The Twelfth Army was a British Army formation during the

Second World War 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 ...

. The Twelfth Army denotation was actually used twice; firstly, in 1943, for a fictional formation and secondly, in 1945, in

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

. The Twelfth Army moniker was originally used by

Advanced Headquarters 'A' Force Advanced Headquarters 'A' Force, generally referred to as 'A' Force, was the name of a deception department during the Second World War. It was set up in March 1941 and based in Cairo under Brigadier Dudley Clarke. General Archibald Wavell, the co ...

, a Cairo-based deception department created by

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 ...

, for a formation used in

Operation Barclay Operation Barclay was a World War II deception by the Allies in support of Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943. The goal was to deceive the Axis powers as to the location of the Allies' assault across the Mediterranean ...

and Operation Zeppelin. It was later used for a real formation in Burma, which took over operations from the Fourteenth Army and would later become Burma Command.

1943: Middle East

A British Twelfth Army was initially invented by 'A' Force as part as the deception plan for

Operation Husky 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-Man ...

, the Allied invasion of

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

in July 1943. The Western Allies attempted to convince the Germans that their main effort during 1943 would be to land the Twelfth Army in

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

and then advance into the eastern

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 ...

during the early part of the summer of 1943 with the aim of bringing

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

into the war and then linking up with the Soviet

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

. The deception plan attempted to convince the Germans that this army had twelve divisions under its control and was located in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

. The army's formation insignia was a trained

seal Seal may refer to any of the following: Common uses * Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly: ** Earless seal, or "true seal" ** Fur seal * Seal (emblem), a device to impr ...

balancing on its nose a terrestrial globe showing the Eastern Hemisphere, black on a white background. The insignia was supposed to symbolize an amphibious creature treating the whole world as its own.

Subordinate units

Between 1943 and 1945, when it was disbanded to allow the formation of the second British Twelfth Army, its nominal existence was used to create the impression of a standing threat to the Balkans. During this period the units shown under its control varied, depending on the target chosen. The following list includes all units mentioned as forming part of the Twelfth Army or its component corps.

Corps

British III Corps (fictional) * XIV_Corps_WW1

British XIV Corps (fictional) * British XVI Corps (fictional) * Polish III Corps (fictional)

Divisions

* Polish 2nd Armored Division * UK_6th_Airborne_Division_Patch

British 4th Airborne Division (fictional) * UK_6th_Airborne_Division_Patch

British 5th Airborne Division (fictional) * 5th_UK_Infantry_Division

British 5th Infantry Division The 5th Infantry Division was a regular army infantry division of the British Army. It was established by Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington for service in the Peninsular War, as part of the Anglo-Portuguese Army, and was active for most o ...

* Polish 7th Infantry Division * 8ArmDiv

British 8th Armored Division (fictional) * Polish 8th Infantry Division (fictional) * 15th deception armoured

British 15th Motorized Division (fictional) * 33rd Division WW2 deception

British 33rd Infantry Division (fictional) * 34th_Division_sign_WW1

British 34th Infantry Division (fictional) * 40th Infantry Division Second World War (deception)

British 40th Infantry Division (fictional) * 42nf inf (armd) division WW2

British 42nd Infantry Division (fictional) * British_56th_(1st_London)_Division_insignia

British 56th Infantry Division * 57th_Division_ww1

British 57th Infantry Division (fictional)

1945: Burma

The second British Twelfth Army was formed on 28 May 1945, to take control of operations in

from the Fourteenth Army, which was being withdrawn to plan for

Operation Zipper During World War II, Operation Zipper was a British plan to capture either Port Swettenham or Port Dickson, Malaya, as staging areas for the recapture of Singapore in Operation Mailfist. However, due to the end of the war in the Pacific, it wa ...

, the planned invasion of

Malaya Malaya refers to a number of historical and current political entities related to what is currently Peninsular Malaysia in Southeast Asia: Political entities * British Malaya (1826–1957), a loose collection of the British colony of the Straits ...

by amphibious assault, which was due to take place in August 1945. The British Reoccupation of Burma, 1945 SE5415

The army HQ was created by re-designating the HQ of the

Indian XXXIII Corps XXXIII Corps is a corps of the Indian Army. It draws some of its heritage from the British Indian XXXIII Corps which was formed in 1942, but disbanded in 1945. It was re-raised in 1960 at Shillong. The corps is headquartered in Sukna in North ...

, under Lieutenant-General Sir Montagu Stopford. It took over one of the Fourteenth Army's main combat formations, IV Corps which was temporarily commanded by Lieutenant-General Francis Tuker, with 5th, 17th and

19th 19 (nineteen) is the natural number following 18 and preceding 20. It is a prime number. Mathematics 19 is the eighth prime number, and forms a sexy prime with 13, a twin prime with 17, and a cousin prime with 23. It is the third full re ...

Indian Divisions and

255th Indian Tank Brigade The 255th Indian Tank Brigade was an armoured brigade of the Indian Army during World War II. It was part of the Fourteenth Army and saw action in the Burma Campaign. The 255th Tank Brigade's tactical sign was a black bull, with yellow horns and ...

under its command. Twelfth Army assumed direct command of

7th 7 (seven) is the natural number following 6 and preceding 8. It is the only prime number preceding a cube (algebra), cube. As an early prime number in the series of positive integers, the number seven has greatly symbolic associations in religion ...

and

20th 20 (twenty; Roman numeral XX) is the natural number following 19 and preceding 21. A group of twenty units may also be referred to as a score. In mathematics *20 is a pronic number. *20 is a tetrahedral number as 1, 4, 10, 20. *20 is the ba ...

Indian Divisions, together with 22nd East African Brigade. Static formations under its control included 505 District and South Burma District. There were still Japanese formations in Burma at this time, with IV Corps having the responsibility for driving them out of the remainder of the country. The Japanese tried to break out from the Allied armies closing in on them, and although suffering heavy casualties, did succeed in rescuing some of their formations. After the war, Twelfth Army continued in existence until 1 November, when it was re designated

Burma Command Burma Command was a British Army command formed for the coordination of the defences of Burma. It functioned from 1937 to 1942, when the country fell to Japanese Forces during the Second World War, and functioned again from 1945 to 1948, when the c ...

. The formation insignia was a

Chinthe ''Chinthe'' ( my, ခြင်္သေ့ (); mnw, ဇာဒိသိုၚ် (); shn, သၢင်ႇသီႈ ()) is the Burmese word for 'lion'. The leograph of ''Chinthe'' is a highly stylized lion commonly depicted in Burmese iconogra ...

on a red background, with a superimposed horizontal black stripe on which was written "XII" in white letters.

Notes

References

* * * * {{Allied Military Deception in World War II Military units and formations established in 1943 Military units and formations disestablished in 1945 12 12 Fictional units of World War II Military units and formations of the British Empire in World War II