Charles Cholmondeley (intelligence officer)

Flight Lieutenant Charles Christopher Cholmondeley^[a] MBE RAFVR (27 January 1917 – 15 June 1982) was a British intelligence officer known for his leading role in Operation Mincemeat, a critical military deception operation which misdirected German forces' attention away from the Allied invasion of Sicily in Operation Husky.^[2]

Cholmondeley (left) and Montagu in 1943

Early life and education

Cholmondeley was born on 27 January 1917 in O'Halloran Hill, South Australia, the son of Richard Vernon Cholmondeley and Hilda Georgina Cholmondeley (née Naylor).^[3][4] His older sister, Victoria Milicent Cholmondeley, would go on to become a pilot with the Air Transport Auxiliary.^[5]

He attended Canford School in Dorset, where he went on naturalist expeditions with the Public Schools Exploring Society. Cholmondeley studied Geography at the University of Oxford.^[6]

Military service

After joining the Officers' Training Corps, he unsuccessfully applied to the Sudan Service, and was later commissioned pilot officer in November 1939. However, he had such poor eyesight that he never was allowed to actually fly a plane.^[6]

During the Second World War he served as a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force (RAF) who had been seconded to MI5, Britain's domestic counter-intelligence and security service. He had been appointed as the secretary of the Twenty Committee, a small inter-service, inter-departmental intelligence team in charge of double agents.^[7]

In November 1942, the Twenty Committee turned down Cholmondeley's Operation Mincemeat plan as being unworkable, but thought there may have been some potential in the idea. As there was a naval connection to the plan, Ewen Montagu, the naval representative, was assigned to work with Cholmondeley to develop the plan further.^[8][9] As part of his duties Montagu had been briefed on the need for deception operations to aid the Allied war aims in a forthcoming invasion operation in the Mediterranean.^[9]

He was awarded the Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1944.^[10]

In October 1945, Cholmondeley moved to the Middle East, where he was put to work exterminating locusts as part of the 'Middle East Anti-Locust Unit.' In 1949, he transferred to the International Council for the Control of the Red Locust in Rhodesia. Historian Ben Macintyre, author of the book Operation Mincemeat, speculated that this was a cover story for a more classified operation, as he was still employed by the British Secret Service during this time.^[11]

In 1950, Cholmondeley signed up for a five-year intelligence assignment with the Royal Air Force. He travelled to Malaya to coordinate deception against the Malayan National Liberation Army during the Malayan Emergency. However, he only completed two years of this assignment.^[11]

Later life and death

Cholmondeley left MI5 in 1952 at the age of 35, and shortly after he moved to the West Country and started a business selling horticultural equipment.^[11]

He eventually married Alison Margaret Gardiner on 4 July 1964.^[12][11] The pair had three children: Richard (d. 1987),^[13] Elizabeth and Thomas.^[14][15]

He remained secretive about his intelligence work for the rest of his life.

"He would not give information to anyone who did not 'need to know.' Infuriatingly I found this included me."

— Alison Cholmondeley, about her husband^[11]

Cholmondeley died 15 June 1982; Montagu wrote an obituary that was published in The Times.^[16]

In popular culture

• In the 2021 British war drama Operation Mincemeat, Cholmondeley is played by Matthew Macfadyen.
• Cholmondeley has also been portrayed by David Cumming,^[17] Seán Carey, Peter McGovern, George Jennings, Christian Andrews, Jonty Peach, Brandon Contreras and Sam Hartley in the stage musical Operation Mincemeat.^{[citation needed][18]}