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Welcome to Spycraft, a podcast that
tells gripping life and death spy stories and

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the amazing devices and operations that made
them possible. Now let's get started.

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The homeless spy well kind of,
it was more about the homeless decoy.

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It sounds something kind of like from
a Tom Clancy novel. You see,

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there was a dead homeless man from
Wales that became an unwitting Second World War

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hero after fooling Adolf Hitler in the
Army. It's the corpse of Glen d

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r Michael, a homeless Welshman who
unknownly took part in one of the greatest

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deception operations in history. It was
called Operation Mincemeat. It was conceived in

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January nineteen forty three by two young
officers assigned to Section seven Pmish Intelligence.

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The idea was to convince the Axis
powers that the Allies were planning to invade

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Greece in the summer of nineteen forty
three, rather than the island of Sicily.

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It truly is an amazing story.
Let's see a little bit about the

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man himself. In nineteen forty three, aber bargoed man glendwarrgl Yn Drdwr was

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found dead in the middle of London
after eating rap poison. The thirty four

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year old had no money, few
friends and was just one of hundreds of

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homeless people sadly across the city of
London. At the same time, a

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secret scheme was being hatched in Whitehall
to hoodwink the Nazis into thinking that the

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Allies planned to attack Sardinia and Greece
instead of Sicily. All that was missing

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from the plan was a body,
and that's where glend Were came through.

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You see, there was a mentistry
mental illness in the family. Thomas Michael

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Glendore's father attempted suicide by stabbing himself
in the throat and died when yen was

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fifteen. Unfortunately, the family were
thrown out to the charity of the Union,

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and when Glenware's mother died at the
start of war, his only means

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of support was gone and he ended
up drifting. Three years later, the

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Welshmans was found in an abandoned warehouse
in the English capital before taken to a

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hospital, and with Glenware leaving no
trace behind, it made him the perfect

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candidate for the Secret Services ploy Operation
Mincemeat. Let's take a further look to

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convince the abb Ware the military version
of the Nazis, they needed a believable

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method for passing fake classified information to
Germany. Their chosen method was stunning,

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both in its audacity and cleverness.
British intelligence decided to deploy a cadaver off

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the coast of Spain so that it
could be discovered by Spanish authorities. Glenware

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Michael was selected when he died in
a hospital. The cadaver was dressed as

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a British courier and given appropriate pocket
letter including love letters and photos from a

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girlfriend. A briefcase was handcuffed to
his wrist with memorandums and other documents,

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all pointing to an invasion of grease. The rat poison had caused Michael's lungs

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to fill the fluid, adding evidence
that he had died by drowning after a

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plane crash in the Atlantic. Michael's
body was transported to the Spanish coast by

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the submarine HMS Sreth, where it
was interred in the sea after the reading

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of a psalm. Spanish authorities recovered
Michael's body the same day was released,

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and the documents in the locked briefcase
were soon shared with the German military.

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The result was a repositioning of German
forces to meet the perceived threat to the

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Balkans. By the time other evidence
pointed convincingly to the pending invasion of Sicily,

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it was too late for the Germans
to move forces again. Cecily fell

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to the Allies. Benito Mossolini was
ousted and his successor entered into ciccret schalks

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with the Allies. Operation Mincemeat was
a complete and total success. So a

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fascinating story, indeed, how they
use this homeless man who may not have

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thought he had a purpose in life
or a goal, but in fact he

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actually did, and he contributed in
a very large way to defeating the Nazis.

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That's it for now, Thanks for
listening, everybody,