Johnny was most averse to this as he felt, rightly, I think, that if the Russians were given knowledge of the methods we employed, the danger of their becoming known to the enemy would be greatly increased. But his objections were over-ruled so, towards the end of the month, off to Moscow he went.

The sequel was of interest. He put it to the Russians that they would give great assistance to the success of OVERLORD if they could convince the enemy that they intended to launch a major offensive in the summer against Finland; as this would cause the Germans to reinforce the Finnish Front, and thus draw off reserves to the far north which, otherwise, might be sent against us in France.

In this the Russians did co-operate - and how! Instead of giving the sort of indications we employed in such cases - the concentration in the area of dummy tanks and aircraft, sending hundreds of empty lorries up to the front by day, when their movement could be registered by enemy recces, then withdrawing them during the night and sending them up again, day after day, this building up a skeleton army of “notional” forces - they actually massed ten real divisions there and launched an all-out attack against the Finns.

Naturally this served our purpose even better, but I have often wondered that lay at the bottom of the suggested threat developing into a genuine offensive. When we learned it, Johnny expressed very quiet satisfaction and explained it by saying that the Russian interpreter had not been very good; so probably the General to whom he said his piece could not have understood him properly.

Source: DW’s unpublished memoirs