Sitting on the windswept battlements of the Upper Barracca Gardens in Valetta, Malta, was a reminder that 400 ft below was planned and carried out a spectacular plot that proved to be a turning point in World War II. I recall the excitement 56 years ago with which we listened to Churchill’s booming voice (Peter Sellers actually) in the haunting film of the event, The Man Who Never Was, based on Ewen Montagu’s novel of the same name.
There are many reasons for not forgetting even the celluloid version of a historically significant episode. But not being a military buff, the impression on me – an 18-year-old Bengali boy in England – was intensely cultural and emotional. I’ll come to that in a moment. First, a quick outline of the story. As the Allies prepared to invade Sicily in 1943, they duped Germany into thinking the attack would be against Greece 500 miles away by dumping a corpse dressed as “Major William Martin, RN” in the sea off the Spanish coast. A briefcase containing fake “secret documents” floated near the body. The Spaniards found the body and papers, and lost no time in passing them on to the Nazis.
Churchill thought “anyone but a bloody fool” would have known Sicily was the Allied target. But, incredibly, the trick worked and historians credit the diversion of German troops to Greece with playing a major part in the success of the Sicily invasion codenamed Operation Husky. The macabre deception with the corpse called Operation Mincemeat was a culture shock for me. I doubt if Indians (or even Asians) could have used a dead body that way. The most poignant moment was when the father of the actual man whose corpse was used – and historians have been wrangling all these years over his identity – agreed to Operation Mincemeat. He stood by his son’s body for a brief moment saying that though he didn’t know what they were going to do with him, he believed it to be in the country’s cause.
Another touching scene concerned a girl in the forces who had agreed to pose as the fictitious late Major Martin’s girlfriend. After the body has been found and the papers read, the Germans sent an agent to check her out. She would surely have failed the test if she hadn’t just heard that her own real-life boyfriend had been killed in action. She has him in mind when answering the agent’s questions in a grief-stricken haze that takes him in completely. The message is at once flashed across the wires, and the Axis forces rush out of Sicily to defend Greece.
A British War Office scientist provides the comic touch. After the Germans have carried out their investigations, they, of course, return the body and briefcase via the Spanish. Everything looks immaculately untouched. The British had expected this but are desperate to know whether the Germans did actually open and examine the sealed packet of papers in the briefcase. This is where the scientist’s opinion is sought. With time running out, the plotters wait in nail-biting suspense while the tubby little scientist bumbles about his laboratory with beakers and bunsen burners. Finally, he offers a verdict. “It’s been soaked” he says. Another few crucial minutes pass and then he improves on his verdict, “In salt water.” Unable to contain their impatience any longer, the plotters blurt out something like “Have they been opened?” The scientist looks up in myopic surprise. “Opened? Of course they’ve been opened!”
I have produced that summary from memory 56 years after seeing The Man Who Never Was in Manchester. One other scene remains with me. When the German agent who interrogated the girl appears, the English boys with whom I had gone to see the film burst out, “Bloody Irish! Always stabbing us in the back!” His Dublin brogue gave him away.
Malta cannot have forgotten Operations Mincemeat and Husky. It enjoys excellent relations with Britain, drives on the left, speaks English fluently, retains English street signs and monuments and call each other by English names. At an open-air market in Victoria on Gozo island last week I came upon a stone hot-water bottle exactly like my grandfather’s. I asked the seller if it was Maltese and he said, no, it was English. When I told him of mine, he replied simply that having both been British-ruled, Malta and India were bound to have many British relics. Not many post-colonial nations are confident enough to be so insouciant about the past.
