24. An Enterprising Campaign of Deceit That Fooled the Desert Fox
The strip of land over which the 1942 Battle of El Alamein was to be fought was bounded to the north by the Mediterranean Sea, and to the south by the Qattara Depression. It was impassable to armor and wheeled vehicles. Operation Bertram was a British misdirection plan to deceive Erwin Rommel about the direction of their upcoming attack. That was important because Rommel faced fuel shortages that made redeploying most of his troops, especially the Italians, difficult or even impossible once fighting began. Wherever Rommel deployed his forces, that is where most of them would remain during the battle.
The British planned to attack in the north, and set out to convince Rommel to deploy his troops in the wrong place. A specialist unit, known as the Camouflage, Development, and Training Centre (CDTC) was cobbled together by filmmakers, stage magicians, painters, and sculptors. Its task: to flummox the Desert Fox. The CDTC set out to hide the actual troop and materiel buildup in the north, and make what buildup could not be concealed appear slower than it actually was. Most importantly, it sought to convince Rommel that the main attack would fall upon the southern sector of his line, not the northern.
