16. The Fake Armies That Gulled the Germans
A sub-plan of Operation Bodyguard was Operation Fortitude, which created a fictitious “First US Army Group” (FUSAG) in southeast England under the command of General George S. Patton. Allied intelligence used a variety of ruses to sell the existence of Patton’s nonexistent army group to the Germans. Radio operators carried on a large volume of fake radio traffic between fictitious FUSAG units. Allied air forces, who had aerial supremacy over the British Isles, allowed German air reconnaissance to fly over and photograph concentrations of FUSAG tanks and transports.
In reality, what the German overflights filmed were not actual tanks and transports, but inflatable dummies. German intelligence was also fed fake reports via double agents and turned spies about FUSAG’s intentions to invade the Pas de Calais so as to tie down the German defenders there. A subsidiary plan, Fortitude North, created a fictitious British Fourth Army in Scotland and convinced the Germans that it planned to invade Norway so as to tie down the German divisions posted there.
