Talk:William Martin (Royal Marines officer)

Incomplete

Nothing to indicate exactly what they did to the body -- military uniform, bogus papers in pockets, whatever else -- to fool the Germans. Jackmingo (talk) 08:06, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Are you aware of the link to Operation Mincemeat? Tommy Pinball (talk) 16:34, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

External links modified

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Known for a single event

If anybody is known for a single event, surely it is Michael. Unlike most other questions of interpretation of WP:ONEEVENT about whether someone qualifies for a separate article or not, one can safely say without fear of contradction that not a single thing Michael did during the entire course of his life qualifies under the WP:GNG for sufficient notability to merit an article. It is literally only his corpse and what happened to it which has notability. This raises a question about how this article should be entitled. See, for example, Sandra Bland. Mathglot (talk) 20:01, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Page move?

I would agree with the comments above; I would also suggest that it offends our policy on neutrality to state categorically that Glyndwr Michael was "The Man Who Never Was", when there is some doubt on the matter.
Therefore I suggest moving this article to "William Martin (Royal Marine officer)", who I suggest is notable ( both for his part in Operation Mincemeat and for the media coverage surrounding his identity), and re-focus it, adding some detail about "him", and about the alternate theories of his identity, to go with the Glyndwr Michael stuff. If there are no objections I will do this in a couple of weeks. Xyl 54 (talk) 23:33, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

OK, done (finally!) I trust everyone is OK with that, Xyl 54 (talk) 00:50, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Birth Year

The headstone quotation gives his birth year as 1907 but the article gives 1909. So either the headstone is wrong, it's a typo, or the birth year given in the article is wrong. Froglife94 (talk) 17:03, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Where does the article say 1909? And the headstone is correct; Martin's birth year (as shown on his identity card) was 1907. Xyl 54 (talk) 22:09, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Tom Martin

A problem with accepting the above named as the third candidate (after those surnamed Michael and Melville) for the "Man Who Never Was" is that no sailor called Thomas or Tom Martin is recorded as lost from H.M.S. Dasher by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, who, were his body never found for burial, would be listed as a "No Known Grave" case. No other vessels were involved as victims of the Dasher incident. The CWGC website lists 6 plain Thomas Martins from WWII but all have their ships accounted for. Any published source that names a Tom Martin as a victim of the incident is therefore likely to be wrong.Cloptonson (talk) 15:34, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Social services?

Homeless, friendless, depressed, and with no money, Michael drifted to London where he lived on the streets

This sparked my interest in the state of social services in London at the time. Was there nowhere he could go to for help? Have things improved today? Viriditas (talk) 23:01, 16 August 2024 (UTC)