The real history behind 'Operation Mincemeat' on Broadway
The award-winning musical comedy from London, now at NYC's Golden Theatre, tells the story of a bizarre deception mission that turned the tide of World War II.
You've likely heard of the Trojan Horse, but have you heard about the Trojan corpse?
One of the wildest and most successful military deceptions of all time, Operation Mincemeat was a zany plot — featuring forged documents and a dead body — that turned the tide of World War II. It took creative problem solving from operatives like Charles Cholmondeley and Ewen Montagu to pull off a scheme so outrageous, so quirky, and so bizarre that Hitler would fall for it.
When performer/writer Natasha Hodgson learned this story from the podcast Stuff You Should Know, she was inspired to adapt it for the stage. Operation Mincemeat might not sound like the stuff of musical comedy, but it's a hit full of hilarity, hijinx, and heart.
After taking London by storm, the Olivier Award-winning show now plays at Broadway’s Golden Theatre with the original British cast. (Performers Hodgson, David Cumming, and Zoë Roberts created the show along with their writing partner Felix Hagan. Claire-Marie Hall and Jak Malone complete the five-person cast.)
While you don't need to be a World War II buff to enjoy Operation Mincemeat on Broadway, here's a bit of background on the real story — which is even more unbelievable than the musical!
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What is Operation Mincemeat?
Operation Mincemeat, so named for the involvement of a corpse, was a plot to deceive the Nazis. It was enacted by MI5, the U.K.’s counter-intelligence and security agency known for elaborate deceptions. The Germans knew the Allied armies would attack Southern Europe, but not whether the attack would come from Greece, Sicily, or Sardinia.
The Allies were planning to invade Sicily, but the MI5 agents needed to make Hitler think they were invading Sardinia so he'd move his troops to that island, leaving Sicily open and catching the Germans by surprise.
They would accomplish this deception by planting the body of a supposedly drowned soldier on the coast of Spain, which was full of German spies. The "soldier" would have a briefcase full of fake documents, including one that mentioned sardines as a terrible joke/easily broken code for the Germans to find. As planned, the spies swooped in and sent the false intel up the command chain to Hitler.
Not all German officials fell for it. According to the diary of German Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, he had doubts about the information in the briefcase. However, he decided that if Hitler believed the documents were real, he would defer to him. Had Goebbels pushed back, WWII might've gone a different way.
Who came up with Operation Mincemeat?
In the Operation Mincemeat musical, the plot is MI5 agent Charles Cholmondeley's idea, but he didn't think it up alone. In real life and in the show, Ian Fleming (yes, the James Bond author) worked in MI5 during WWII and helped brainstorm ideas for how to hoodwink Hitler.
Fleming is supposedly the author behind the Trout Memo, a set of 54 such ideas written in 1939. Number 28 on the list (titled "A Suggestion - Not a Very Nice One") caught Cholmondeley’s eye.
Fleming’s suggestion was itself based on an idea from another writer, Basil Thompson, who worked closely with MI5 to catch spies during World War I. (He interrogated Mata Hari, a Dutch courtesan and German spy; secretary Jean Leslie sings about wanting to be a “modern day Mata Hari” during the Mincemeat song “All the Ladies.”) Post-war, Thompson published a novel called The Milliner’s Hat, which featured a corpse with a fake identity and forged papers.
Cholmondeley fleshed out Fleming/Thompson’s idea, first called Trojan Horse instead of Operation Mincemeat, and shared it with his superiors. Initially, they rejected the idea for being too impractical.
The execution of Operation Mincemeat
The Sicily invasion was set for summer 1943, so the plan had to be carried out that spring to give the Germans sufficient time to move out of Sicily. As such, MI5 only had a few months to create an entire backstory for Major William Martin, a fake British officer.
As in the musical, the MI5 agents filled his pockets with receipts, ticket stubs, and love letters from a fake fiancée, Pam, whose picture Martin carried. Jean Leslie and Ewe n Montagu went out on the town to get the receipts, living Pam and Bill’s life for a few nights.
Meanwhile, the team also had to keep the corpse on ice for several months so it appeared freshly drowned when it washed up on the shores of Huelva, Spain. If the corpse decomposed at all, the plan would have failed.
Montagu and Cholmondeley had hoped to find a body with pneumonia so the lungs would be full of fluid, making his supposed drowning more convincing. They had no luck, so they made Martin a Roman Catholic, planting a St. Christopher medal on his person. Roman Catholics historically did not encourage autopsies, and the people of Spain, a Catholic country, respected what they believed to be Martin's wishes and did not perform one. In the musical, they start to do an autopsy but opt to go out for sangria instead!
Historical figures in Operation Mincemeat
All the main characters in the Operation Mincemeat musical were real people involved in the WWII operation. Learn more about the major players below.
Ewen "Monty" Montagu (1901-1985)
Naval Officer Ewen Montagu played a leading role in Operation Mincemeat and literally wrote the book on it afterwards: The Man Who Never Was, published in 1953.
Captain Montagu took his colleague Jean Leslie out on the town to help shape Major William Martin’s backstory, but he was supposedly open about his "relationship" with Leslie in letters overseas to his wife, who was not with him in England because she was Jewish.
Montagu had sent his wife and children to America out of caution in case Hitler invaded England. Despite attending posh schools and working an elite job, Montagu had a lot to lose personally if England fell to the Nazis — more so than many others who worked with him at MI5.
One more note about Montagu’s family: His brother Ivor was a filmmaker and Russian spy as depicted in the musical.
Natasha Hodgson plays Ewen Montagu in Operation Mincemeat.
Charles Cholmondeley (1917-1982)
As mentioned in the musical’s opening number, Flight Lieutenant Charles Cholmondeley (David Cumming) — pronounced "Chumley" — wanted to be an explorer when he was little. He even belonged to the Public Schools Exploring Society (now called the British Exploring Society) and discovered a new breed of shrew. (The musical changed it from shrew to trout, presumably as a reference to the Trout Memo.) As an adult, Cholmondeley studied the mating habits of insects as a hobby, and he spouts factoids about newts when nervous in the show.
Originally a member of the Royal Air Force, Cholmondeley couldn't fly planes because of his poor eyesight. Instead, he ended up working for MI5 as an air force representative. Cholmondeley was paired with naval representative Montagu air force and naval cooperation would be needed to pull off Operation Mincemeat.
Thanks to Cholmondeley’s persistence and creative thinking, Operation Mincemeat went from being an offhand suggestion on an old list to the daring plot that saved the day.
David Cumming plays Charles Cholmondeley in Operation Mincemeat.
Jean Leslie (1923-2012)
The daughter of minor Scottish gentry, Jean Leslie was around 18 when she participated in Operation Mincemeat. The young secretary had likely been hired in MI5 because she was fluent in French.
She provided Montagu with a photo of herself for Martin to carry on his person, representing his "fiancée" Pam. The photo would’ve been considered very seductive for the time: It showed Leslie in a one piece bathing suit by the River Thames.
As depicted in the musical, Leslie and Montagu enjoyed a flirtation of sorts while racking up receipts for Bill and Pam. However, it was never a serious romance, even if they were momentarily swept up in the thrill of it. Montagu was married, and Leslie went on to marry Colonial William Gerrard Leigh after the war.
In her later years, she was involved in charity work. In particular, she supported the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital (now part of University College Hospital), which focuses on women’s healthcare.
Claire-Marie Hall plays Jean Leslie in Operation Mincemeat.
Hester Leggatt (1905-1995)
Hester Leggatt was head secretary at MI5. Although she wrote the love letters to William Martin in the guise of Pam, Leggatt was unmarried. Her colleagues used to call her “The Spin,” short for "spinster." The musical suggests Leggatt had a lost love who fell in WWI; in real life, she had a brother named William who served in the military. Her knowledge of his wartime experience may have provided insight into what to write to a soldier.
For decades, Leggatt’s role in Operation Mincemeat went unrecognized because of a spelling error. Her last name had been recorded as "Leggett" instead of "Leggatt." The Operation Mincemeat musical's creators started an online campaign called #FindHester, and fans of the show (dubbed Mincefluencers) helped uncover the correct spelling of Hester's last name and thus her true identity in June 2023.
A plaque honoring Hester Leggatt is located at the Fortune Theater in London’s West End, where the London production of Mincemeat has played since March 2023. The plaque says, “For Hester, who served her nation” — just like a lyric in the show's song “Useful.”
Jak Malone plays Hester Leggatt in Operation Mincemeat.
John Bevan (1894-1978)
Colonel John Bevan managed the London Controlling Section, the department that oversaw all subterfuge operations during WWII. He greenlit Operation Mincemeat and presented the plan to Winston Churchill for approval — supposedly while the prime minister was in bed smoking a cigar.
Bevan also worked on Operation Bodyguard, which devised misdirection around the coast of Normandy to help the Allies successfully land there on D-Day in 1944. After the war ended, the Eton and Oxbridge-educated colonel worked as a stockbroker in his father’s company. If he was not necessarily “born to lead” (as his song in the musical goes), he was certainly brought up to do so!
Zoe Roberts plays John Bevan in Operation Mincemeat.
Ian Fleming (1908-1964)
Before he wrote the James Bond series, Ian Fleming really was a spy. As assistant to Rear Admiral John Godfrey, Britain’s director of naval intelligence, Fleming played a crucial role in drafting the Trout Memo, which laid the groundwork for Operation Mincemeat. In the musical, however, no one wants to listen to his ideas — especially not for his spy novels.
Zoe Roberts plays Ian Fleming in Operation Mincemeat.
William Martin (1909-1943)
Major William Martin’s real name was revealed in the mid-1990s. He was actually Glyndwr Michael, the son of a Welsh coal miner who had committed suicide. At the time of his own death, Glyndwr Michael was homeless and struggling with alcohol use. He might have committed suicide or accidentally eaten a rat poison-coated crust of bread out of hunger and desperation.
In 1997, he was finally buried with proper military honors over 50 years after playing a significant, if posthumous, part in Operation Mincemeat. No one plays Martin/Michael in the musical — the audience is meant to conjure him in their imaginations and stay curious about who he really was, not just who he was disguised to be.
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Photo credit: Operation Mincemeat on Broadway. (Photos by Julieta Cervantes)
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