Lumby was transferred to other duties in May 1942*, and there was a significant re-organisation. The section ceased to be part of FOPS, and on 1st June Lieutenant-Colonel J.H. ('Johnny') Bevan, became the head of the London Controlling Section.
An MC from World War I, Bevan was well connected. He was an old Etonian, a scion of an important stockbroking family (his father had been Chairman of the London Stock Exchange), and he was married to the daughter of the then Lord Lucan. He had given personal briefings to Churchill in World War I, and was on cordial terms with General Sir Alan Brooke, the Chief of Imperial General Staff, with whom he shared a passion for birdwatching.
Bevan quickly saw then his two man team (at this stage it was just DW and himself) was ineffectual. He had the Chiefs of Staff issue a directive setting out the section's powers and authority, and moved them down from their palatial rooms in the Cabinet Office into the basement war rooms.
He polished up DW's paper on means of carrying out deception - which was now entitled 'The Implementation of Military Deception', and they jointly wrote a couple of papers.
The turning point for the Section came in July 1942 when the Chiefs of Staff instructed Bevan to start creating cover plans for an invasion of North Africa to take place in the autumn - codenamed operation Torch.
* and died in a plane crash later in the war
References : 'Stranger Than Fiction' Chapter14 (a very brief account of DW's activities between 1942 & 1944).
The Deception Planners Chapter 5
Phil Baker pp 418 - 419.
Craig Cabell Chapters 20-31.
Tina Rosenberg Chapter 6
