Episode 53 - Operation Mincemeat: The Spy Who Came in from the Sea

In 1943, the Allies faced a problem: everyone knew Sicily was the obvious next target. To make Operation Husky succeed, British intelligence needed the Germans to believe the real invasion would strike somewhere else. Their solution was audacious, macabre, and almost absurd: take the body of Glyndwr Michael, create a fictional Royal Marine officer named Major William Martin, attach forged invasion plans to his wrist, and let him wash ashore in neutral Spain.In this episode of The Rum Ration, Rejoy and Colin unpack Operation Mincemeat, one of the Second World War’s most successful deception operations. It is a story of espionage, forgery, bureaucracy, Spanish neutrality, German overconfidence, and extraordinary attention to detail. But beneath the dark humour lies a human story too: the real man whose identity was hidden for decades, and whose death helped change the course of the war in the Mediterranean.