In April 1943, the body of a Royal Marines officer, Major William Martin, washed ashore near Huelva, Spain. He carried documents in a briefcase chained to his belt, outlining the Allied intention to invade Greece and Sardinia — not Sicily. The body was actually that of Glyndwr Michael, a homeless Welshman who had died of phosphorus poisoning. His body was selected by pathologist Dr. Bernard Spilsbury, who confirmed that a homeless man's body would not show the expected signs of drowning.
The deception was extraordinary. MI5 created an entire identity. They planted letters from his fiancee Pamela, receipts for an engagement ring, theater ticket stubs, and overdue bills. The most crucial document was a letter from Lt. Gen. Sir Archibald Nye, discussing the cover plan for Operation Husky with such casual bureaucratic language that any trained intelligence officer would find it authentic.
Hitler personally ordered the reinforcement of Greece and Sardinia. The German 1st Panzer Division was diverted from France to Greece, and Rommel was transferred to the Peloponnese. Over 300,000 Axis troops were in Greece when the Allies invaded Sicily on July 10, 1943.
Ewen Montagu and Charles Cholmondley had conceived the operation in January 1942, but it took over a year to find the right body, create the identity, and plant the documents. Montagu carried the body himself in a dry-ice-cooled canister labeled Optical Instruments from London to the Scottish coast. The full details were not declassified until 1973 — twenty-eight years after the war.