As a result, to handle the expected real increase in telephone and teleprinters traffic, a signals centre with a repeater station – code-named Q Dover – was established in the Dover Castle tunnels.įor weeks on end in the spring of 1944, British and Canadian units worked in the tunnels around the clock, sending a host of coded fake radio messages all over Britain to simulate the communications of FUSAG, as if preparing for an invasion. The castle then figured prominently from 1942 in Allied planning for the invasion of Europe, as one of three potential centres for a Combined Operations HQ to direct the invasion. This was supported by the double agents’ frequent but careful ‘leaks’ about the make-up and position of FUSAG units.ĭover Castle’s tunnels and Operation Fortitudeĭover Castle had played a key role earlier in the war, when its tunnels housed the command centre for the evacuation of Dunkirk (Operation Dynamo) in May–June 1940. Large numbers of dummy tanks and vehicles were deployed in groups all over south-east England, to simulate an army preparing to move.Īt the same time, a huge volume of fake radio traffic was transmitted and received by fixed and mobile units across south-east England. 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. To strengthen the illusion of FUSAG preparing to embark, dummy landing craft were made from scaffolding tube, wood, canvas and empty 40-gallon barrels. 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. 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. Operation Fortitude South, one of its main elements, aimed to convince them that the invasion would be via the Pas-de-Calais. Deception methods had been practised and refined over the previous three years of the Second World War so that, by the time of Bodyguard, it was recognised that the foundation of all such operations was to support and encourage the expectations of the enemy, carefully reinforcing what you wanted them to believe, and ensuring that information reached the highest levels of command.īodyguard’s key objective was to mislead the Germans about the timing and location of the Allied invasion of north-western Europe. It is also about intelligence-gathering, much of which is clandestine work done by spies who seek to learn the enemy’s plans, and to sow lies with the enemy to deceive them.įrom July 1943, a secret group of military officers, known as the London Controlling Section, began to devise a large-scale deception operation, codenamed Bodyguard. Though it was cold, the men were sweating.‘ In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.’ (Winston Churchill)
Vomit filled the bottom of the boats, and as water kept rushing in over the gunwales, the green-faced men had to bail this vile stew with their helmets. Most of the Americans were packed into flat-bottomed Higgins boats launched from troop transports 10 miles from the French coastline. Hours later, the largest amphibious landing force ever assembled began moving through the storm-tossed waters toward the beaches.
Their job was to blow up bridges, sabotage railroad lines, and take other measures to prevent the enemy from rushing reinforcements to the invasion beaches. Just after midnight on June 6, Allied airborne troops began dropping behind enemy lines. It was one of the gutsiest decisions of the war. The delay was unnerving for soldiers, sailors, and airmen, but when meteorologists forecast a brief window of clearer weather over the channel on June 6, Eisenhower made the decision to go. But on the morning of June 4, foul weather over the English Channel forced Eisenhower to postpone the attack for 24 hours.
“We couldn’t wait.” Meanwhile, the American and British air forces in England conducted a tremendous bombing campaign that targeted railroad bridges and roadways in northern France to prevent the Germans from bringing in reserves to stop the invasion.Īllied leaders set June 5, 1944, as the invasion’s D-Day. “We were getting ready for one of the biggest adventures of our lives,” an American sergeant said. Trucks, tanks, and tens of thousands of troops poured into England. In the meantime, they prepared ceaselessly for the attack. At the Tehran Conference in August 1943, Allied leaders scheduled Overlord to take place on or about May 1, 1944.