The Man Who Never Was
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Man Who Never Was is a 1954 book by Ewen Montagu and a 1956 World War II war film based on the book. It is about Operation 'Mincemeat', a 1943 British Intelligence plan to deceive the Axis powers into thinking Operation 'Husky', the Allied invasion of Sicily, would take place elsewhere.
The film was directed by Ronald Neame and starred Clifton Webb as Lt. Cmdr. Ewen Montagu, Gloria Grahame as Lucy Sherwood, Robert Flemyng as Lt. George Acres, Josephine Griffin as Pam, Stephen Boyd as Patrick O'Reilly, Laurence Naismith as Adml. Cross, Geoffrey Keen as Gen. Nye, André Morell as Sir Bernard Spilsbury, Michael Hordern as Gen. Coburn and William Squire as submarine commander Bill Jewell.
Operation 'Mincemeat' involved the acquisition of a human cadaver, dressing it as a 'Major William Martin, R.M.' and putting it into the sea near Huelva, Spain. Attached to the corpse was a brief-case containing fake letters suggesting that the Allied attack would be against Sardinia and Greece. When the body was found, pro-German Spaniards passed the papers to the German Intelligence Service who passed them on to their High Command. The ruse was so successful that the Germans still believed that Sardinia and Greece were the intended objectives, weeks after the landings in Sicily had begun.
The real name of the person/body remained secret, but in 1997 it was claimed that he was a homeless Welsh alcoholic named Glyndwr Michael, who had committed suicide by eating rat poison. The report was believed to be inaccurate because the family that provided the body did so under one condition, that his identity never be revealed. However, Thomas John Michael, Glyndwr Michael's father, died before 1943, so there is speculation that the denial of "The Man Who Never Was" being Glyndwr Michael is itself a ruse. [1]
The body was buried as "William Martin" in a cemetery in Huelva, Spain. The legend "Glyndwr Michael Served As Major William Martin, R.M." appears on the famous tombstone. [2]
Contents |
[edit] Outcome
When it was discovered that "Operation Mincemeat" was a success, a Cablegram was sent to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, consisting of only three words: "MINCEMEAT SWALLOWED WHOLE".
[edit] The Goon Show
The BBC's popular radio comedy show, The Goon Show, made a send-up of the story of The Man Who Never Was and incorporated most of the regular Goon Show characters. Written by Spike Milligan and Larry Stephens, it was broadcast on March 20, 1956 and remade later and broadcast on February 17, 1958. Coincidentally, Peter Sellers (one of the Goons) provided the voice of Winston Churchill in the film, although the character did not appear in The Goon Show adaptation.
[edit] TV-series
The Man Who Never Was was also the name of a television series that lasted only one season on ABC-TV, starred Robert Lansing and Dana Wynter, and bore absolutely no resemblance to either the novel or the 1956 film. In the series, Lansing played a dual role, that of Peter Murphy,an American spy, and Mark Wainwright, an influential playboy millionaire who looks exactly like him. One evening, as the spy is being chased through the streets, he sees Wainwright drunkenly stumbling out of a bar. Stunned at the physical resemblance, he unwittingly allows enemy agents to kill him (Wainwright). Although Wainwright's wife Eva catches on immediately to what is really going on, she allows the spy to impersonate him, partly because it is financially convenient, and partly because she is moved by his kind treatment of her, in comparison to her abusive husband.
