The Man Who Never Was

It was a turning point in the Second World War. As the Allies prepared to invade Sicily in 1943, they wanted to dupe the Germans into thinking that their attack would be aimed elsewhere.
To carry out the deception, a plan was concocted in which a body was dumped in the sea, to be discovered by Axis forces, carrying fake 'secret documents' suggesting the invasion would be staged in Greece, 500 miles away.
Incredibly, the trick worked and the diversion of German troops to Greece has been credited by historians with playing a major part in the success of the Sicily invasion. The episode was later immortalised in the 1956 film The Man Who Never Was.
Yet to this day, just whose body was used in "Operation Mincemeat" has remained a source of secrecy, confusion and conspiracy theory.
In a forthcoming book, a historian claims to have finally established beyond any reasonable doubt the identity of the person who 'played' the part of the dead man: a homeless Welshman called Glyndwr Michael.
The body, which was given the identity of a fake Royal Marine called 'Major William Martin', was dropped into the sea off Spain in 1943.
Winston Churchill had remarked that "Anyone but a bloody fool would know it was Sicily", but after the tides carried Major Martin's body into the clutches of Nazi agents, Hitler and his High Command became convinced Greece was the target. "You can forget about Sicily. We know it's in Greece," proclaimed General Alfred Jodl, head of the German supreme command operations staff.