Glyndwr Michael

Glyndwr Michael (January 4, 1909 - January 24, 1943 ) was an illiterate homeless man, born in Aberbargoed in Wales. His father, a coal miner, died when Glyndwr was fifteen years old. His mother later died when he was thirty-one. Glyndwr, homeless, friendless and with no money, drifted to London, where he lived on the streets. He died three years after his mother, when he was found in an abandoned warehouse close to King's Cross, after committing suicide by eating rat poison. Little is known of his life.

Glyndwr's body was used in a significant military deception plan during World War II, where it was made to appear like that of an officer killed in action whilst in possession of intelligence documents, for the purposes of tricking the German High Command into thinking that the Allied forces were planning on invading Greece, when in fact Sicily was the actual objective. The plan was a success, the invasion accomplished with Allied losses numbering several thousand fewer than would have been expected had the plan failed.

Glyndwr's body, after it was picked up by a fisherman off the Spanish Mediterrannean coast, was buried with full military honours in Spain, with the tombstone naming William Martin, the false alias used on the identification documents planted on the body by British intelligence. In 1998, however, the British Government revealed the body's true identity. The gravestone now reads, "Glyndwr Michael; Served as Major William Martin, RM; Dulce et Decorum est pro Patria Mori".