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A Memorable History of Deception and Spy Capers

Khalid Elhassan June 7, 2020 34 min

Operation Mincemeat - World War II — Items recovered from Major Martin and his briefcase. BBC

20. The Fake Army

One of thousands of inflatable tanks used in an elaborate Allied deception plan before D-Day. Alchetron

Popov played an important role in a sub-plan of Bodyguard, known as Operation Fortitude, of which more below, under the entry for another Allied deception agent, Juan Pujol Garcia. Popov fed the Germans made up details about a fake American army in Britain, such as its units, strength, and organization.

The Germans bought the deception. Their faith in Popov’s information was reinforced when they eavesdropped on fake radio traffic between the fictitious units. To reinforce the deception, German reconnaissance planes were allowed to fly over Britain and photograph concentrations of tanks and transports that were actually inflatable dummies.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.