. Major Martin was buried with full military honours in the Nuestra Señora cemetery on 2 May.

The briefcase was retained by the Spanish Navy, who refused, despite significant efforts, to let either Clauss or his operatives look at the contents. It was eventually sent to the Spanish Naval HQ in Madrid, where it came to the attention of Karl-Erich Kulenthal, the senior Abwehr operative in Spain.

He asked Wilhelm Canaris, the head of the Abwehr, to intercede with the Spanish to allow the documents contained in the briefcase to be copied. This was eventually agreed to, with Kulenthal personally taking the copies back to Germany. The briefcase, with documents inside, was returned to the UK on 11 May. By 14 May, 'Ultra' intercepts indicated that the Germans were moving significant elements of their army to reinforce the Balkans.