Operation Bodyguard was the code name for a
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
deception
Deception or falsehood is an act or statement that misleads, hides the truth, or promotes a belief, concept, or idea that is not true. It is often done for personal gain or advantage. Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda and sleight o ...
strategy employed by the
Allied states before the 1944 invasion of northwest Europe. Bodyguard set out an overall stratagem for misleading the
Oberkommando der Wehrmacht as to the time and place of the invasion. Planning for Bodyguard was started in 1943 by the
London Controlling Section, a department of the war cabinet. They produced a draft strategy, referred to as Plan Jael, which was presented to leaders at the
Tehran Conference
The Tehran Conference (codenamed Eureka) was a strategy meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943, after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. It was held in the Soviet Union's embassy i ...
in late November and, despite scepticism due to the failure of earlier deception strategy, approved on 6 December 1943.
Bodyguard was a strategy under which all deception planners would operate. The overall aim was to lead the Germans to believe that an invasion of northwest Europe would come later than was planned and to expect attacks elsewhere, including the
Pas-de-Calais
Pas-de-Calais (, " strait of Calais"; pcd, Pas-Calés; also nl, Nauw van Kales) is a department in northern France named after the French designation of the Strait of Dover, which it borders. It has the most communes of all the departments ...
, the
Balkans
The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
, southern
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
,
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
and Soviet attacks in
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...
and northern Norway. The key part of the strategy was to attempt to hide the amount of troop buildup in Southern England, by developing threats across the European theatre, and to emphasise an Allied focus on major bombing campaigns.
The main stratagem was not an operational approach; instead it set out the overall themes for each subordinate operation to support. Deception planners in England and Cairo developed a number of operational implementations (of which the most significant was
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 ...
which developed a threat to
Pas-de-Calais
Pas-de-Calais (, " strait of Calais"; pcd, Pas-Calés; also nl, Nauw van Kales) is a department in northern France named after the French designation of the Strait of Dover, which it borders. It has the most communes of all the departments ...
).
In June 1944 the Allied forces successfully landed and established a beachhead in Normandy. Later evidence demonstrated that German intelligence had believed significant parts of the deceptions, particularly the order of battle of the armies in Southern England. Following the invasion, Hitler delayed redeploying forces from Calais and other regions to defend Normandy for nearly seven weeks (the original plan had specified 14 days). Evidence suggests that the threat against Pas-de-Calais, and to a lesser extent Norway and Southern Europe, contributed to this decision.
Background
![Map of Operation Bodyguard subordinate plans](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Map_of_Operation_Bodyguard_subordinate_plans.png)
During World War II, prior to ''Bodyguard'', the Allies made extensive use of deception and developed many new techniques and theories. The main protagonists at this time were
'A' Force, set up in 1940 under
Dudley Clarke
Brigadier Dudley Wrangel Clarke, ( – ) was an officer in the British Army, known as a pioneer of military deception operations during the Second World War. His ideas for combining fictional orders of battle, visual deception and double ...
, and the London Controlling Section, chartered in 1942 under the control of
John Bevan.
[Latimer (2004), pp. 148–149][Cruickshank (2004)] German coastal defences were stretched thin in 1944, as they prepared to defend all of the coast of northwest Europe. The Allies had already employed deception operations against the Germans, aided by the capture of all of the German agents in the United Kingdom and the systematic decryption of German
Enigma
Enigma may refer to:
*Riddle, someone or something that is mysterious or puzzling
Biology
*ENIGMA, a class of gene in the LIM domain
Computing and technology
* Enigma (company), a New York-based data-technology startup
* Enigma machine, a family ...
communications. Once Normandy had been chosen as the site of the invasion, it was decided to attempt to deceive the Germans into thinking it was a diversion and that the true invasion was to be elsewhere.
At that stage of the war, Allied and German intelligence operations were heavily mismatched. Through the signals work at
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...
, many of the German lines of communication were compromised since intercepts, codenamed
Ultra
adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park. '' ...
, gave the Allies insights into how effectively their deceptions were operating. In Europe, the Allies had good intelligence from resistance movements and aerial reconnaissance. By comparison, most of the German spies sent into Britain had been caught or had handed themselves in and turned into
double agent
In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organi ...
s (under the
XX System). Some of the compromised agents were so trusted that by 1944, German intelligence had stopped sending new infiltrators. Within the German command structure internal politics, suspicion and mismanagement meant intelligence gathering had only limited effectiveness.
[Latimer (2001), pp. 207–208][Holt (2004)]
By 1943, Hitler was defending the entire western coast of Europe, with no clear knowledge of where an Allied invasion might land. His tactic was to defend the entire length and to rely on reinforcements to respond to any landings quickly. In France the Germans deployed two
Army Group
An army group is a military organization consisting of several field armies, which is self-sufficient for indefinite periods. It is usually responsible for a particular geographic area. An army group is the largest field organization handled by ...
s. One of them,
Army Group B
Army Group B (German: ') was the title of three German Army Groups that saw action during World War II.
Operational history
Army Group B first took part in the Battle of France in 1940 in Belgium and the Netherlands.
The second formation of ...
, was deployed to protect the coastline; the Fifteenth Army covering the Pas-de-Calais region and the Seventh Army in Normandy.
[Latimer 2001, pg 206] Following a decision to defer the invasion,
Operation Overlord
Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allies of World War II, Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Front (World War II), Western Europe during World War II. The operat ...
, until 1944, the Allies conducted a series of deceptions intended to threaten invasion in Norway and France. Bodyguard was preceded in late 1943 by
Operation Cockade
Operation Cockade was a series of deception operations designed to alleviate German pressure on Allied operations in Sicily and on the Soviets on the Eastern Front by feinting various attacks into Western Europe during World War II. The Allies h ...
, which was intended to confuse the German high command as to Allied intentions and to draw them into air battles across the Channel. In that respect, Cockade was not a success, with German forces barely responding even as a fake invasion force crossed the channel and turned back some distance from its "target".
[Holt 2004, pp. 478–480]
Plan Jael
Planning for ''Bodyguard'' began even before Operation Cockade was fully under way, following the decision that Normandy would be the site of the coming invasion. The departments responsible for deception, 'A' Force, COSSAC's
Ops (B) Ops (B) was an Allied military deception planning department, based in the United Kingdom, during the Second World War. It was set up under Colonel Jervis-Read in April 1943 as a department of Chief of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (COSSAC) ...
and the London Controlling Section, began to address the problem of achieving tactical surprise for ''Overlord''. They produced a paper, entitled "First Thoughts", on 14 July 1943 that outlined many of the concepts that would later form the ''Bodyguard'' plan. However, since ''Cockade'' concluded with limited success, most of the Allied high command were sceptical that any new deception would work.
[Holt 2004, pp. 494–496][
In August, Colonel John Henry Bevan, head of the London Controlling Section, presented a draft plan. Codenamed ]Jael
Jael or Yael ( he, יָעֵל ''Yāʿēl'') is the name of the heroine who delivered Israel from the army of King Jabin of Canaan in the Book of Judges of the Hebrew Bible. After Barak demurred at the behest of the prophetess Deborah, God turned ...
, a reference to the Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
heroine who killed an enemy commander by deception, it would have attempted to deceive the Germans into thinking that the Allies had delayed the invasion for a further year but instead concentrated on the Balkan theatre and on air bombardment of Germany through 1944. The plan had a mixed reception in the Allied High command, and in October, a decision on the draft was deferred until after the Tehran Conference
The Tehran Conference (codenamed Eureka) was a strategy meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943, after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. It was held in the Soviet Union's embassy i ...
, a month later.[Crowdy 2008, pp. 226–228]
Meanwhile, COSSAC had been working on its own deception strategy, "Appendix Y" of Operation Overlord plan. The plan, also known as Torrent, had originated in early September at COSSAC and started life as a feint invasion of the Calais region shortly before D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...
and eventually, after the failure of a similar scheme during ''Cockade'', transformed into a plan to divert attention from troops building up in the south-west of England.[Holt 2004, pp. 502–503] The early ideas, which later became Operation Bodyguard, recognised that the Germans would expect an invasion. Instead, the core of the plan suggested misleading the Germans as to the exact time and location of the invasion and keeping them on the back foot once it had landed.[
In November and December 1943, the Allied leaders met twice, first in Cairo (23–27 November) and then in Tehran (28 November–1 December), to decide on strategy for the following year. Bevan attended the conference and received his final orders on 6 December. Furnished with the final details of ''Overlord'', Bevan returned to London to complete the draft. The deception strategy, now codenamed ''Bodyguard'', was approved on Christmas Day 1943. The new name had been chosen based on a comment by ]Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...
to Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
at the Tehran Conference: "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies".[Holt 2004, pp. 504–505][Cave Brown 1975, pp. 1–10]
Early 1944 planning
Operation Bodyguard aimed to deceive the enemy as to the timing, weight and direction of the prospective Allied invasion in France. It had three main goals: to make the Pas-de-Calais appear to be the main invasion target, to mask the actual date and time of the assault and to keep German reinforcements in Pas-de-Calais (and other parts of Europe) for at least 14 days after landing.[
''Bodyguard'' set out a detailed scenario that the deceivers would attempt to "sell" to the Germans. It included Allied belief in air bombardment as an effective way of winning the war, with the 1944 focus on building bomber fleets. It then specified invasions across the entire European coastline: in Norway, France and the Mediterranean. In January, planners began to fill in the details of ''Bodyguard'', producing the various sub-operations to cover each of the invasions and misdirection.][Crowdy 2008, pp. 229–230]
The task fell to two main departments. 'A' Force, under Dudley Clarke, which had been successful early on, once again took charge of the Mediterranean region. In Europe, however, responsibility shifted away from the LCS, which took on a coordination role. Prior to Dwight Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
's appointment as Supreme Commander, all planning for ''Overlord'' fell to the Chief of Staff to the Supreme Commander Allied Forces (COSSAC), Frederick E. Morgan
Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Edgworth Morgan, (5 February 1894 – 19 March 1967) was a senior officer of the British Army who fought in both world wars. He is best known as the chief of staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (COSSAC), the ...
. Under his regime, the deception department, Ops (B), had received limited resources and left most of the planning so far to the London Controlling section. With Eisenhower's arrival, Ops (B) expanded and Dudley Clarke's deputy from 'A' Force, Noel Wild
Colonel Harry Noel Havelock Wild OBE (born 10 November 1903;''Daily Telegraph'' obituary, page 23, 14 June 1995 usually referred to as Noel Wild) was a British Army officer during the Second World War. He is notable for being second in command ...
, was placed in control. With the new resources, the department put together the largest single segment of ''Bodyguard'', 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 ...
.[
]
Western Front
''Bodyguard'' focused on obfuscating the impending Normandy landings, planned for spring/summer 1944, and so the main effort was focused around the Western front. The planners created Fortitude, building on elements of the earlier Cockade, which encapsulated an entire fictional Allied invasion plan against targets in France and Norway. Its main undertaking was, through the various deception techniques, to overstate the size of the Allied forces in Britain through early 1944, enabling them to threaten multiple targets at once.
Operation Fortitude
Under the Fortitude "story", the Allies intended to invade both Norway and Pas-de-Calais. Using similar techniques to the 1943 Cockade operation (fictional field armies
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 ...
, faked operations, and false "leaked" information) the intention was to increase the apparent size of the Allied forces to make such a large-scale attack seem possible. To allow the plan to stay manageable it was divided into two main sections, each with numerous sub-plans; Fortitude North and South.
Fortitude North was aimed at German forces in Scandinavia and based around the fictional British Fourth Army
The Fourth Army was a field army that formed part of the British Expeditionary Force during the First World War. The Fourth Army was formed on 5 February 1916 under the command of General Sir Henry Rawlinson to carry out the main British contribu ...
, based in Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
. The Fourth Army had first been activated the previous year, as part of Cockade to threaten Norway and tie down the enemy divisions stationed there. The Allies created the illusion of the army via fake radio traffic ( Operation Skye) and leaks through double agents.[Holt 2004, pp. 486][Cave Brown 1975, pp. 464–466]
Fortitude South employed similar deception in the south of England, threatening an invasion at Pas-de-Calais by the fictional 1st U.S. Army Group ( FUSAG) led by U.S. General George Patton. France was the crux of the ''Bodyguard'' plan: with Calais as the most logical choice for an invasion, the Allied high command had to mislead the German defences in a very small geographical area. The Pas-de-Calais offered advantages over the chosen invasion site, such as the shortest crossing of the English Channel
The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...
and the quickest route into Germany. Having a high regard for Patton, German command, particularly Rommel
Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel () (15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944) was a German field marshal during World War II. Popularly known as the Desert Fox (, ), he served in the ''Wehrmacht'' (armed forces) of Nazi Germany, as well as servi ...
, took steps to heavily fortify that area of coastline. The Allies decided to amplify this belief of a Calais landing.[Latimer 2001, pp. 218–232]
General Bernard Montgomery
Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, (; 17 November 1887 – 24 March 1976), nicknamed "Monty", was a senior British Army officer who served in the First World War, the Irish War of Independence and t ...
, commanding the Allied landing forces, knew that the crucial aspect of any invasion was the ability to grow a beachhead into a full front. He also had only limited divisions at his command, 37 compared to around 60 German formations. Fortitude South's main aims were to give the impression of a much larger invasion force (the FUSAG) in the South-East of England, to achieve tactical surprise in the Normandy landings and, once the invasion had occurred, to mislead the Germans into thinking it was a diversionary tactic with Calais the real objective.
Operation Ironside
While Fortitude represented the major thrust of ''Bodyguard'' in support of the Normandy landings, several smaller plans added to the overall picture of confusion. On the Western Front, the largest of them was Operation Ironside. Intercepted communications during January 1944 indicated German high command feared the possibility of landings along the Bay of Biscay
The Bay of Biscay (), known in Spain as the Gulf of Biscay ( es, Golfo de Vizcaya, eu, Bizkaiko Golkoa), and in France and some border regions as the Gulf of Gascony (french: Golfe de Gascogne, oc, Golf de Gasconha, br, Pleg-mor Gwaskogn), ...
, particularly near Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...
. The next month, it ordered anti-invasion exercises to be carried out in the region. To play on those fears, the Allies instigated Operation Ironside.[
The plot for Ironside was that two divisions sailing from the United Kingdom would land on the ]Garonne
The Garonne (, also , ; Occitan, Catalan, Basque, and es, Garona, ; la, Garumna
or ) is a river of southwest France and northern Spain. It flows from the central Spanish Pyrenees to the Gironde estuary at the French port of Bordeaux – a ...
estuary ten days after D-Day. After a beachhead had been established, a further six divisions would arrive directly from the United States. The force would then capture Bordeaux before it linked up with the supposed Operation Vendetta another deception operation, forces in the south of France.[
Ironside was implemented entirely via double agents: "]Tate
Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...
", "Bronx" and " Garbo".[ The Twenty Committee, in charge of anti-espionage and deception operations of British military intelligence, feared the plausibility of the story and so did not promote it too heavily through their agents. Messages sent to their German handlers included elements of uncertainty.][ That, combined with the fact that Bordeaux was an implausible target (the landing site was far outside the range of fighter cover from the United Kingdom), meant that the Germans took very little notice of the rumours and even went as far as to identify it as a probable deception. However, the Abwehr continued to send questions to their agents related to the landings until early June, and after D-Day, the Germans continued to maintain a state of readiness in the region.][
]
Political pressure
One recurring theme for ''Bodyguard'' was the use of political deception. Bevan had concerns over the impact that physical and wireless deception could have. In early 1944, he proposed a wholly political ploy, Operation Graffham, as a way to bolster elements of ''Bodyguard''.[ Ronald Wingate extended those ideas to create the larger Operation Royal Flush a few months later.][
Despite not gaining much traction with the targeted governments, Graffham still influenced the thinking of German commanders and pushed them towards accepting other aspects of ''Bodyguard''.][
Royal Flush was, however, less successful, with a report by the Abwehr identifying the targeted countries as "outspoken deception centres". It was the last political overture attempted as part of ''Bodyguard''.][
]
Operation Graffham
Graffham's political target was Sweden, and its main aim was to support the goals of Fortitude North. It was intended to imply that the Allies were building political ties with Sweden in preparation for an upcoming invasion of Norway. The operation involved meetings between several British and Swedish officials as well as the purchase of Norwegian securities and the use of the Double-Cross System
The Double-Cross System or XX System was a World War II counter-espionage and deception operation of the British Security Service (a civilian organisation usually referred to by its cover title MI5). Nazi agents in Britain – real and false – w ...
to spread false rumours. Sweden maintained a neutral stance during the war, and if its government believed in an imminent Allied invasion of Norway, that would filter through to German intelligence.[Sexton 1983, p. 112]
Planning for the operation began in February 1944, Bevan was concerned that Fortitude North was not sufficient in creating a threat against Norway and so he proposed Graffham as an additional measure. In contrast to the other aspects of ''Bodyguard'', the operation was planned and executed by the British, with no American involvement.[
Graffham was envisioned as an extension of existing pressure the Allies were placing on Sweden to end its neutral stance, one example being the requests to end the export of ]ball bearing
A ball bearing is a type of rolling-element bearing that uses balls to maintain the separation between the bearing races.
The purpose of a ball bearing is to reduce rotational friction and support radial and axial loads. It achieves this ...
s, an important component in military hardware, to Germany. By increasing that pressure with additional false requests, Bevan hoped to convince the Germans further that Sweden was preparing to join the Allies.[
The impact of Graffham was minimal. The Swedish government agreed to few of the concessions requested during the meetings, and few high-level officials were convinced that the Allies would invade Norway. Overall, the influence of Graffham and Fortitude North on German strategy in Scandinavia is disputed.][
]
Operation Royal Flush
''Royal Flush'' was proposed and planned by the LCS's Ronald Wingate
Sir Ronald Evelyn Leslie Wingate, 2nd Baronet, (30 September 1889 – 31 August 1978) was a British colonial administrator, soldier and author. Wingate was born in 1889 in Kensington, London, and educated at Bradfield College and Balliol Colleg ...
in April 1944. Building on the approach of Graffham, he hoped to support other ''Bodyguard'' deceptions in the Western and Mediterranean theatres by making political overtures to Sweden, Spain and Turkey. The operation continued Graffham's work in Sweden by having ambassadors from the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union demand for the Germans to be denied access to the country after an Allied invasion of Norway.[
]
Mediterranean theatre
Overall control of ''Bodyguard'' came out of London, local implementation of the Mediterranean portions was left to 'A' Force. By then, Clarke had split the group into several sections, between Egypt and Italy, with responsibility for strategic or tactical deception.[ From the outset, ''Bodyguard'' focused on the Fortitude threat being developed on the Western Front. Deceptions that were planned in the Mediterranean were intended to tie down forces by creating threats to that appeared to have just enough realism.][
In late 1943, the Allies had opened a front in Italy, and after the 1944 Normandy landings, focus returned to the Mediterranean as a second front was debated.][ Eventually, deceptions had to be realigned to the Allies' new invasion plans since they, at first, threatened the very place that the earlier operations had suggested as a target.][
]
Operation Zeppelin
Zeppelin was the Mediterranean equivalent of Fortitude. It was intended to tie down German forces in the area by threatening landings in the Balkans, particularly Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
or Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
. 'A' Force used similar tactics as before by simulating the existence of the Ninth, Tenth and Twelfth Armies in Egypt via exercises and radio traffic. Although German high command believed that the forces were real, only three under-strength divisions were actually in the area.[Latimer 2001, p. 215]
Operation Copperhead
Copperhead was a small decoy operation within the scope of ''Bodyguard'' that was suggested by Clarke and planned by 'A' Force.[ The deception, undertaken just prior to D-Day, was intended to mislead German intelligence as to the whereabouts of ]Bernard Montgomery
Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, (; 17 November 1887 – 24 March 1976), nicknamed "Monty", was a senior British Army officer who served in the First World War, the Irish War of Independence and t ...
. It was theorised that as a well-known battle commander, if Montgomery were outside England, that would signal to the Germans that an invasion was not imminent.
The actor M.E. Clifton James
Meyrick Edward Clifton James (April 1898 – 8 May 1963) was an actor and soldier, with a resemblance to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. That was used by British intelligence as part of a deception campaign during the Second World War.
Ear ...
, who bore a strong resemblance to the general, made public appearances in Gibraltar
)
, anthem = " God Save the King"
, song = " Gibraltar Anthem"
, image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg
, map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe
, map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green
, mapsize =
, image_map2 = Gib ...
and North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
. The Allies hoped it would indicate a forthcoming invasion via the Mediterranean.
The operation is not known to have made a significant impact. According to captured enemy generals, German intelligence believed that it was Montgomery but still guessed that it was a feint.
Normandy landings
Elements of the ''Bodyguard'' plan were in operation on 6 June 1944 in support of Operation Neptune
Operation or Operations may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity
* Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory
* ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Ma ...
(the amphibious assault of Normandy). Elaborate naval deceptions (Operations Glimmer, Taxable and Big Drum) were undertaken in the English Channel.[ Small ships and aircraft simulated invasion fleets lying off Pas-de-Calais, Cap d'Antifer and the western flank of the real invasion force.][ At the same time Operation Titanic involved the RAF dropping fake paratroopers to the east and west of the Normandy landings.
]Juan Pujol García
Juan Pujol García (; 14 February 1912 – 10 October 1988), also known as Joan Pujol i García (), was a Spanish spy who acted as a double agent loyal to Great Britain against Nazi Germany during World War II, when he relocated to Britain ...
, a Spanish double agent working for British intelligence (code named "Garbo") in high standing with the Germans, transmitted information about the Allied invasion plan with a further warning that the Normandy invasion was a diversion. This information was transmitted at the behest of the British High Command in order to increase his credibility to the Germans and was done at a time when it was too late to fortify Normandy.
Following the landings, some small tactical deceptions were used to add further confusion. Operation Paradise (I–V) established a number of decoy exits and staging areas around the Normandy beaches to draw German attacks.[
]
Deception methods
The ''Bodyguard'' deceptions were implemented in several ways, including double agents, radio traffic and visual deception. Once planning for each stage had been completed, various operational units were tasked with carrying out the deceptions. In some cases this could be specialist formations, such as R Force
R Force was a British deception force during World War II that consisted of armoured vehicles, field engineers and a wireless unit. During Operation Fortitude it attempted to exaggerate the strength of Allied forces in Britain, and deceive German ...
, but in other cases it fell to regular units.
Special means
A large part of the various ''Bodyguard'' operations involved the use of double agents. The British " Double Cross" anti-espionage operation had proven very successful from the outset of the war.[Masterman 1972] The LCS was able to use double agents to send back misleading information about Allied invasion plans.[Ambrose 1981, p. 269]
By contrast, Allied intelligence was very good. Ultra, signals intelligence
Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of ''signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ( ...
from decrypted German radio transmission, confirmed to planners that the German high command believed in the ''Bodyguard'' deceptions and gave them the enemy's order of battle
In modern use, the order of battle of an armed force participating in a military operation or campaign shows the hierarchical organization, command structure, strength, disposition of personnel, and equipment of units and formations of the armed ...
.[Cave Brown 1975][Lewin 2001, p. 292]
Visual deception
The practice of using mock tanks and other military hardware had been developed during the North Africa campaign, especially in Operation Bertram
Operation Bertram was a Second World War deception operation practised by the Allied forces in Egypt led by Bernard Montgomery, in the months before the Second Battle of El Alamein in 1942. Bertram was devised by Dudley Clarke to deceive Erwin ...
for the attack at El Alamein.
For ''Bodyguard'', the Allies put less reliance in those forms of deception since they believed that the German ability to directly reconnoitre England was limited. Some mock hardware was, however, created, particularly dummy landing craft that were stockpiled in the supposed FUSAG staging area.
Aftermath
Operation Bodyguard is regarded as a tactical success, delaying the Fifteenth Army in the Pas-de-Calais for seven weeks thus allowing the Allies to build a beachhead
A beachhead is a temporary line created when a military unit reaches a landing beach by sea and begins to defend the area as other reinforcements arrive. Once a large enough unit is assembled, the invading force can begin advancing inland. The ...
and ultimately win the Battle of Normandy
Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the Norma ...
. In his memoirs, General Omar Bradley
Omar Nelson Bradley (February 12, 1893April 8, 1981) was a senior Officer (armed forces), officer of the United States Army during and after World War II, rising to the rank of General of the Army (United States), General of the Army. Bradley ...
called ''Bodyguard'' the "single biggest hoax of the war".[Latimer 2001, p. 238]
In his 2004 book, ''The Deceivers'', Thaddeus Holt attributes the success of ''Fortitude'' to the trial run of ''Cockade'' in 1943: "''FORTITUDE'' in 1944 could not have run as smoothly as it did if the London Controlling Section and its fellows had not gone through the exercise of ''COCKADE'' in the year before."[Holt 2004, p. 493]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bodyguard, Operation
Military deception during World War II
World War II operations and battles of the Western European Theatre
World War II deception operations