Selects: Operation Mincemeat: How A Corpse Fooled the Nazis

This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hi everybody, happy Saturday. It's Chuck here and I am picking out our select for this week. And I'm going with a more recent one, maybe controversial to do so. But it's our episode on Operation Mint's Meat. And I am picking that one because I don't think we were able to record this for that episode. But the Broadway show Operation Mint's Meat was literally inspired by this episode. One of the stars in the producers was all over Variety magazine and all over the place and interviews saying that her brother, they were searching for a show to do, to write and make into a Broadway show. And he said, hey, you should check out this episode of Stuff You Should Know Operation Mint's Meat. This is a really crazy story and I think there's something there. And there was something there because not only did they make it to a Broadway show, it's been a pretty big hit and was nominated for Tony Awards. I am going to get to go see it in New York City next weekend and I'm super excited because I think I get to meet the cast. So anyway, here we go everyone, another little feather in our cap. Operation Mint's Meat, Colin, how it corpse, fooled the Nazis. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry Rowland, this is Stuff You Should Know. Chuck. Yo. I'm 39 years old and I still can't say my own name correctly because of my stupid thick tongue. You're going to be 40. Yeah, soon. Crazy. Yeah, used to make fun of me and now you're old. Well you're still older than me. I know. I'm not going to do about that. You're older. Yeah, you're aging very well. Yeah. No, you're aging really well. You mean the teeth falling out, the weight gain and the gray beard? I still say you're aging very well. I appreciate it. Let's take off your hat. Let's take off your hat. I still got good hair. Boom. Look at that. The got hat head now. Beautiful. Okay. People think I'm bald. Some people do. Oh really? Like you're always wearing that hat. Why don't I don't know? Suspicious people? Yeah. Like the drummer for the chili peppers. Anthony Ketus? Hmm. Flee? Nope. The guy from James Addiction? Nope. I don't know them. Not John Frischanti. Chatsmith. The guy that looks like Will Ferrell. He's always got that hat on backwards and he's bald. Oh yeah, totally. Brett, Brett, Michael's bald? Remember he always wears a du rag? Yeah. Super bald. So I get why people are suspicious. If you're a public figure that has a patented hat piece, then it's probably because you're bald, but not in my case. What a weird way to start the show. Especially this show. Operation Mints Meet. Yep. It's a Goulish gallows humor awesomely World War II British name for this operation. Yeah. This will live alongside our Nazi spies and invading Florida podcast. And the history girls covered this very topic as well. Yeah, man. There's nothing I love more than Little Known History. This is it, but this is great Little Known History. Yeah, and this shouldn't be Middle Known because it was, after the Trojan War, maybe the largest and most successful military deception plan in history. Well, there was also, have you seen that documentary Ghost Army about Operation Fortitude? No. They used a bunch of blow up tanks and planes, like inflatable tanks and planes to make it look like there's a whole ally division over here so that we could invade Normandy more easily. That's like a looney tin scar tin. Awesome. But yes, this ranks up there with literally with the Trojan horse. It's that ingenious and that wonderful. But so let's set the stage, right? Okay. So in early 1943, the war was very much undecided. It could have been anybody. It's like Europe was under the control of Hitler. Yeah. Huge amounts of Europe. They called it Fortress Europe because the Nazis had just overrun the place, right? They were dug in. And the allies knew that they needed to get into Europe to topple Hitler or else like they weren't going to win the war. So Churchill suggested attacking Europe's underbelly, which is maybe Italy, Greece, Cerdinia. Yeah. He called it the underbelly. Not very flattering, but he called it Europe's underbelly. So everybody, the allies, the Greeks, the Nazis, the Japanese, the people in Hawaii, everybody knew. Yeah, they weren't American, quite yet. Okay. Everybody knew that the allies were going to attack somewhere in that area. Yeah, come up through the Mediterranean, even Hitler feared this the most. Right. But it was key. Right. And I mean, everybody knew the allies were coming and they were going to come there. But this land mass, this area of land and sea is large enough that you can't just be like, oh, they're coming down there. We got it covered. Yeah, we'll cover it all. You need to know kind of specifically where they were covering. And there were just a few places where they could have come. One was Greece. That was where Hitler always suspected. One was Cerdinia, right? And then another was Sicily. And in 1943, I think January, the ally powers met in French Morocco and held a conference, the Casablanca conference. Very sexy name. Yeah, it really was. And they said, okay, we're going to invade Sicily this July. We're going to call it Operation Husky. Now we have to do everything we can to not let the Nazis know that that's where we're going. We actually hatched eventually what's called Operation Minsmite. Yeah, you know what? Studying this stuff. And I'm not a big war buff, although I'm getting more so. But reading up on this stuff, like the old wars are so much like the board game risk that it's startling. Yeah. It's literally, when you look at this stuff, it's like moving troops to where you think people are going to attack you. Right. Enrolling the dice a bit. And if you're right, then great, if not, you're screwed. Very much so. Which is why it's such a huge shift that we're seeing now. Yeah. And moving to unconventional warfare. Yeah. Because that's scary stuff. Yeah. I think pretty much all war is scary. Yeah. Well, of course, I'm not saying like Normandy was a cakewalk or anything because they knew what they were going on. Right. Man, I watch Steven Private Ryan again the other day. God. It's crazy. That thing's almost a snuff film. It's not as bad as we were soldiers, which is a snuff film. I never saw that one. The milgips and one. Yeah. Dude, it's the most graphically violent mainstream movie ever made. Really? Yes. Wow. Yeah. Like, there's a part where they have a shot, a camera shot over this guy's shoulder. Right? So his helmet's in the near foreground. And that guy takes a hit to the head and like bloodspray covers the camera lens for the next little while. Wow. His brains just cover the camera. Man. It's disgusting. Did you like saving Private Ryan again though? Yes, it's a great movie. But it is like really like violent. That's another thing about getting older. Is that stuff affects you more and more? The more you come to terms with your own mortality, the more valuable life becomes, the more valuable even a character in a movie's life becomes. Do you know what I mean? That stuff gets to you. Agreed. It's called growing up, my friend. I'm becoming human in the gross. Yeah. So on September 29th, 1939, there was a director of British Naval Intelligence name Admiral John Godfrey. And he distributed something called the Trout Memo. And it was written by his assistant Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming. Familiar name? Yeah. Creator of James Bond. That's right. The guy. I think most people know that he's served at this point. Yeah. But if you didn't, that's a nice little factoid for you. So he wrote the Trout Memo. And they called it the Trout Memo because they pointed out in the intro that the Trout Fisherman fishes very patiently, but he changes venue frequently. And he changes his bait very frequently too. And so they wanted to, they're charged with deception. They wanted to come up with all these different ideas, all this different bait and venue changes that they could come up with. Yeah. And this was a time too. That spying is always vital. But man of World War II, it was going on all over the place in a huge, huge part of the war. Right. So we need to do one on the enigma machine, by the way, at some point. We do. Because that's one of the unsung heroes in this operation. Yeah, absolutely. All right. So with the Trout Memo, In Fleming wrote, well, co-authored 51 different operations suggestions. And number 28 was one called a suggestion parentheses, not a very nice one. The following suggestion is used in a book by Basil Thompson. I'm so pleased that you said Basil. I said a basil. Yeah. In fact, that was a 1937 novel, The Millenaires Hat Mystery. And he was actually a World War I spy. Oh, really? Yeah. It's all coming together. Is it a spy writer that, in Fleming, the creator of James Bond dug? Crazy. So that's where this originates. So here I am getting excited. That's right. The following suggestion is used in a book by Basil Thompson. Colin, a corpse dressed as an airman with dispatches in his pockets could be dropped on the coast, supposedly from a parachute that had failed. I understand there is no difficulty in obtaining corpses at the Naval Hospital, but of course, it would have to be a fresh one. So the idea is, let's get a dead person. Let's dress them up like a soldier, give them some sensitive documents that leak this invasion. Fraudulent. Fraudulent, very important. That leak the invasion of Greece, which is not really happening. And they're going to mount up troops there and we'll actually go in Sicily. They're going to find this body. They're going to think they've stumbled upon this great, happy accident, and we're going to fool them. So yeah, that was the whole idea. That was the general basis of it. And Churchill loved the idea because apparently he liked what he called corkscrew thinkers, because he knew Hitler thought in a straight line. Yes. And by corkscrew thinkers, I think that would be our equivalent of outside the box. Exactly. Yeah. So Churchill's like, this is great. I love Churchill. Let's drink some scotch and do it. Yeah. Let's look like a bulldog while we do, too. So the idea was roughly outlined by Ian Fleming and then the Churchill's corkscrew thinkers, the XX committee, led by you and Montague and... Jumley. Yeah, which is... His name is not spelled Jumley. No. How's it spelled? Are you ready for this? Yeah. Charles C-H-O-L-M-O-N-D-E-L-E-Y pronounced Jumley. Yeah. And apparently when he met people, he would say, Lieutenant Charles Jumley, C-H-O-L-M-O-N-D-E-L-E-Y, he would spell it out. What do you really? Yeah. Are you making fun of me or is that for real? No, no, no. He was a very quirky guy and that's how he described himself as toothpaste as if it had been squeezed from the tube. Like, he self-described. He would go hunting with a revolver like bird hunting. He's a weird guy. I actually watched a quickie Buzzfeed video on this and they pronounced it Charles C-H-O-L-M-D-E-L-E. Did they really? Yeah. Nice. And glad we did our research. Exactly. Shout out to Buzzfeed. So you and Montague, right? Yeah. The other guy. He is noteworthy in a number of ways, too. Apparently he's just the greatest guy ever. Most interesting man on the planet. Yeah. And he actually wrote the book, the first book on Operation Mints Meet, because he was one of the people who came up with this and implemented it. The man who was never there. The man who never was. Got right. Which became a movie, too. Yeah, of the same name. Yeah. Starting Montgomery Cliff, I believe. No. Starting Cliff Clayweb. Cliff Clayven. Cliff Web. But not Montgomery Cliff. No. Those two are virtually interchangeable, though. Sure. What you and Montague was already notable, because at school, he and his brother had created the rules for ping pong. No way. Yeah. I did not know that. Among other things. And his brother, equally interesting, equally ran punctious, went on to become a spy for the Soviets. Oh, wow. Yes. So he turned? Yes. Against England. Yes. Wow. Against everybody, except for the Soviets. Well, Montague was formerly a barrister in attorney. And this is why he actually did not go serve on a ship. And the other guy, Chumley, never flew a plane. One was Air Force, one was Navy. And apparently, Montague was, as an attorney, was very good at just seeing all the angles. So they said, you sir, are perfect for this job. Nice. Yes. So we have the rough outline that Ian Fleming came up with, the XX committee, led by you and Montague and Charles Chumley. Yeah. Part of MI5, I believe. Okay. Yeah. Said, we're going to take this particular idea and really run with it. And like you said, they were going to, well, the first thing they did was start setting about creating a backstory. Yeah. Well, they had three months, so the clock is ticking at this point. Yeah, because here's the thing. They set the invasion. Right. In January. Yeah. And they set the invasion for July. Yeah. Now, you needed enough time to plant this corpse, this fake dead body. Currier. Yeah. They had. Indeed. Nautsy hands. Yeah. And give the, with enough time, so the Nautys could digest it, analyze it. Decide it was truthful. And then react. The way you wanted them to. Which meant that they had no later than May. Or else this plan was out the window. Yeah. You wanted them. The ultimate goal was to have the Nautys put their troops in the wrong place. And that takes time. Right. They looked around and they decided that the best place to carry out this operation was Spain. And Spain, during World War II, was allegedly ostensibly neutral. But they had a lot of access sympathies, a lot of connections to Nazi Germany. And there was a particular Nazi agent, a spy, working in a port called Huévla. Huévla, right? Sure. And his name was Adolf Klaus. And Adolf Klaus was known to be very methodical, pretty brutal and ruthless, extremely gullible. Yeah, he was a straight line thinker. He was. He wasn't one that could think outside the box and think, maybe this is a elaborate hoax. They got it even own a real corkscrew. Yeah. You know, they targeted this guy. Cut the top off of wine bottles. Yeah, they specifically targeted him, which is amazing. So they wanted this guy who was fairly gullible, but also known as like a very respected Nazi agent in Spain to be the one who came up with this corpse and cadaver. That's right. So before they ever had any corpse or cadaver or anything like that, Montague and Chumley started setting about creating a backstory. And they created this guy named Major Martin. Yeah, William Martin. That's right. And they created Major William Martin and they created this whole persona. And this wasn't the first time they'd done it. They'd actually, they had chops with this kind of stuff. So they had created a fake spy network that made Nazi Germany think that they had a whole double, double agent network in the UK and all of them were fictitious, not real people that you and Montague and Charles Chumley had created these fake personas. Amazing. And it fed the Nazis misinformation through these people that didn't really exist. So they took that understanding and that thinking of what it takes to create a fake persona and they said about creating one for Major William Martin. Yeah. And if you, there's a great BBC documentary on this and they interview a lot of the players including a lot of the women who worked at MI5 in the office and they were all just so delighted that they all describe this as like the most exciting adventure they'd ever had. I'm sure it was like something out of a spy novel and they were living it. Right. And so they all had great fun creating these characters, these made up people. They wanted to give him a fiance because the idea is that they find this body with what, not only these documents in a briefcase, the important documents, but to make it believable, they had to have believable what they called pocket litter or wallet litter, which is if you find any person on the street, ask him to open their wallet, you're going to be able to tell a lot about them. Sure. So just stuff to legitimize it. So they said, let's give him a fiance and all the women in the office wanted to be the fiance. Oh, yeah. So they all submitted photographs. They picked this one lady, Jean Leslie, secretary. Okay. That's the lady on the beach. Yes. Picture for her in a bathing suit on the beach. So this was going to be planted on his body. They all wanted to write the love letters back and forth, but they picked a woman named Hester Legert, the head secretary of MI5, and she wrote, even though she was a spencer, she wrote all these like heartfelt love letters. The first couple drafts were really dirty and they were like, you got to tone this down a little bit. Is that what you think happens in a relationship? She's like, no, not me, the fictitious lady. So everyone's really excited in the office. Chumley is wearing what would eventually be the uniform of Martin every day to give it that worn-in look. Awesome. Montahoe actually ended up having an affair with the secretary who gave him the photo as the fiance. Okay. They had a real life affair as Bill and Pam. Pam is the made up fiance. They got a little weird. That is a little weird. They wrote each other love letters, had a real life affair, calling each other Bill and Pam. So those were some like strange role playing going on. He was married at the time. His family had been shipped to America, so he was not doing the right thing there. Jeez. He was, he was a lousin that department. Well, you know also, um, Rull Dahl, the guy who wrote James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and Chugle Factory. He was a spy for the British, he was in the British military. And his whole job was to basically bed the wives of American officials here in Washington. Really? Yeah. Did he do so? Oh yeah. Oh wow. Oh, he made his way through Washington's society. Wow. Apparently with great zeal. Alright, so they're cooking up this backstory. They get other great things for the wallet letter like theater ticket stubs and an overdraft letter from his bank and just these things that make it seem like super realistic. Right. What else? I think they gave him a st. Christopher metal. Maybe they wanted to strongly imply that he was Roman Catholic and that'll come up very, it'll become very important in a minute. Yes. Very much. So they've got this backstory and apparently like this, they were working feverishly on this stuff, having the weirdo affair, wearing the uniform, all that stuff before they'd even gotten final approval just because they didn't want to stop work and then have to pick it up feverishly. They wanted this to keep going. So they finally got final approval from Admiral Godfrey to carry out this thing for real. And when they got final approval, they said, okay, we need a body. And they figured no problem. They were looking at first, they needed somebody who had relatives that didn't care what happened to the body after death and could keep their mouths shut. They needed a body that was of military age, didn't have any signs of visible trauma. Right. So they can run over by a bus. Right. Or a bit of scurvy. Sure. And that preferably they would have died of pneumonia. And the reason that they wanted them to die of pneumonia is because they were going to make it look like this guy had been in a plane crash, but it survived the plane crash, but it drowned at sea. Right. And if they were to have pneumonia, then his fluids would be filled with lungs so that when the Spanish conducted an autopsy, they'd be like, this is the most amazing thing I've ever seen. I've never seen fluid filled with lungs, but that's how much fluid there is. The problem is, is they didn't get their hands on a guy with pneumonia. And they didn't even know exactly where to get a person at first. It wasn't until they turned the guy who ran the morgue at St. Pancras Hospital, which is the worst hospital name of all time. They turned him and got him to assist them that they finally got their hands on a body. Yeah. His name was Serbentley Purchase, which is a great name. Great British name. And he was a coroner of the largest mortuary at St. Pancras. Terrible. And he had apparently a wicket since a fumer. It was pretty complicated to give directions to his office. So he gave Monti the directions. He said, or you could just get run over by butts. Nice. Man, the British during wartime were there having a blast. Their sense of humor was wonderful. So they got Bentley Purchase and he said, I've got a dude. His name is Glendor Michael. Yeah. That is not how that spelled either. No. It is G-L-Y-N-D-W-R. Super Welsh. Yeah, he was a Welshman born in 1909. His son of a coal miner. His father killed himself by stabbing himself in the throat. I hadn't read that. Man, he's a worser. Where is, man? And it didn't say like slit your throat. Said he stabbed himself in the throat. Right. Which is weird and sad. Jeez. So his dad died when he was a teenager. Mother died when he was 30. Alcoholic had a rough go because of the depression. And it was basically killed himself by ingesting rap poison. So that is not necessarily resolved. What, whether it was suicide? Yeah. So Bentley Purchase wrote down that he killed himself. Yeah, it was ruled a suicide. OK. But the way that he ate the rap poison, it was on a crust of bread. So he was hungry. They wondered. So he may have been so destitute that he ate a crust of bread that he found in an abandoned warehouse. And it was smeared with rap poison. That's what he died of. Wow. But they found him in this cold January night in 1943 in this abandoned warehouse in London. And he had just eaten some rap poison. But he survived for two more days. Yeah. And so Bentley purchased Guy's hands on him and said, I think I found your Guy, dudes. Yeah. And they did. There were some issues of one of which as they needed a photo of the guy for an ID. He didn't have any photos. And every time they took a picture of the dead guy's face, he looks like a dead guy. Yeah, really? So they scoured. I can see your fingers holding his eyes up. So they scoured London looking for a lookalike and eventually found a guy at a fellow intelligence officer who looked just like him. Awesome. So they used his face for the ID. It's all coming together. Yes, it is. I'm sure they were like, wow, Providence is really smiling on this. Yeah. And if you're feeling bad for Glendor, just hang tight. Yeah, I still think you can feel bad for Glendor. Well, sure. Talk about a rough life, man. Yeah. Jeez. Do you remember that one, Sarah and I live, where Robert DuVal was like super special guest who wasn't even hosting or mentioned? No. He just showed up on this game show called Who's More Griseled? No way. And he talks about like, it was him and Garth Brooks. How'd I miss that? And he talks about how one Cole Winner's his wife died. He had to keep her out in the barn until the ground thawed so we could bury her out back. What? Yeah, it was just weird like that. It wasn't even really funny. It was more just like, wow, that really is hard. But the whole game show was Who's More Griseled? Yeah. Anyone. Of course. Because it's Robert DuVal. Yeah. He's more Griseled than Garth Brooks. Or Chris Gaines. Yeah, even, yeah. Yeah. Poor Garth. Not poor Garth Brooks. What are you talking about? I'm talking about the Chris Gaines thing. He chose to do it. He's a wealthy man. Yeah, I don't feel too bad for him. I don't feel bad. I think that was evidence that he was surrounded by yes men at the time. Yeah, maybe. That was a weird thing though. Yeah. He faked a soul patch. Oh, that wasn't even real? No. I mean, even if it was real, it was part of his character. It's like sure. I thought you meant it was Sharpie. Maybe. OK. The hair was definitely color was Sharpie. All right. So where are we here? We've got a body. We finally got the photograph of them. Yeah, which is, that's amazing. I didn't know that part. Yeah. And there's another thing. We found this awesome, a military analysis of it. So that was kind of cool. Somebody wrote a military analysis of this. I don't remember who, so I can't go and shout out, but we'll put it on our podcast page. But they point out that one of the reasons this was so successful, this operation was one, these guys at XS commit, XX committee, just had free run to break the law, bend morality, do all sorts of stuff. They just were able to go do their thing. But the other thing was that they really kept this a lid on this stuff. And it was all disseminated on a need to know basis. So when they had this guy, they had a glenduer, kept him on ice for three months as they finished his backstory. They're running up against like go time. And then I think in February or March, April maybe, I'm not sure of the date, do you know? That what happened. When they finally carried out operation, meant to meet. Let's just say spring, because I know that they kept him on ice for a few months. Yeah. So they're up to the point where the decomp is about to give away that this guy didn't just recently die. Yeah. And that was a big fear that the Spanish coroners would be able to tell too, which will come up in a minute. OK. And they're also getting to the point where they're reaching the end of the amount of time that they need to give the Nazis to absorb this mince of information. Sure. So they finally, they get the guys persona in place, they have the body, and now it's time to actually carry out the operation. And like I was saying, they kept a lid on all this. So it was a need to know basis. So they got their hands on a sub commander who could keep his mouth shut. And they gave him a metal cylinder with the corpse of Glendor Michael, now Major William Martin. Yeah. When you say sub commander, you mean submarine? Yes. Not a commander below regular commander. Yeah. That's sub-porting commander. They gave him the cylinder and they said, we're going to tell you what's in here. Do not tell anybody else. So apparently the people staffing this sub without this was some sort of weather buoy. Yeah. It was marked optical instruments, but you're right. He was only one of board supposedly that knew there was a body inside. Yep. And they put a life jacket on them, stuffed them in the cylinder, put them on the sub, and took them over to Spain under on a submarine. Well, let's back up for one second too. Because we forgot to cover the main letter in the briefcase. Really important. This was the all of operation meant to meet. It did not hinge on theater ticket stubs or bank overdraft letters. That's merely pocket letter. It hinged on a letter hinting strongly that the invasion was going to come up through Greece, Sardinia. Right. And that was the other thing too. It wasn't like official document. Inversion is going to come through Greece. It was a letter from one general or admiral to another high-ranking guy. I think General Nye, they composed a bunch of different letters themselves. And finally they said, why don't you write it? Yeah. In your own words, in your own language. In your own handwriting, everything. So it really was written by this high-ranking US military official, or British military official, who wrote this fake letter. And he made a joke about Sardinia. A terrible joke, which was the little hint that was just clever enough to work. Right. And so basically says we're coming up. We're going to strike through Greece. That's where the invasion of Europe's going to be. But we're also going to tell everybody that Sicily is the cover. Right? Right. And this was a stroke of genius. Oh, yeah. Because in this false letter, not only does it show that they're coming through Greece, which they weren't. But it says that Sicily is the cover, which would make the Nazis think that if anyone ever did actually leak the real invasion plan of Sicily, the Nazis would think that that was misinformation. Dude, it was so ingenious. That's crazy, genius. And I think about here now, Chuck, we get to the point where we should talk about the Enigma machine and the role it played, right? Yeah. Well, basically, we all know that the Enigma machine was the code-breaking machine invented in the UK to decipher. Well, the Enigma machine wrote the code, I think. Oh, it wrote the code? Yeah. And then deciphered code that was they gotten. They deciphered it at Bletchley Park. But I think the Enigma machine was the actual code writing, the encrypting machine. Oh, OK. I could be wrong, but OK. Well, so we definitely need to do a podcast on that, because we're mixed up already. To get it straight. But at any rate, the longest short of it is in Beckley Park. Was it Beckley Park? I always say Bletchley. Oh, is it? Was there an Ellen there? I draw the whole ugly word out. They basically had, it was like reading the Nazis email, essentially, on a daily basis. I'm an hourly basis. They knew exactly what was going on. So they would know if they were buying this whole thing as it happened in real time. But even before that, they were able to craft this misinformation based on the Nazis' assumptions. So everybody wants to hear that their assumptions, that their beliefs are correct. Yeah. People are more apt to buy that, things that confirm their suspicions or their beliefs already, right? Yeah, Hitler was worried about Sicily. He was. So he already thought that Greece was going to be where we invaded. Yeah. And then secondly, he was, we knew that he had heard rumors that Mussolini was going to be toppled soon. So he was reticent to commit troops to Italy, Sicily, right? So this revelation that came in the form of this letter, this false letter, completely supported everything that Hitler and the Third Reich believed as far as this European invasion was going to go. And we were able to do that thanks to the smarties at Bunchley Park, right? Yeah. And this letter, too, here's another little tidbit. They put a single eyelash in the fold of the letter. So they would know when they eventually got this letter back, if there was no eyelash, they would know that the Nazis said, in fact, opened it. And because the idea was they would open it, reseal it, and act like we never saw it. But there wasn't that eyelash, and they'd know. No. So rudimentary. But it worked. Oh, yeah. So, shall we check another break? Let's take a break. s. 1.5. d. 1. d. 1. Okay, so Chuck, we are at sea aboard a submarine. That's right. It's chilly down here in Bark. It is. And you're not supposed to be smoking cigars. No, you're not. Despite Gene Hackman doing it in Crimson Tide. Yeah, what a bad idea. Yeah. So we're off the coast of Spain. We're off the coast of Huevla. Yeah. Not an easy word to say, but it's a port in Spain. And again, this is where Nazi agent Adolf Klaus. Yeah, they kind of want to float the body right up to this guy's backyard, basically. So they did. He was released from this canister. I read somewhere else that the canister itself was fired on with submachine guns on a sub. So you could just call them machine guns there. And it was sunk and the body drifted off toward Huevla. Oh, I thought they just dumped the body. Yeah, I'm not sure. Yeah. I found a book on Google Books. It was like from 2007 and it was a history book. Gotcha. It made it sound like the sub, the people working on the sub all knew what was going on. But that's in stark contrast to everything else who's seen. So they may or may not have sunk the weather, but who knows. But either way, Major Martin was released into the current that took him right to Huevla. And he went, I think he was found by a fisherman that same day. Yeah. And at this point, the the the bridge started sending telegrams about a very important missing person. Frantic. Yeah. Like they wanted these to get intercepted, obviously. And that worked as well. This is all really going exactly as they planned. So they sent the British Council in Spain in Huevla or in Spain to Huevla and said, you need this is really important. You need to get your hands on the briefcase. Find out what happened to this guy and get your hands on his briefcase. Yeah. And Klaus is going briefcase. Right. Mm. It's monical pop that. And the British Council in Spain didn't even know what was going on. They thought like this, like they were, they saw everything from the same aspect of reality that the Nazis saw. Yeah. Need to know basis. Exactly. So the British Council are trying to get this briefcase kind of frantically. And the Spaniards were like, you know what? We are just going to keep this unlocked down for now as we investigate the whole thing. But we got it covered. Remember, we're neutral. So your briefcase is safe. And the British Council said, well, okay, one thing. This is very important. This guy was Roman Catholic. You can check out the medal in his pocket. So please don't dissect him. It's against Roman Catholic beliefs and traditions to dissect our autopsy body. I hadn't heard before, but apparently in the 40s that was the case. Spain was way down with that. Super Roman Catholic. And they said, oh, yes, of course, we won't do that. So apparently that's how they got around the fact that Glendor hadn't died of pneumonia. Yeah. And the other way they got around it was they had a plant in the office who talked to the coroner. So it was like, guys, it's hot. And this body is going to start riding real soon. So how thorough do you really want to make this? And they said, you're right. Let's go have some wine. Some, what did they call it over there? Wine. No, what's the fruity? Sangria. Yeah, let's go have some sangria and knock off early. And that's exactly what happened. Thanks to the plant. Great. So this is going on. There was a small wrinkle at this point. The briefcase went to Madrid. Spain wasn't going to hand it over to anyone. But the Brits were trying to get it in the hands of the Nazis. And they were actually having trouble getting it into the hands of the Nazis. And so a guy named Carlo Coulintal, he was Hitler's most trusted guy in Spain. He got wind of it. And kind of took over for a clouse. Was like, I'm going to get this briefcase. And he did. Nine days later, after the body washed ashore, the letter ended up in the hands of the German. The German, you know, it worked his way up the chain. Yeah, too Hitler himself. Yeah, I went to Gerbels first and Gerbels, even in his diary, they found later had suspicions about it. Oh, yeah. Because he was a corkscrew thinker. And he was like, wait a minute. This is pretty convenient. Yeah, this is really fishy here. But apparently he never said anything to Hitler. He got distracted. He wrote about it in his diary. But the documentary said his thinking was, well, if Hitler believes it, then that's good enough for me. Huh. That seems like a bad idea. Yeah. And homeboy Carlo Coulintal, there was always a lot of speculation on why he just ran with it and didn't ask more questions. Because that was his job. And it turns out his grandmother was Jewish. And he was very paranoid about this being found out. So he thought, this is it. I've come upon the greatest find of the war. And it's all mine. So no one will ask any questions about me after this. Huh. Wow, that worked out really, really well. Yeah, very convenient. And thanks to the NIGMA machine, they knew the Brits, knew pretty quickly that this was working. And I guess Montague and Chumley sent Admiral Godfrey transmission that said, Operation Mints Me, swallowed Rod Blyne and Sinker. Yeah, that when the, it's so cool seeing these older, like apparently you're not supposed to say elderly anymore by the way, we got an email. I knew that. Or seniors. You're supposed to call them older adults. Seniors, I didn't know that that was the thing. Yeah, older adults. So they're interviewing these older adults, these British ladies that are in their 80s now. And they were just all so still excited. They said when they, because you know, with the NIGMA machine, they were basically reading their emails. And they were like, they knew they were buying it. They're buying it. Yeah. And everyone was just like flipped when that came through the office. It was just like party time basically. So the Operation Mints Me really, really worked really well. So much so that apparently Hitler moved a Panzer Division, which told us about 90,000 troops from Sicily to Greece. Yeah. And all of our artillery and armaments and everything, not just soldiers. So long, Sicily, we're going to Greece. Yeah. And then up came the Allies through Sicily. 160,000 Allied troops storm Sicily. And only 7,000 lives were lost, which is still in a lot of people who died. But apparently, as far as military historians are concerned, and I think the military at the time, that was a way fewer lives lost than they expected. Yeah. Had Hitler not swallowed Operation Mints Me? Yeah. They expected 10,000 casualties in the first three days and 300 boats sunk in the first two days. And it ended up being 1,400 in that first week, soldiers, and about a dozen ships in that first week. So that's not bad. Yeah. And not only that, but it had another effect. Big one. The Soviets. Yeah. So this is not something that they teach in American history classes in US high schools that much. The Operation Husky, it was that penetration of Europe's underbelly, right? Yeah. And suddenly Hitler said, I'm about to storm Russia, but I really need these troops down here in Europe, because I got big problems. And that allowed, basically, Russia to topple the Nazi regime. And Mussolini get toppled by the Brits. Yeah. It completely changed the face of the war. This one idea cooked up by me and Fleming in part. Isn't that crazy? It's pretty awesome. You got other stuff? There's a book called Operation Minsmite by a guy named Brett McIntyre. It came out in 2010. That's a very good, well-cited book that we inadvertently cited here there. And then there's The Man Who Never Was, which was written by you and Monague, which is not just about Operation Minsmite, but also about, basically, how to carry out deception plans. All right. Remember earlier, when I said, don't feel too bad for a Glendor Michael, even you said, well, the dude died possibly of suicide because he was penniless and going nowhere. Or feel bad about that. But 50 years after he was buried in 1997, the British government added, they basically buried him with military honors. The Spanish did? Oh, yeah, he was buried in Spain. But the British, it came from the Brits, I think, to do so. His headstone came from the Brits. But the Spanish buried him with like a 21 gun salute and everything. Yeah. So his Glendor Michael served as major William Martin, RM Royal Marine. Pretty cool. Yeah. So this alcoholic drifter who never served in the military. Never served in the military. Buried with full military honors. Yeah. And completely changed the face of the war, thanks to being a body that fit the bill. And if you like Goulish photos, there's a very famous photo of him being propped up in his life jacket and uniform as they were basically loading them into the cylinder that you can see by searching, I'm sure, major Charles Martin. That's right. Charles Martin, no, William Martin. William Martin, something like that. I still want to know what's going on with that weird role playing there with the dude. That's Bill and Pam. Yeah. Because they interviewed the lady. And she was just like, oh, it was all very exciting. Yeah. That's a great British lady accent. Older person. Yeah. Yeah, older adult or adult. Yeah, yeah. Oldie. If you want to get, or no, if you want to know more about Operation Minstreet, just type that word into your favorite search engine. Or go check out the stuff you missed in history class episode. And so I said, stuff you missed in history class is time for Listener Mail. I'm going to call this bread crust. We have that discussion about the crust and the in pieces. So this is from a dad, dear Chuck and Josh, your discussion of the inslicer bread and the body language episode brought ridiculous grin to my face as I walked around my neighborhood. Don't worry, though, my neighbors have thought me to be eccentric for years now. Look at that guy smiling. What a weirdo. He must be a pinco. When our daughters were still tiny, my wife and I realized we were doomed to 18-ish years of eating bread crust pieces ourselves if we didn't figure something out and quickly. Our solution, we started calling those pieces the lucky piece. And boy, did we look our innocent trusting toddlers? Turns out your supposition is correct, Chuck, at least. For children under 11 years old, even if they're honor students, as mine were, they will fight you for the right to eat that savory, osso, desirable piece of luck. My idea. Younger adults. Rock on, guys. And please keep my goofy grins coming. That is from Ted. See, oh, I-N-E with a little, uh, what do you call that? Quiney. Quiney. Quiney. Quiney. Is that a accent to do? No, I don't know. I didn't take French. Legume. What do you call that a legume? Accent legume? Yeah. So thanks, Ted. I'll just call you coin. Yeah. Thanks, Ted. What, quiné? quiné? I don't know. Let's take Quiney. Yeah. Thanks a lot. Ted contacted us on Twitter. I did. So he wanted to send us this email. So there you go, Ted. Wow. If you want to get in touch with us, you can send us an email to StuffPodcast. at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.