In 1943, British intelligence pulled off one of the most audacious deceptions in military history. They dressed the body of a deceased Welsh homeless man as a fictitious Royal Marines officer, stuffed his briefcase with fake invasion plans, and dropped him off the coast of Spain — hoping Nazi Germany would take the bait. The plan, codenamed Operation Mincemeat, convinced Hitler that the Allies were targeting Greece and Sardinia instead of Sicily. When 160,000 Allied troops stormed Sicily on July 10, 1943, the Germans were completely caught off guard. The operation helped turn the tide of World War II and contributed to the fall of Benito Mussolini.

Sources

Ben Macintyre, Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory (2010)

National WWII Museum: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/secret-agents-secret-armies-operation-mincemeat

Imperial War Museum: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-war-on-paper-operation-mincemeat

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mincemeat

Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/event/Operation-Mincemeat-WWII-1943 History.com: https://www.history.com/articles/what-was-operation-mincemeat

BBC Wales: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-61080456

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXNDLnbTWQ8

Theme Song Attribution

Lost at Sea Shanty by legacyAlli

Link: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/legacyalli/sound-phrases/rf-lost-at-sea-shanty/

License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/