English: The Hackney Mortuary played an important role in a British military operation during the Second World War (1939-1945), which helped save the lives of thousands of soldiers.

In April 1943 Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu CBE KC RNVR, a British Jew, and Flight Lieutenant Charles Cholmondely MBE, a British aristocrat, planned Operation Mincemeat to misdirect German forces' attention from the Allied invasion of Sicily. They brought the donated body of a man to the Hackney Mortuary where it stayed on ice for three months. Cholmondely and Montagu transformed the corpse into a fictitious officer - Major William Martin. The body was taken to Scotland, and then to a point off of southern Spain, where it was placed in the water carrying letters from senior Allied officers suggesting the Allies would invade Greece, not Sicily. When the body was found, the letters were shared with shared with Nazi intelligence, misdirecting German forces, saving thousands of British and American soldiers' lives during the invasion of Sicily.

"Set a watch before my mouth: and over the door of my lips"

יתפש Operation Mincemeat Marker image. Click for full size. By Jerry Klinger 2. Operation Mincemeat Marker לד לע הרצנ יפל הרמש הרהי התיש (Psalms 141:3)

Erected by Hackney Council, Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, Martin Sugarman (AJEX).