How a Fake Army Ensured the Success of an Invasion

It is late 1943, the big three of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin are set to meet for the first time in Tehran, Iran.  The objective is to discuss the next stages of the war against Germany and Japan.  In Early 1943, the Russians had secured a major victory halting the German advance deep inside Russia.  As early as 1942, Roosevelt had assured Stalin the British and Americans would open a second front in Europe from the West.  What comes out of this meeting are the preliminary plans for Operation Overlord or D-Day as it will later be known.  Even though there are disagreements among the allies, they all agree, without this second front the best they could hope for was a stalemate in Europe.

The landing site chosen for the invasion was the beaches of Normandy located in northwest France.  The size and scope of such an invasion would be the largest the world had ever seen.  It was estimated at 160,000 soldiers were needed for the success of the Normandy invasion.  Hitler knows an invasion is coming, but German intelligence is spotty and not exactly clear of the location.  The Germans believe the invasion will either come from the beaches of Normandy or Pas de Calais which is roughly 200 miles to the north.  Calais is the logical choice as it is the closest to England of any possible landing site.  With two potential landing sites, the allies see an opportunity to deceive the Germans by presenting the possibility that an invasion would come from Calais.

For the deception to work, the allies must create a fake army, this fake army is the result of an operation code named Fortitude.  In January 1944, the fictious Army was created, it was given the name the First US Army group.  The First US Army Group was comprised of thousands of fake tanks, airplanes, buildings, and infrastructure found on a military base in the 1940’s.  In addition to the fake base and the fake army, the popular General George S. Patton was slated to command the army.  The appointment of Patton as commander, gave the operation legitimacy.  Patton was a brilliant tank commander who helped turn the tide of the war in North Africa.  The General does come with some baggage however, in August 1943 during the North Africa campaign, Patton slapped a soldier for what he saw as “cowardice” for refusing to fight.  Slapping a soldier even by 1940’s standards was frowned upon and with an outraged American public, Dwight Eisenhower the allied supreme commander and President Roosevelt sidelined him.  When Patton is put in command of the first US Army group, it gave the German high command good circumstantial evidence an invasion would be coming from Calais.  After all, Hitler didn’t believe Patton would be sidelined for merely slapping a soldier.  Why would the Allies sideline one of their best Generals?

In addition to naming Patton as the commander of the First US Army Group, the allies generated fake radio transmission to deceive the Germans the invasion would indeed be taking place from Calais sometime in July of 1944.  To be sure, the Germans sent reconnaissance aircraft over the fake base which looked like a fully functional army.  With confirmation, the Germans withheld reinforcements from Normandy and instead reinforced Calais thus thinning out the numbers at Normandy which aided in the success of Overlord in June 1944.  To this day some historians debate whether Fortitude helped the success of the Normandy invasion, but one thing is for certain, Overlord and Fortitude showed collaboration between countries that had not been seen to this scale in the history of warfare. 

Operation fortitude south. Liberation Route Europe. (n.d.). https://www.liberationroute.com/stories/187/operation-fortitude-south

Operation fortitude: The D-day deception campaign that fooled the Nazis. Sky HISTORY TV channel. (n.d.). https://www.history.co.uk/article/operation-fortitude-the-d-day-deception-campaign-that-fooled-the-nazis