It must have gone something like this: a lone Luftwaffe reconnaissance flier flies at high altitude, challenging the air superiority the Allies have found over the Channel when it’s along the coast of southern England right where France is visible to the eye … naked he suddenly sees what he came to look for. Then he makes a wide circle, once, twice, and photographs at an angle with his massive lenses embedded in the belly of the cockpit.
Then, on the way back, when he unexpectedly discovers something safe, he communicates in encrypted form what he has seen: the Allies are gathering on the other side of the English Channel. The troops are concentrated near the Pas de Calais. Airplanes, tanks, landing craft, entire divisions. Maybe an entire army. They fell for it. They were on the”ghost army“. The message encrypted by the Enigma machines is reported to the Reichsgeneralstab. Meanwhile at Bletchley Park – where the Allies have been deciphering the code and spying on every transmission for years – it is confirmed: the Germans did not eat the sheet, Operation Fortitude can identify itself as look at success.
Operation Strength
Conceived to deceive the Germans, Operation Fortitude was part of a well-considered plan to conceal the choice of Normandy as the true landing sector for the invasion of Europe. The technique of visual deception added to the false information provided by a network of double agent spies or even “Spies that never existed“(like those created by Agent Garbo) led German military intelligence to believe that the Allies were concentrating the “bulk” of their expeditionary forces in south-east England. West of mere diversionary operations, double agents inserted detailed information into their reports, such as badges appearing on Uniforms of soldiers appeared, and signs of unity on vehicles of phantom divisions spotted by German reconnaissance.
In hindsight, one can certainly criticize the decisions of the German generals. But then any military planner – at least in advance of the landing and based on the reports provided by trusted spies like the agent Gracefulness – would have concluded that the invasion of Europe would have taken place in France and precisely in Calais. The point at which the distance from England was less but the coastal defenses of the Atlantic Wall more formidable. German intelligence, with the help of the Abwher, used the double agents’ reports to reconstruct the battle formation of the Allied forces that would come to Pas-de-Calais. Urging the command, and no less Adolf Hitler, to hold up to 15 divisions in reserve near Calais, even after the Normandy invasion had begun.
The “gang of miracles”, war actors and illusionists
It’s hard to admit, but if the first steps of the invasion of “Fortress Europe” were successful, it was because of wooden tanks, inflatable planes, fake ships, blinded mannequins of soldiers, and flying puppets. Among them, in the Phantom Army, were only 1,100 flesh-and-blood men 23rd Special Troops Division. The extraordinary architects of the real film set who fooled Adolf Hitler into losing a war.
Known as the Phantom Army, they were more than just soldiers, an eclectic and diverse group of uniformed actors, set designers, advertisers, engineers and sound technicians. Men and women who orchestrated some of the greatest deceptions in military history. Dozens of spectacular stagings, dozens of spectacular shows to celebrate the most basic of operations – false – as a prelude to delicate, real strategic moves in the eyes of the enemy. Misleading Artists. Moved from Normandy to the Rhine to fool Hitler’s generals one by one. Convincing them that the Allies would always be in places they never really were.
Capable of covert misdirection operations during the conflict, this tactical unit was a student of Jasper Maskelynethe English illusionist who commanded the Band of Miracles during the 1942 El Alamein campaign. When he managed to “move” the entire port of Alexandria a few miles in the eyes of the Germans, faithfully recreating it in mud and straw, to attract the German bombers, who made several empty raids while making sure that they had inflicted heavy casualties on the British.
The Weapons of Deception
Per Fortitude, part of the larger Operation Bodyguard, reproduced an entire fake army corps literally springing to life on the other side of the Calais Pass, where the Germans had always expected an invasion and where they had concentrated their efforts to fortify it Atlantic Wall. Thus was formed the FUSAG (First United States Army Group), which contained 50 fake divisions and half a million fake soldiers, brought to life by the talent of just over a thousand men.
there 603rd unit Responsible for camouflage (camouflage and camouflage, ed.) deployed thousands of inflatable rubber and canvas Sherman tanks, Willys, Dodge trucks, P-51 Mustang fighters, and Spitfires. While anchored in the harbors and docks, wooden landing craft were placed, held afloat by empty barrels emitting fictional steam from the chimneys to accentuate the illusion. Oil discs were intricately cast to simulate recent movements and maneuvers. Meanwhile, the 3123rd broadcast special transmissions from powerful speaker tapes simulating the roar of aircraft and tanks in training. Everything was registered Fort Knox In the USA.
In the wooden bases with canteens, ammunition depots and anti-aircraft positions, clothes were even hung on the racks to indicate real “signs of life”. Everyday life that must never be neglected in deception.
In the surrounding villages, local newspapers carried news about the difficult coexistence with military operations. Even fake insignia were designed for the wrong divisions of FUSAG. To complete the deception, the unit used real means according to prescribed schemes. The atmosphere was kept alive by real vehicles, such as canvas trucks, being driven in a circular path with only two live soldiers in the last seats to simulate infantry transports. Fighter planes took off and landed on the runways, scanning the inflatable squadrons. Real artillery batteries fired salvos to simulate target practice. The military police monitored the crossings and visits of the general staff, and even King George used them as bait for the duplicitous spies, who reported everything to the Nazi secret services. Thus Salmuth’s 15th Army is attested to remain near Calais and Normandy continued to be defended by a few ill-equipped troops. The D-Day only had to wait for the good weather, the brightening of June 5th gave the go-ahead, the next day would be “the longest day”.
The evening of the “premier”
The climax of the staging was reached on the night of D-Day when theoperation titanic It was brought to life by the launch of RAF aircraft paratrooper dummies, but that’s another story. A few weeks after the Normandy landings, the 23rd was sent to France to set up a fake Mulberry artificial port to attract and distract German artillery. then to simulate a further encirclement of the city of Brest, so that the garrison later surrendered. And so on, from the former Maginot Line to the Rhine and then at the end of the war. This “walking show”, which staged more than twenty battles close to the front lines with toys to entertain the children, saved countless lives. A number that it’s hard to imagine. “The enemy,” wrote General Omar Bradley, “… fell into our hands, victims of the greatest bluff of the whole war.”
The Fusag deception was such a success that even after the Allied bridgehead in Normandy had been consolidated, Hitler and the German General Staff continued to fear that the bulk of the (nonexistent) forces would end up at Calais. It would have been nothing less than that General Patton, deliberately kept out of the scene to lead the main landing. This was confirmed by the Allied-controlled German double agents. The one who responded to the codename Brutus reported: “I saw with my own eyes the group of Patton armies preparing to embark at the ports on the east and south coasts.” And he later claimed he heard General Patton say, “Now that the Normandy diversion is working so well, it’s time to start operations around Calais.”
The same simulations of pre-landing activities that preceded the Normandy invasion were recreated. Command operations aimed at sabotaging the most impregnable defensive positions. Fake jumps by paratroopers inland from Calais, targeted bombing raids on the piers, night lights to indicate embarkation, increased radio communications between fleets at sea and in the air.
The same secret agent Garbo, perhaps the best-known Nazi fake spy, shared: “I am delivering this message with the belief that the attack is underway [in Normandia] is a trap set to make us strategically reposition all our resources, which we later regret.” While Rommel week after week compensated a relentless and inexhaustible toolkit of the Allies, the General Staff, at Hitler’s orders, hesitated, to send the ill-fated armored divisions to drive the allies back into the sea and get them to do a second Dunquerke. A second Dieppe. The order did not arrive on time. The war thus took a definitive turn. The Allies, pushing sky, land and sea, filled the airwaves of the three points and a notch that Morse code changed each combat vehicle. That “tu tu tuuuuum”, the V he stood for victory.