page_title: David Scott (Royal Navy officer)
section_title: Operation Mincemeat
hierarchical_section_title: David Scott (Royal Navy officer) / Operation Mincemeat
caption_attribution_description: English: HMS SERAPH arriving home at Portsmouth after 13 busy months. On the bridge, left to right: Lieutenant F G Harris, RNVR, of Sale, Cheshire; Lieutenant N L A Jewell, of Pinner, Middlesex, the Commanding Officer Warrant Engineer M M Stevenson, DSC, RN, of Glasgow, Scotland, the Engineer Officer; and Lieutenant W D Scott, RN, the First Lieutenant. Note the 20mm anti aircraft gun aft of the conning tower.
context_page_description: Rear-Admiral Sir David Scott, KBE, CB was an officer in the Royal Navy from 1937 to 1980. He was second in command and served as a first lieutenant aboard HMS Seraph during Operation Mincemeat. Scott served on ten submarines in peace and war, commanding five of them. Scott was a popular officer noted for his gentlemanly way with subordinates and his sharp sense of humour.
context_section_description: With lieutenant Bill Jewell in command, had not only a successful record in sinking shipping in dangerous Mediterranean waters but also a reputation for clandestine operations. It was Seraph that landed General Mark Clark on the Algerian coast for consultations with French authorities prior to the North African invasion, and smuggled General Giraud out of the South of France to join the Allies in Algiers. She made several supply drops for Italian partisans and survived many depth charge attacks, including one direct hit.
  But Operation Mincemeat in 1943 provided the most unconventional and dramatic story, indeed one that has featured in novel and film as The Man Who Never Was. Scott believed that a large canister embarked at Holy Loch in Scotland was "optical instruments", as marked, until, off the Spanish port of Huelva, it was revealed that it contained a body dressed as a major of Royal Marines. The body, of a man who had died of pneumonia, exhibited, Mincemeat’s planners were assured by the renowned pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury, exhibited all the characteristics of drowning. On it were carefully devised high-level documents purporting to show that the Allies were planning to invade Southern Europe through Greece, while holding Sardinia and Corsica.
  With Scott on the bridge and Jewell on the upper-deck casing with two officers to assist — the remainder of the crew being kept in ignorance — Seraph crept close inshore in the dark and launched this "courier" together with a half-inflated RAF life raft. The documents found their way to the Nazi Headquarters, altering their plans to reinforce Sicily, the true invasion point.
caption: First lieutenant Scott on HMS Seraph (centre with binoculars)
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