As discussed in the Introduction to this Room, DW was commissioned as a Pilot Officer, and after a general officer induction took up his new post on 31st December 1941.
He was to be part of a three man team reporting to Colonel Oliver Stanley, Chamberlain's former Secretary of State for War. The team was to form a supplement to Stanley's FOPS (Future Operations Planning Staff), and was intended to emulate the work on deception planning that Lieutenant-Colonel Dudley Clarke had done in the Middle East under General Wavell.
Because the Navy could not spare anyone at the time, the new team only consisted of two people; Lieutenant-Colonel Frtiz Lumby,the former Commandant of the Military Intelligence College at Matlock, and Pilot Officer Wheatley.
DW wrote ten papers on various subjects for Oliver Stanley over the next few months, of which the most important was probably a paper listing all the ways he could think of (49) by which false information could be conveyed to the enemy.
The department was however kept so secret that others were unaware of its existence - severely hampering its efficiency.
There was one occasion when DW had the pleasure of over-ruling a room full of top brass when they were discussing the deception plans for an operation in northern Madagascar (for DW's account, click here), but in the main, as DW put it, Lumby, capable as he was, sat doing his crossword puzzles and DW sat twiddling his thumbs
References : 'Stranger Than Fiction' Chapter 14.
'Drink and Ink' pp 223-225
The Deception Planners Chapters 1 - 4.
Phil Baker pp 414 - 418.
Craig Cabell Chapters 16 - 20.
Tina Rosenberg Chapter 5
