Historian identified 'Man Who Never Was' ?

Historian claims to have finally identified wartime 'Man Who Never Was' - Telegraph

In recent years, there have been repeated claims that Mincemeat's chief planner, Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu, was so intent on deceiving the Germans that he stole the body of a crew member from HMS Dasher, a Royal Navy aircraft carrier which exploded off the Scottish coast in March 1943, and lied to the dead man's relatives.

In 2003, a documentary based on 14 years of research by former police officer Colin Gibbon claimed that 'Major Martin' was Dasher sailor Tom Martin.

Then in 2004, official sanction appeared to be given to another candidate, Tom Martin's crewmate John Melville. At a memorial service on board the current HMS Dasher, a Royal Navy patrol vessel, off the coast of Cyprus, Lieutenant Commander Mark Hill named Mr Melville as Major Martin, describing him as "a man who most certainly was". Mr Melville's daughter, Isobel Mackay, later told The Scotsman newspaper: "I feel very honoured if my father saved 30,000 Allied lives."

However, Professor Denis Smyth, a historian at Toronto University, whose book Operation Mincemeat: Death, Deception and the Mediterranean D-Day is due to be published later this year, believes he has now finally laid to rest such "conspiracy theories".

During his research, he came across a "most secret" memo written by Commander Montagu, the significance of which appears to have been overlooked and which Professor Smyth says proves the body of Mr Michael, who was mentally ill and died after ingesting rat poison at the time the operation was being planned, was used. Mr Michael was first proposed as The Man Who Never Was by an amateur historian in 1996, but the evidence to support this failed to convince supporters of the Dasher theory.

 

William Martin (1907 - 1943) - Find A Grave Memorial

grave kai....

 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/Identity-of-WWIIs-man-who-never-was-cracked-at-last/articleshow/5408228.cms