The US XXXVII Corps (37th Corps) was a 'Phantom Unit' created in 1944 as part of
Fortitude South II,
a military deception by the
Allied nations
The Allies, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during the Second World War (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy ...
during the build-up to the 1944
Normandy landings
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 ...
.
World War II
The corps was first reported to the Germans as arriving during May and June 1944 at
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
and establishing its headquarters in
Great Baddow
Great Baddow is an urban village and civil parish in the Chelmsford borough of Essex, England. It is close to the city of Chelmsford, and, with a population of over 13,000,[Chelmsford
Chelmsford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the City of Chelmsford district in the county of Essex, England. It is the county town of Essex and one of three cities in the county, along with Southend-on-Sea and Colchester. It ...]
in
Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...
with the
US 17th Infantry Division and
US 59th Infantry Division under its command. Initially under the command of
US 3rd Army
The United States Army Central, formerly the Third United States Army, commonly referred to as the Third Army and as ARCENT, is a military formation of the United States Army which saw service in World War I and World War II, in the 1991 Gulf Wa ...
,
the corps became part of
US 14th Army in the middle of July 1944, where it was to form, with
British II Corps the first wave of the Pas de Calais landings.
Following the conclusion of Fortitude South II it was reported as having moved to the region of
Worthing
Worthing () is a seaside town in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of Chichester. With a population of 111,400 and an area of , the borough is the second largest component of the Brighton and Ho ...
in
Sussex establishing its headquarters in
Goring during August. During late September, early October 1944, US 17th Infantry division was transferred to the command of
US XXXIII Corps in exchange for
US 25th Armored Division, following which it was announced that the Corps and the units under its command had departed England via Southampton.
Insignia
Writing in ''
The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War'', Thaddeus Holt indicated that no official insignia had been issued for the US XXXVII Corps,
however, the official report on Operation Fortitude written by Roger Hesketh and published in 1999 under the title 'Fortitude: The D-Day Deception Campaign'' contained a copy of a message sent by
Agent Brutus to the Germans on the 24th of June 1944 which described the insignia as follows:
"The XXXVII Corps recently included in the Third Army, has its headquarters in Great Baddow, two kilometers south-east of Chelmsford; sign: on a yellow circle a diamond divided into two triangles, of which the top is white and the lower black. A third triangle, white, below, touches the black one at the apexes."
Agent Tate, provided the following description of the insignia to the Germans in a report sent on the 27th of August 1944:
"...two similar triangles with their points together (looks like an old fashioned hour glass); the upper triangle is black the lower is white. On the upper black triangle there is a third triangle, the flat side against the flat side of the black triangle. The third triangle is white. The whole thing is on a circular, yellow ground."
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
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{{Allied Military Deception in World War II
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