Fourteenth United States Army was a fictitious/
military deception
Military deception (MILDEC) is an attempt by a military unit to gain an advantage during warfare by misleading adversary decision makers into taking action or inaction that creates favorable conditions for the deceiving force. This is usually ac ...
field army
A field army (or numbered army or simply army) is a military formation in many armed forces, composed of two or more corps and may be subordinate to an army group. Likewise, air armies are equivalent formation within some air forces, and with ...
, under the command of
John P. Lucas
Major General John Porter Lucas (January 14, 1890 – December 24, 1949) was a senior officer of the United States Army who saw service in World War I and World War II. He is most remembered for being the commander of VI Corps during the Battle of ...
, developed under
Operation Quicksilver as a part of the fictitious
First United States Army Group
First United States Army Group (often abbreviated FUSAG) was a fictitious (paper command) Allied Army Group in World War II prior to D-Day, part of Operation Quicksilver, created to deceive the Germans about where the Allies would land in Fr ...
.
Alleged composition
As part of a psychological warfare campaign the Fourteenth Army was described by
Agent Garbo in a message sent to German intelligence around 24 August 1944 claiming that his source in the
ETO Services of Supply, who had a relative in the
US 48th Infantry Division had advised him of:
...a lot of curious things about the basis of the composition of this Fourteenth US Army; amongst them he said that in their ranks there were many convicts
A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". Convicts are often also known as "prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", while a common label for former convict ...
who were released from prisons in the United States to be enrolled in a foreign legion of the French or Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
type. It can almost be said that there are brigades composed of gangster
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from ''mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level of organization and ...
s and bloodthirsty
''Bloodthirsty'' (or ''The Bloodthirsty Trilogy'') is a 1970s Japanese vampire film trilogy produced by Toho Studio, consisting of three of their 1970s horror films: ''The Vampire Doll'', ''Lake of Dracula'' and ''Evil of Dracula''. While there i ...
men, specially selected to fight against the Japanese, men who are not supposed to take prisoners, but instead to administer a cruel justice at their own hands.
Order of battle
What follows is the order of battle for the Fourteenth Army at one point during
Operation Fortitude
Operation Fortitude was the code name for a World War II military deception employed by the Allied nations as part of an overall deception strategy (code named ''Bodyguard'') during the build-up to the 1944 Normandy landings. Fortitude was di ...
. The various
formations changed as the operation continued in order to mislead
Axis
An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to:
Mathematics
* Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis
* Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinat ...
intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can b ...
.
*
![14th Army](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/14th_Army.svg)
US 14th Army (Fictional—Little Waltham)
**
9th Airborne Division (Fictional—Leicester)
**
21st Airborne Division (Fictional—Fulbeck)
**
XXXIII Corps (Fictional—HQ Bury St Edmonds)
***
11th Infantry Division (Fictional—Bury St Edmonds)
***
48th Infantry Division (Fictional—Woodbridge)
***
25th Armored Division (Fictional—East Dereham)
**
XXXVII Corps (Fictional—HQ Chelmsford)
***
17th Infantry Division (Fictional—Hatfield & Peverel)
***
59th Infantry Division (Fictional—Ipswich)
References
Bibliography
*
*
{{Allied Military Deception in World War II
014 Army
14 Army