The medical dimension of the operation required a separate set of participants. The need to find a suitable body was handled initially by Sir Bernard Spilsbury, the famous pathologist, who was consulted on the question of what condition a body would need to be in to be credible as someone who had died in a plane crash at sea. Spilsbury’s guidance was that a body in the sea for several days would show particular patterns of decomposition, and that these needed to match the cover story.
Major Sir William Bentley Purchase, the coroner for the St. Pancras district of London, was another key figure. Purchase was in a position to learn of deaths that met the operational requirements and had the professional authority to release a body for unusual purposes. It was through Purchase’s office that Glyndwr Michael eventually came to the operation’s attention.
D. GLYNDWR MICHAEL — THE FULLER BIOGRAPHY
Glyndwr Michael was born on January 4, 1909, in Aberbargoed, a mining town in Monmouthshire in South Wales. His birth name is spelled “Glyndŵr” in Welsh, with a circumflex over the w. He was the son of Thomas Michael, a miner, and Sarah Ann Michael.
The world he was born into was defined by coal. Monmouthshire and the surrounding valleys formed one of the most intensely industrialized regions of the United Kingdom, a landscape of deep mines, slag heaps, terraced houses, and Methodist chapels. The communities were tight-knit and class-conscious, shaped by the rhythms of the coal industry and the particular culture of the Welsh valleys.