Also as coroner, Purchase provided a corpse in 1943 for use in Operation Mincemeat. The World War II special operation centered on the release in Spanish territorial waters of a body dressed in the uniform of a British marine officer-courier. The body was supposed to be carrying top-secret planning documents in preparation for Anglo-American operations in the Mediterranean Sea. As a counter-intelligence initiative, the operation pointed German military intelligence, the Abwehr, toward locations far away from the Allies' true target of Sicily. The German armed forces did not take steps to establish tactical air command over Sicily at the time of the Allies' amphibious assault, and Operation Mincemeat is said to have saved thousands of lives.