Winston Churchill’s Secret Weapon

How Corkscrew Thinking Changed The World

Ewen Montagu was a British Naval Intelligence Officer during World War 2.

Like many Officers he attended a very conventional school, Westminster.

He went on to study at Cambridge, a very conventional University.

And before the War broke out, he worked as a barrister. A very conventional career.

But he was anything but conventional. And in 1943 he was given a problem that only someone with a mind like his could solve.

Winston Churchill knew the value of unconventional ideas. He called it Corkscrew Thinking. Creative problem-solving. Doing more with less.

It became his secret weapon.

The XX Committee was the home of Corkscrew Thinking during the War. This secret unit was given a tiny budget but unlimited power to trick the Germans.

If they were successful, all other Operations would work better. The Germans would be taken by surprise. The War would be over sooner.

Montagu was assigned as the Naval representative.

In early 1943 the Allies had just successfully taken North Africa. The next step was to cross into Europe.

Attacks could either be made into Italy or through the Balkans.

The ideal stepping-stone was Sicily. It would open the Mediterranean up to Allied shipping, allowing the invasion of continental Europe.

But there was a problem. That was obvious.

Churchill turned to his Generals and told them, “Everyone but a bloody fool would know that it’s Sicily next”.

Corkscrew Thinking was needed.

Montagu was handed the brief: persuade the Germans that Sicily wasn’t the target, even though it was.

Fake spy messages were too obvious. The Germans knew the British knew they were being intercepted. They would never believe it.

So were forged telegrams that would make it into the hands of the Germans. The choice was so strategically important that any details would be kept secure and guarded. The Germans would never believe the British would be so reckless.

He needed something more daring. More original. More detailed. Something the Germans couldn’t possibly believe was faked.

Montagu agonised over his task. Night after night he remained at his desk. Ideas came and went.

Then it hit him.

He needed a dead man’s body.

The body would pose as a drowned courier with a satchel chained to him. In his satchel would be two letters.

One, a personal note from one General to another, suggesting they try attacking Greece. The other, a note from one senior diplomat to another, suggesting they attack Sardinia next.

The letters didn’t say the same thing. That would be too obvious. But they said the only message that mattered: Sicily wasn’t next.

Montagu knew the Germans may think it too convenient that this information would just fall into their hands. So he chose to influence the Spanish, knowing the information would be passed on.

But a man doesn’t just drown with two sensitive letters. Again, too obvious. He needed a backstory.

Montagu came up with an identity. Major William Martin, a Naval Officer. Then he added some additional details. A photo of his fiancee and love letters that were folded and unfolded multiple times to suggest he read them frequently.

But this was still too perfect. War wasn’t.

Martin needed to be human and flawed.

Montagu added a note from Martin’s bank demanding that he re-pay his overdraft. And a Naval Identity Pass that was out of date.

He took the plan to the XX Committee. They gave it the codename “Operation Mincemeat”. Churchill approved it immediately.

On 17th April 1943 a suitable body was selected from a London morgue.

Montagu and his driver travelled the 400 miles from London to Greenock, Scotland where the submarine HMS Seraph was waiting.

HMS Seraph made the journey to Spain, around 200 miles from Gibraltar, near the town of Huelva.

The drop was timed so the tide would take the body to the shore.

The plan was executed perfectly. But would it work?

A Spanish fisherman found the body and handed it to the Spanish authorities.

Within days the body was examined by a coroner who concluded the man had been drowned. Montagu had added the detail of pumping sea water into the lungs to make this look like the cause of death.

The Spanish Government notified the British, who sent an urgent “confidential” request to the Spanish demanding they return the documents untampered. All part of Montagu’s plan.

He also knew that Joseph Goebbles, the German Minister of Propaganda, read The Times newspaper daily. So the death was announced, like any other, in the back pages.

The Spanish returned the documents one month later. Montagu saw the folds didn’t match. They had attempted to make it look like the documents hadn’t been tampered with.

The Spanish were lying. The information had been passed on.

News reached Hitler of the British plans. He believed them.

Troops were sent to Greece and Sardinia instead. Sicily’s importance was downgraded.

The deception had worked.

Churchill was informed. The note read, “Mincemeat swallowed rod, line and sinker.”

The attack on Sicily began days later. The Germans were stunned.

Sicily soon fell to the Allies. The Mediterranean sea lanes were opened for Allied ships for the first time since 1941.

Within months, Mussolini was toppled from power in Italy. Germany was forced to divert forces to Italy, weakening the forces on the Eastern Front.

The tide turned. The War was soon over.

Montagu was rewarded with an OBE. He went on to the reveal the details to the public in his 1953 book, “The Man Who Never Was”. It became an instant best-seller.

In a single day he changed the course of history, saving countless lives. He knew what he had to achieve. He knew who he had to persuade.

He didn’t need a big budget. He didn’t need a campaign that ran for months.

That’s Corkscrew Thinking.

Isn’t that the kind of creativity we should embrace?

When faced with a big problem, conventional logic is to give it a big budget to find the solution. Spend it or you’ll lose it.

Shouldn’t we try the opposite?

As Churchill put it, “Gentlemen, we have run out of money. Now we have to think”.

Thomas Cornwall is the Director of Behave. A new company that turns insights from behavioural science into innovations that improve bottom-line results.