B (21:31)
On the morning of April 30, 1943, a fisherman named Jose Antonio Ray Maria rode his little boat out into the rough waters of the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of Spain. Jose was a sardine spotter, which meant his job was to go out into the ocean and look down and try to find schools of sardines swimming about 20ft below the surface. And then he would flag the other Fishermen over who would scoop the fish up with their nets. And Jose was very good at his job. In fact, he was quite possibly the best sardine spotter in the whole village of Punta Umbria, which is a small fishing village in southwestern Spain, where Jose was from. But on this particular day, the weather wasn't quite great. The water was kind of murky and choppy, and so Jose wasn't seeing any sardines. But as Jose was starting to feel frustrated, he looked out, and on the surface of the water, pretty far away from him, he saw this strange object floating on the surface. And at first, he assumed it had to be maybe some dead sea animal that had floated to the surface. But as he stared at it from his boat that was rocking in the water, he saw between waves, there was a yellow color on this lump that just looked kind of unnatural. And so, feeling curious about whatever this was, Jose decided to start rowing over in that direction and get a better look. And as he got closer and closer, he realized that yellow color was unnatural. The yellow was part of a life jacket, which meant this was a person floating in the ocean. And so Jose, with his heart now racing, was thinking, oh, my gosh, I have to go save this person. And so he raced over right up alongside them. And as soon as he looked down, he realized it was obviously too late. This person was obviously deceased. It was a man who had a military trench coat on who was lying face down in the water. And so Jose reached into the water and rolled the guy over, and immediately he was hit with this horrible smell. And then he looked at the face of this dead person, and he was horrified. The guy's eyes were sunken into his skull. He had mold growing on his chin. You know, bones were exposed, and it almost looked like the dead guy's face was trapped in this kind of ghastly expression, as if the last thing he experienced was horrifying before he died. And then Jose noticed there was something else about this corpse. There was a chain wrapped around his wrist, and that chain extended deep into the water. And so Jose grabbed the chain and began reeling it back in. And eventually, he pulled out this big black briefcase that had a code on the top of it that you would need to enter in order to open it. Now, for context, at this time in Europe, World War II was raging from Britain to Russia. And so there were literally thousands of dead corpses scattered all over the world, basically around the areas where fighting was taking place. So at this time, finding a dead soldier floating out in the middle of the ocean was Actually, not that uncommon. But in Spain, where Jose was, this was uncommon because Spain had not entered World War II. They were a neutral country. And so because there was no fighting happening there, there should not have been any dead soldiers floating just off their coastline. And so Jose stared transfixed at this dead soldier in his briefcase for a couple more moments. And then he kind of broke out of it and turned and yelled to the other fishermen who were out there in another boat and tried to flag them over to help get this corpse out of the water. But the other fishermen, when they realized what Jose was asking them to do, they said, no, we're not helping you with that. We're not touching the dead body. And so Jose just grabbed the dead body with one arm and then awkwardly with his other arm, he managed to row this boat and drag along this corpse all the way back to the beach. And as he did, he and the other fishermen were kind of yelling back and forth at each other. It was kind of a commotion on the water. And so by the time Jose had got the corpse back to shore and dragged it up onto the sand, villagers in Punta Umbria had heard the commotion and come outside to see what was going on. And they saw Jose standing there with this dead body. And so they began forming a crowd around the body. And so nearby Spanish soldiers were doing a training exercise, and they saw this crowd gathering on the beach. And so a group of them walked over to see what was going on. They pushed through the crowd and they saw this dead body on the ground. And right away they began searching the dead body to figure out who it was. And when the Spanish soldiers found his identification papers, they learned that his name was William Martin and he was a major in the British Royal Marines. Also on these papers, it said that Major Martin was assigned to the Combined Operation Headquarters in London, which the Spanish soldiers knew was an outpost that organized commando raids on Nazi held territory under Major Martin's military trench coat. When the soldiers opened it up, they saw he was dressed in full kit, full battle gear, which suggested he had died during one of these commando raids. But after the Spanish soldiers had removed his gear, they couldn't find any shrapnel wounds or gunshot wounds. And so the running theory was, you know, he must have been flying over this area and maybe his plane was shot down, and that's why we can't figure out how he died. But the Spanish soldiers had not heard any reports of a plane being shot down right off the coast. And so really, they had no idea how Major Martin actually came to be here. Then one of the Spanish soldiers who was still searching Major Martin's pockets, found in one of them some crumpled papers and a photograph. And after he looked at them, he tapped on his commanding officer's shoulder and showed him. The photo was black and white, and it was this pretty young woman. And on the back of it, it was signed Pam. As for the crumpled papers that had been near this photo, they were Bill's. One was from a London nightclub from three nights earlier, and the other was a receipt for a diamond engagement ring. Now, these Spanish soldiers were not overly emotional, but they couldn't help but think how kind of sad it was that, you know, Major Martin obviously was in love with this woman, Pam, and they must have just gotten engaged, and now he's dead. It's like a tragic love story. And so the soldier who had found these bills and this photo folded them back up and tucked them back inside of Major Martin's pockets. And then the soldiers talked about what they should do next. Now, technically, because Spain was a neutral country, what they were supposed to do was turn this body back over to the British because he was a British soldier. But the Spanish government was run by a fascist dictator, Francisco Franco, who was not really neutral at all. He was actually secretly aligned with the Nazis. In fact, the Nazis leader, Adolf Hitler, had helped Franco come to power. And so now that he was in power, he regularly shared secrets with the Germans. And so when these Spanish soldiers eventually contacted their higher ups to ask what to do with this dead British soldier, their superiors told them, do not give Major Martin's body back to the British. Instead, bring his body to a nearby morgue where agents who worked for Franco would be able to inspect the body and open up that briefcase and see what was inside. And so these Spanish soldiers did as they were told. And when Franco's agents were able to finally pop open that black briefcase that was connected to Major Martin's wrist, they discovered inside three letters from leaders of the British military. And when Franco's agents read these letters, they knew right away they had discovered something incredible. And within days, these letters were sitting right on Adolf Hitler's desk.
