Rupert WWII Deceptions

[steve_bank]

As part of the deception attack at Pas de De Calais on D-Day dummy paratropers were dropped to add to the effect.

Patton had led a dummy army with wooden airplanes and balloon tanks on the ground.

Object of Intrigue: The Dummy Paratroopers of WWII

In the hours before sunrise on D-Day, June 6, 1944, Allied soldiers sat bundled on ships and strapped into planes off the coast of Normandy, waiting for the...

www.atlasobscura.com

According to a Rupert exhibit at the National World War II Museum, the D-Day dummies were dressed in paratrooper uniforms, including boots and helmets. In addition to the parachutes strapped to their burlap backs, each Rupert carried recordings of gunfire and exploding mortar rounds, to add to the authenticity of the simulated air attack. Drawstrings at the top of the head, wrists, and ankles allowed the dummy to be filled with straw or sand.

D-Day Deception: Operation Fortitude South

In 1944, Dover Castle’s tunnels played a supporting role in Operation Fortitude South, the elaborate deception that concealed the true location of the Allied invasion of western Europe from the Germans.

www.english-heritage.org.uk

The key manipulation was to make the Germans believe that the invasion would take the shortest and most obvious sea crossing, from Dover to the Pas-de-Calais. This aimed to ensure that German defences and troop concentrations in that region were the strongest in the whole ‘Atlantic Wall’, and weaker where the real invasion would fall – in Normandy.

As a part of the wider Bodyguard plan, Operation Fortitude South was designed to reinforce this belief. It also aimed to make the Germans think that the invasion of Normandy, when it happened, would be a diversionary attack, so that, for as long as possible after the real invasion, they would still believe that the main invasion would be coming from the Dover area. This would ensure that they would not divert German forces from the Pas-de-Calais to provide reinforcements in Normandy.

The major part of Fortitude South was a sub-operation called Quicksilver I, the creation of a fictitious army – the First United States Army Group (FUSAG) – stationed in south-east England under General George Patton. Patton was chosen to reinforce the idea that his would be the major assault, as he was the senior American field commander and the one most feared by the Germans.


To strengthen the illusion of FUSAG preparing to embark, dummy landing craft were made from scaffolding tube, wood, canvas and empty 40-gallon barrels. Very convincing when viewed from a distance and from the air, these were assembled and deployed in harbours and estuaries around the south-east, centred on Dover. Large numbers of dummy tanks and vehicles were deployed in groups all over south-east England, to simulate an army preparing to move.


At the same time, a huge volume of fake radio traffic was transmitted and received by fixed and mobile units across south-east England. This was supported by the double agents’ frequent but careful ‘leaks’ about the make-up and position of FUSAG units.

Operation Mincemeat - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Operation Mincemeat was a successful British deception operation of the Second World War to disguise the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily. Two members of British intelligence obtained the body of Glyndwr Michael, a tramp who died from eating rat poison, dressed him as an officer of the Royal Marines and placed personal items on him identifying him as the fictitious Captain (Acting Major) William Martin. Correspondence between two British generals that suggested that the Allies planned to invade Greece and Sardinia, with Sicily as merely the target of a feint, was also placed on the body.

The American Navy code breakers at Pearl Harbor had broken enough of the Japanese Naval codes to know there was an invasion cumming, but they had no way to figure out what the target code name referred to. They had Midway island transmit without encryption that their salt water desalinators were broken.

The code breakers interspersed a Japaneses transmission that said the code name's desalinators were broken and thus the Battle Of Midway was on.


It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at Ukrainian intelligence meetings. There were reports they set up simple dummy artillery batteries that were attacked by the Russians.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

 

[Tharmas]

I read about Operation Mincemeat as a tweenager in the book The Man Who Never Was, which fascinated me. They went to great lengths to insert public records of their man in many venues, to ensure that German spies in England would verify his supposed identity.

Another one I read along the same lines was The War Magician, about a stage magician named Jasper Maskelyne, who claimed to have contributed greatly to the British army's ability to deceive German intelligence by creating fake armies, hiding battleships, etc. If I recall correctly, he claimed to have invented dazzle comouflage. Now I discover that his reports are deemed self-aggrandizing and widely exaggerated, to say the least. Basically, as a professional showman and self-promoter, he never let facts ruin a good story.

 

[bilby]

The actual invasion forces, encamped on the English south coast between Devon and Hampshire, sent all their laundry to Kent, so that German aerial reconnaissance would see the drying laundry strung out on washing lines, and believe them to be evidence of large numbers of FUSAG troops (who of course, didn't exist).

 

[steve_bank]

I read The Man Who Never Was as a kid.

I recently watched part of the old movie The Longest Day, it brought Rupert to mind.

 

[Tristan Scott]

The Japanese managed to deceive Halsey at Leyte.
They sent a decoy fleet of all their remaining carriers ( with only a few aircraft) at high speed from the north of the battle zone. Halsey took the bait leaving the San Bernardino strait open, allowing the main body of the Japanese fleet to attack the ships landing troops at Leyte.
Its hard to say that this was a success, since the Japanese commander of this powerful force mistook the small American escort carriers and their escorts of destroyers and destroyer escorts for much more powerful ships and did not press his advantage. He retired his force having sunk only a few escort carriers and destroyers.
Two things made this deception work.
1. The Japanese were well aware of Halseys aggressive nature.
2. Halsey mistakenly believed his pilots reports that they had destroyed the major ships in the large force sailing towards the strait.

 

[steve_bank]

After reading on WWII I was glad it was not Halsey at the Battle Of Midway.