D-Day: When the Tide Turned
Eighty years ago today, U.S., British, and Canadian forces simultaneously landed on five beachheads in western Europe—code-named Omaha, Gold, Juno, Sword, and Utah—in a mission that marked a turning point in World War II. By the end of August all of Nazi-occupied northern France was liberated, and the invading forces reorganized for the drive into Germany, where they would eventually meet with Soviet forces advancing from the east to bring an end to the Nazi Reich.
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Phantom Armada
In the run-up to the Normandy Invasion, Allied forces employed a classic wartime deception: amass a fake army. Operation Fortitude—one of many interlocking deception operations and suboperations—used a variety of tactics to direct Nazi Germany’s attention away from Normandy. Here’s more on this often unsung operation.
Misdirection
The goal of Operation Fortitude was to make Nazi Germany believe that the Allies were poised to attack Norway and the Pas-de-Calais region of France. To sell the deception, the Allies employed a fictitious army known as the First U.S. Army Group, made up of thousands of fake tanks and airplanes as well as decoy buildings and other infrastructure on England’s southeast coast.
Disinformation
The U.S. command then announced that Gen. George S. Patton—the most feared and respected general by the German high command—would lead this fictitious army. The Allies generated fake radio transmissions to deceive the Germans into thinking that an invasion would take place at Calais in mid-July. And they used double-agents to feed this information to Nazi Germany.
Seeing is believing
The Allies also allowed German reconnaissance aircraft to photograph the site of their ghost army. By this point in the war, the Allies had cracked the Enigma code as well as another German encryption system, which meant they could monitor the false info they were pushing, and assess its effects.
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