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

Patton's phantom army

Insignia of the non-existent ‘FUSAG’, or First United States Army group

Click on the images to enlarge

One of the best known of these Deception Schemes today is that of how - with the help of double-agents and other means - the Allies convinced the Germans that the attack on the Normandy beaches was a feint, and that the real attack would be made further north on the Pas de Calais. DW described this as the ’main plank ‘ of the plan, and wrote of it as follows:

Now that we were well into the Spring, not only were we working like demons on implementing the innumerable subsidiary plans connected with BODYGUARD to deceive the enemy about the date and place of OPERATION OVERLORD. We also had to think ahead to a time when the Normandy landings had taken place, and endeavour to concert measures, the object of which was to prevent the enemy from rapidly reinforcing his divisions that would be endeavouring to drive the Allied back into the sea.

The main plank in our new plan was the creation of ‘apparently’ another great army in Kent making ready for a direct descent on the Pas de Calais, We had reason to think that the Germans supposed that to be the area in which our invasion force - which they were aware was being mustered - would attempt to land; so it was there that they had stationed the majority of their Armoured Divisions in the west. Our task was to lead them to believe that the Normandy landings were only a feint in great strength designed to draw their armour south, so that when we launched a second invasion in the neighbourhood of Calais-Boulogne, it could establish itself almost unopposed north of the Seine and drive straight on to Paris.

Neil Gordon Clarke had already created many so-called ‘notional’ Divisions, Corps H.Q. and so on; and, by way of Harold’s secret channels, knowledge of them was being conveyed to the enemy. Actually these fake formations consisted only of small bodies of men and vehicles, each with their own divisional signs. They, together with hundreds of dummy aircraft and gliders which were being assembled on specially-created airfields, were all concentrated on both sides of the Thames estuary, along the coast of which Fizzy Finter caused to be anchored hundreds dummy Landing Craft. By these means we enabled enemy reconnaissance planes to report that a most powerful Army was being mustered there in preparation for an invasion. This was further confirmed by an ever-increasing wireless traffic between these mock units. Meanwhile, every possible cover, including strict curtailment of communication by radio, was adopted to minimise the build-up in Hampshire of our real Expeditionary Force

The innovative use of radio to create fictitious traffic between the false units, the output of which could be monitored by the enemy, demonstrated how creative the planners were in utilising cutting-edge technology, and Wingate was later to describe it as follows:

The means at our disposal were considerable. There was camouflage, which can be used in two ways; not only to hide a valuable installation or concentration, but to simulate and installation or concentration. Then there is the use of wireless. Wireless messages are picked up by the enemy, for not even a regiment can function in warfare now without its wireless links, between its squadrons, and to the brigade, from the brigade to the division, from the division to the corps, from the corps to the army, from the army to the army group. From the study of the interception of these signals and their frequency, it is possible to build up what appears to be an accurate picture of the opponents’ order of battle. But this can be used in reverse. By sending out through a fabricated series of signals a series of what appear to be normal signals and replies, and simultaneously blotting out as far as possible the normal signals of the operational units, it is possible to produce in the enemy’s intelligence a completely false picture, not only of the forces operating, but of their location...

These were but two of the many ruses dreamed up to confuse the enemy, some more being described in later pages.

For a knowledgeable assessment on the extent to which these various ruses were successful, one need look no further than another assessment of Wingate’s:

By D+20 we have twenty-five [divisions in the beach-head], and the German appreciation was that we had twenty-seven to thirty-one, and that in England another sixty-seven major formations were standing to, of which fifty-seven at the very least could be employed for a large scale operation!

Of these sixty-seven reported and accepted divisions, forty-two did not exist.