What happened May 1943 AD

At midday on 1 May an autopsy was undertaken on Michael's body; Haselden was present and – in order to minimise the possibilities that the two Spanish doctors identified that the body was a three-month-old corpse – Haselden asked if, in the heat of the day and smell of the corpse, the doctors should bring the post mortem to a close and have lunch.

On 5 May, the briefcase was passed to the naval headquarters at San Fernando near Cadiz, for forwarding to Madrid.

De Gaulle moved his headquarters to Algiers in May 1943, leaving Britain to be on French territory. He became the first joint head.

On 11 May the briefcase, complete with the documents, was returned to Haselden by the Spanish authorities; he forwarded it to London in the diplomatic bag.

Churchill met Roosevelt at the third Washington Conference (codename Trident) in May.

On 14 May 1943 Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz met Hitler to discuss Dönitz's recent visit to Italy, his meeting with the Italian leader Benito Mussolini and the progress of the war.

German operations in the Atlantic also suffered. By May 1943, as Allied counter-measures became increasingly effective, the resulting sizeable German submarine losses forced a temporary halt of the German Atlantic naval campaign.