32. Using Deception to Secure Egypt From the Axis
During WWII, Axis and British armies chased each other back and forth across the deserts of Egypt and Libya. By the fall of 1942, things were headed for a climactic showdown battle at El Alamein. The strip of land over which the battle was to be fought was bounded to the north by the Mediterranean Sea, and to the south by the Qattara Depression, impassable to armor and wheeled vehicles.
British intelligence devised Operation Bertram, which sought to deceive Axis commander Erwin Rommel about the direction from which they would attack. That was particularly important because Rommel faced fuel shortages which made redeployment of most of his troops, particularly the Italians, difficult or even impossible once fighting commenced. Wherever Rommel initially deployed his forces, that is where most of them would remain during the battle. So the British set out to convince him to deploy them in the wrong place.
