The Mrs keeps saying that buying any more books is what she terms GFD (Grounds For Divorce) as both the Welsh and Greek Hovels are now jam packed with my books, her books, and the books of my late father and Aunty Cly. But I reckon that she is bluffing as I’m a pretty hot catch and so three more books arrived this week as you can see below.
Two of them, purchased from a seller of second hand books, are by Uncle Chris. I had lost my copy of Mad Officials so needed a replacement. Meanwhile Scared to Death lives in the Greek Hovel and so, as I do a bit more work on the global warming myth, I thought I should have a copy here. Incidentally not one person believing in the bogus religion has been able to answer the ice caps growing in the “warmest year on record” that was 2023 question posed HERE.
The other is the original book written on operation Mincemeat, back in 1953 by Ewen Montagu who was in charge of the operation. As I discussed HERE, the underpants put on the body were those of my great great uncle, HAL Fisher. My question is how did those underpants stay in storage for three years and end up travelling from Oxford to be put on the body. Thanks to my step sister ( and third cousin) the author Tallulah Ellender and my Aunt Lucy I am 99% sure that I know the answer. But am seeking to confirm this for sure and was hoping to find a name (not Fisher) in the book.
Sadly Montagu does not name the names of almost all of the folks involved in the operation as back in 1953 most of them were still involved in the world of Intelligence. But there is a local link which shows that British Intelligence still had some of the careless amateurism we see so often in Foyle’s War, even by 1943. In order to make the Krauts believe that the body of a tramp dumped by submarine to float onto a Spanish beach was a real officer William Martin, the body was loaded up with certain personal effects including a letter from his father.
The letter was sent from a now closed hotel just down the road from the Welsh Hovel, the Black Lion in Mold. After the body had been sent off towards Spain in a submarine, someone in Military Intelligence wondered what happened if German agents in Britain went to the Black Lion to check this out. So an agent headed up to Mold to add the name to the register of guests. But that register was in chronological order so the name was added at the bottom of a page well after the date on the letter. Had German spies headed up to Mold they might have smelled a rat. They did not.
It is a minor detail. More on the underpants to follow.
