The identity constructed for that dead man was one of the more intricate confidence operations in the history of modern warfare. Major William Martin was not simply a name on a piece of paper. He was a full person, or as close to a full person as an identity built in a few months could be. He had a rank, an assignment, a personal history, a fiancée, financial troubles, a difficult relationship with his father, a social life, a favorite tailor, a favorite club, and a history of minor administrative carelessness that explained why his identification documents were less worn than they might have been.
Each of those details was a calculated answer to a specific problem. Each one would matter, potentially, in ways that the planners could not fully predict. The question of which would be scrutinized, and how, was something they could only guess.
B. WHY THE ALLIES NEEDED THE ENEMY TO LOOK ELSEWHERE
By the beginning of 1943, the Allied strategy in the Mediterranean had achieved significant results and was approaching its next major decision point.
The North African campaign had consumed nearly three years. General Bernard Montgomery’s Eighth Army and the American forces under General Dwight Eisenhower were pressing the Axis from east and west simultaneously. The final Axis surrender in Tunisia would come in May 1943, freeing roughly 250,000 German and Italian prisoners.
The question of what to do next was a strategic debate that had occupied the Allied command structure through 1942. An invasion of France was what Stalin demanded and what the American military planners generally preferred, but Churchill and the British chiefs argued, successfully, that a cross-Channel invasion before Allied resources and experience reached sufficient levels would be catastrophic. The Mediterranean offered an alternative: pressure on Mussolini’s Italy might bring it out of the war or at least divert German attention and forces from both the Eastern Front and Western Europe.