In 1943 the Allies were about to invade Sicily, and everyone — including the Germans — knew it. To sell a lie, British intelligence built a dead man: they dressed a corpse as a Royal Marine officer, filled his pockets with a fabricated biography of receipts, tickets, and a fiancée named Pam, cuffed to him a case of top-secret 'plans' pointing at Greece, and let the sea carry him to a beach crawling with Nazi agents. The deception ran all the way up to Hitler's desk — and it worked. This is the rabbit hole of the most audacious corpse in the history of espionage.
An overview of the scheme hatched by British intelligence — to drift a corpse carrying false invasion plans onto the Spanish coast and let German spies 'discover' the misdirection for themselves.
A sharp, fast-moving account of how the whole improbable con came together — from the morbid search for the right body to the moment the fake documents reached Berlin.
The definitive reference: the planners, the forged letters between generals, the fictional romance, and the astonishing paper trail showing the lie climbed all the way to Hitler.
Meet the man they invented: an entire officer conjured from an ID card, a bank overdraft letter, ticket stubs, bills, and two love letters — a life assembled so a death could be believed.
Behind 'Major Martin' was Glyndwr Michael, a destitute Welshman who died after ingesting rat poison. The strange, poignant story of how a man ignored in life became the Allies' most important soldier in death.
A documentary tracing how the planted intelligence was passed up the German chain of command — and how the Nazi high command swallowed it whole.
The spycraft of belief: how the briefcase moved from a Spanish fisherman to German intelligence, how the forgeries passed scrutiny, and why the enemy wanted so badly to believe them.
Convinced the blow was coming in Greece, Hitler diverted forces away from Sicily. When the Allies landed there in July 1943, the beaches were far less defended than they should have been — all because of a dead man.