The Dennis Wheatley 'Museum' - Dennis Wheatley in World War II: a supplement

Operation Bodyguard – LCS ‘sells’ their proposals

The opening pages of LCS’
Deception Plan for the
Normandy landings,
as reproduced in DW’s
unpublished memoirs

Click on the image to enlarge

Like the plans for Operation TORCH, the plans for Operation Bodyguard were extremely complex, and involved different measures to be undertaken at different stages of the overall plan.

As is detailed in Room Eight DW was concerned that the plans to be submitted to the Chiefs of Staff for approval at the inception of the process were too long and complex, and were so hedged about with caveats that they might not be approved.

DW therefore persuaded Bevan to simplify the presentation, and to put all the contentious matters in an Appendix.

DW wrote that after he had spoken to Bevan, the final document ran to a mere three pages, to which were attached a five page annexe. A flavour of the paper’s brevity can be gained from the illustrations above.

While I have not come across this paper in The National Archives¹, DW reproduced it in full in the first version of his wartime memoirs, and it certainly lives up to his description in brevity.

As DW recorded, the brevity worked and the paper was approved without a murmur.

Note ¹: This does not of course necessarily mean that it is not there.