Friday, April 30, 1943. Operation Mincemeat

The body of "Major Martin", a fictional British Major carrying fictional papers, was released from the British submarine HMS Seraph off of Spain.  In reality, the body was that of Glyndwr Michael, a vagrant who had died from eating rat poison.

The operation, known as Operation Mincemeat, was designed to deceive the Axis on plans for the invasion of Sicily, and was highly successful.

The US took Hill 609 in Tunisia.

The Bermuda Conference concluded.  The topic of the conference between the US and UK, which had commenced on April 19, was Jewish refugees who had been liberated by the Allies, and the remaining Jews in Axis controlled territory.  No substantial agreement on what to do was reached, other than to win the war, US immigration quotas would not be raised, and the British would not lift the prohibition on Jewish refugees going to Palestine.

Participants in the conference.

Thursday, January 28, 1943. Glyndwr Michael.

Glyndwr Michael, age 34, died.  The homeless Welsh man's body would be used in Operation Mincemeat, in which he was set adrift off of Spain with a fictional British Army identify carrying invasion plans for Sardinia. The Sardinian operation was a deception for the anticipated invasion of Sicily.

Michael's true identity would not be revealed for 55 years, something typical of the British mania for secrecy.

His tomb, baring honors, is in Spain.

The recent movie on this matter, Operation Mincemeat, is excellent, and does a superb job of depicting the events of Operation Mincemeat from beginning to end, including selecting Michael's body.  This is the first references to the film here, but it's a very good film in all respects.

Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson announced the US would "ease restrictions on Americans of Japanese ancestry and employ loyal ones in war work", meaning the U.S. would form a Japanese American Army unit.  In fact, the US was already employing some Japanese American servicemen as interpreters, but this paved the way to wider use of Japanese American volunteers 

The Japanese submarine I-65 shelled Port Gregory, Western Australia, to no effect.