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A Memorable History of Deception and Spy Capers

Khalid Elhassan June 7, 2020 34 min

Operation Mincemeat - World War II — Items recovered from Major Martin and his briefcase. BBC

5. Enter an Eccentric

Juan Pujol Garcia as a conscript in 1931. Wikimedia

The D-Day deception was helped greatly by one of history’s greatest espionage adventurers. Juan Pujol Garcia (1912 – 1988) was an eccentric Spaniard who wanted adventure and excitement, so he hoaxed the Nazis with fictional spying during WWII. The hoax grew into the greatest double-cross operation of the conflict and played a significant role in ensuring Allied victory on D-Day and in the subsequent Normandy Campaign.

Pujol hated fascists, and when WWII began, he decided to help the Allies “for the good of humanity”. However, when he offered his services to British intelligence, they declined. Pujol’s determination to get some wartime excitement did not lessen. He posed as a Nazi-sympathizing Spanish government officer, and offered his services to the Germans. They accepted, and ordered him to Britain, with instructions to recruit a spy network.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.