On Fleming’s role in the operation: it is worth being precise. Fleming drafted the original 1939 memo that contained the conceptual seed. He played no documented role in the planning or execution of Operation Mincemeat itself. The operation was Montagu’s and Cholmondeley’s. Fleming’s later fame as the creator of James Bond, and the natural appeal of linking a real spy operation to Bond’s creator, has led to some popular accounts overstating his involvement. The Trout Memo is real and important, but it is not the same as having run the operation.
D. THE REAL MAN BEHIND THE INVENTED OFFICER
His name was Glyndwr Michael. He was born on January 4, 1909, at 136 Commercial Street, Aberbargoed, Monmouthshire, Wales. His father, Thomas Michael, was a colliery haulier, a man who drove coal wagons in the Welsh mining industry. His mother, Sarah Ann Chadwick, was listed as illiterate on official documents.
The family lived in conditions of significant poverty, moving frequently through the Welsh mining communities of Monmouthshire. Glyndwr was the only child who remained close to his parents as he grew up.
His father’s life was difficult in ways that went beyond poverty. Thomas Michael attempted suicide in 1924, stabbing himself with a carving knife. He survived that attempt but died of pneumonia in a mental hospital on March 31, 1925, when Glyndwr was sixteen years old. The Dictionary of Welsh Biography, one of the most authoritative sources on Michael’s life, records these facts directly.
Glyndwr continued to live with his mother, Sarah, in the years that followed. He was found to be unfit for military service when the Second World War began, for reasons the record does not fully specify. He never married. He does not appear to have sustained long-term employment.