1. The Fake American Army Group
Operation Bodyguard had a sub-plan, Operation Fortitude, that created a fictitious “First US Army Group” (FUSAG) in southeast England under the command of General George S. Patton. Various means were used to sell Hitler and his generals on FUSAG’s existence. Fake radio traffic was used between fictitious FUSAG units. German reconnaissance planes were allowed to fly over and photograph concentrations of FUSAG tanks and transports that were actually just inflatable dummies. German intelligence was fed fake reports via double agents and turned spies about FUSAG’s intentions to invade the Pas de Calais, in order to tie down the German defenders there. A subsidiary, Fortitude North, created a fictitious British Fourth Army in Scotland, and convinced the Germans that it planned to invade Norway in order to tie down German defenders there.
After D-Day, Bodyguard succeeded in convincing the Germans that the Normandy landings were not the main event, but the first in a series of landings. Hitler was thus led to keep units guarding other potential landing sites. Especially in the Pas de Calais, which was threatened by the fictitious FUSAG under Patton. Bodyguard had hoped to convince the Germans to stay put in the Pas de Calais for two weeks after D-Day, instead of immediately sending the units there to reinforce Normandy. The plan worked so well that the Germans stayed put in the Pas de Calais for seven weeks instead of the hoped-for two. That allowed the Allies time to build a beachhead in Normandy, before breaking out to liberate France and Western Europe. As Winston Churchill put it in his memoirs: “In wartime truth is so precious, that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies“.
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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading
Aviation History Online Museum – De Havilland Mosquito
Brown, Anthony Cave – Bodyguard of Lies (1975)
Daily Beast – D-Day’s Forgotten African American Heroes
Daily Beast – These Black Soldier Fought For America. It Didn’t Protect Them From Jim Crow
Daily Beast – The Black Heroes Who Protected US Troops on D-Day
Hervieux, Linda – Forgotten: The Untold Story of D-Day’s Black Heroes, At Home and At War (2016)
Imperial War Museum – The Incredible Story of the Dambusters Raid
Mountbatten, Louis – Combined Operations: The Official History of the Commandos (2007)
New Scientist, November 3rd, 2014 – Myths and Reality of the Nazi Space Rocket
Warfare History Network – Operation Jericho: Mosquito Raid on Amiens Prison
