The Spanish naval officer most directly involved in the initial handling was Lieutenant Commander Julio Elvira Alvarez, the second-in-command of the Naval Command at Huelva. It was Elvira Alvarez who took formal custody of the documents, sealed the briefcase after initial examination, and proceeded to deal with the body and its possessions through official Spanish naval channels. The body was also examined by the local doctor, Eduardo del Corral, who provided a death certificate stating the cause of death as “asphyxiation due to immersion in the sea as a result of an aircraft accident.”
This was the Spanish medical establishment accepting, without extensive investigation, the cover story embedded in the body’s presentation. The doctor’s certificate was a crucial document. It meant that the body of Glyndwr Michael, a man who had died of phosphorus poisoning in a London hospital, was officially recorded in Spain as having died by drowning in an aircraft crash. The forensic reality was submerged, literally and figuratively, by the operational necessity of the deception.
The British consul in Huelva, Francis Haselden, was informed of the body’s discovery. Haselden was in contact with British authorities and sent a telegram to London reporting that a body had been found. This was the ordinary consular response to the death of a British subject in Spanish waters. But it also served the operational purpose of establishing, through official channels, that British authorities were aware of the discovery and were treating it as the death of an officer who had been on a mission.