Background
Michael was born in Aberbargoed in Wales and had had part-time jobs as a gardener and labourer. His father Thomas, a coal miner, committed suicide when Michael was fifteen years old. His mother later died when he was thirty-one.
Michael was born in Aberbargoed in Wales and had had part-time jobs as a gardener and labourer. His father Thomas, a coal miner, committed suicide when Michael was fifteen years old. His mother later died when he was thirty-one.
The invasion was a success, with Allied losses numbering several thousand fewer than would have been expected had the deception failed. Michael, homeless, friendless, depressed and with no money, drifted to London where he lived on the streets. He was found in an abandoned warehouse close to King"s Cross, seriously ill from ingesting rat poison that contained phosphorus.
Two days later, he died at age 34 in Saint Pancras Hospital.
This may have been suicide, although an alternative theory suggested he may have simply been desperately looking for something to eat, as the particular poison he ingested was a paste smeared on bread crusts to attract rats. After being ingested, phosphide reacts with hydrochloric acid in the stomach, generating phosphine, a highly toxic gas.
Bentley Purchase, coroner of Saint Pancras District, explained, "This dose was not sufficient to kill him outright, and its only effect was so to impair the functioning of the liver that he died a little time afterwards". When Purchase obtained Glyndwr"s body, it was identified as being in suitable condition for a man who would appear to have floated ashore several days after having died at sea by hypothermia and drowning.
Before Michael, finding a usable cadaver had been difficult, as indiscreet inquiries would cause talk, and it was impossible to tell a dead man"s next of kin what the body was wanted foreign
The dead man"s parents had died and no known relatives were foundation The body was released on the condition that the man"s real identity would never be revealed. Ewen Montagu later claimed the man died from pneumonia, and that the family had been contacted and permission obtained, but none of this was true.
On 30 April, Lieutenant
Norman Jewell, captain of the submarine Seraph, read the 39th Psalm and Michael"s body was gently pushed into the sea where the tide would bring it ashore off Huelva on the Spanish Atlantic coast. Michael"s body was picked up by a fisherman and he was buried as Major William Martin with full military honours. His grave lies in Huelva"s cemetery of Nuestra Senora, in the San Marco section.
The headstone, reads
The Latin phrase translates as "lieutenant is sweet and fitting to die for one"s country." In 1998, however, the British Government revealed the body"s true identity.
To the gravestone was added,
Glyndwr Michael. Served as Major William Martin, RM;
A plaque commemorating Glyndwr Michael is now also on the war memorial in Aberbargoed.
lieutenant is headed "Y Dyn Na Fu Erioed" (translation - "The Manitoba Who Never Was").