During World War II Germany had been expelled in 1943 from Africa and US forces had started to take an active part in the war by that time. In view of the increased strength of the Allied forces, the combined strength of the American and British armies was all set to attack Italy, Hitler’s partner. Italy too had become a strong force to reckon with and was a contender for the gains to be achieved from the war victories as portrayed by Hitler. The Allied forces now had a new ray of hope with the entry of America along their side, which would certainly have far-reaching consequences in their favor with the fresh lease of life being given to an embittered force that had already faced several setbacks and disappointments on the battlefront against the Axis forces. America was well poised and was waiting to make a decision to enter the war front and did so only when it became sure of the intentions of Hitler is not even sparing them in his annexation plans. Despite the increased strength of the Allied forces, there was considerable anxiety from the point of view of their victory being dependant on a cross channel initiative from the British Isle into Europe, which too did not have too many advantages in view of the previous negative experiences. There was also concern from the viewpoint that the combined might of the Axis powers had not been able to dent the aspirations of Hitler and his war partners in putting a stop to the unreasonable demands on them, which was slowly eroding the trust and confidence of citizens in these countries in their abilities to combat the challenges thrown open by Hitler. Indeed there was a stalemate about the course of action to be adopted by the Allied forces in checking Hitler and his band from causing further physical and financial loss as also in uplifting the morale of the people who had by now become morally and emotionally broken after having suffered from the travails of war for such a long period. Leaders of the Allied countries were well aware that immediate action using whatever means possible was required to be taken to stem the tide of continuous losses inflicted on them by the Axis forces. It was these circumstances that compelled the Commanders in the Allied camp to devise a plan that could be possible by using some form of deception since normal war techniques had failed to deliver any concrete results for them. But the fact remained that the Germans too were aware of this possibility and were alert in repulsing any attack in this regard. They had the experience and were well aware of Allied weaknesses that they had been exploiting against the Allied forces in keeping with the steady flow of victories. Operation Fortitude was brought about to counter the several setbacks already suffered and to remove obstacles by the Allied powers so as to initiate a reversal in the war outcomes that had till now been against their interests. It was an elaborate plan, which aimed at misguiding the Axis forces to make them ineffective till a time that the Normandy beach area was consolidated so as to meet the counter-attacks by the Germans. Operation Fortitude comprised of two parts, Fortitude North and Fortitude South. Fortitude North was devised in attempts to make the Germans believe that the Allied forces were to invade Norway first in association with the Soviet army that envisaged annexing Finland in order that it was removed from the Axis group. Fortitude North primarily aimed at fooling the Germans into believing that Norway would be invaded by the Allied powers prior to their attack on France. In consequence, the Germans would shift their armed strength from Normandy to Norway to meet the Allied forces in battle. This action would facilitate the Allied powers into attacking France with all their might so as to get a strong foothold on the European soil from that direction, which was imperative in view of the close proximity and convenience with which they could carry out offensives.
The tasks pertaining to Fortitude South were more challenging and of more far-reaching consequences in that despite the fact that the army builds up in southern England the Allied forces had to deceive the German forces into believing that they had no intentions about Normandy. Hitler too was aware of the significant strategic importance of Normandy and always had a close eye on the developments in the region as also on the maneuvers in this regard by the Allied forces. The intention of Fortitude South was to misdirect Hitler by fooling him into believing that they would attack Calais. This way the German forces would be brought away from Normandy into making defensive plans for Calais thus weakening them tremendously in Normandy. The initial plan envisaged viding Fortitude South was to make the Germans think that this fake attack would take place a few weeks after the actual invasion. But intelligence agencies were wary that the deception would not be carried forward in view of the large time gap, and hence a decision was taken to make the two dates close to each other. It was very important for the date and time to remain a secret in regard to the Normandy plan. The Germans too had their own intelligence services whose agents somehow managed to infiltrate the Allied information network, hence it was essential that such plans remain under top secrecy, and hence very few Allied officers were aware of the detailed plans. The Allied deception plans did succeed in making the Germans have a picture of the invasion-taking place in the near future, which made it all the more imperative for them to be misinformed about the place and nature of the attack in furtherance of misleading the Germans.
In order to make the plans a success, the first part of the execution entailed the leaking of the plans pertaining to the invasion of Norway and Calais, which was done by the British Secret Service in using its agents who had won the confidence of the German forces during the course of the war so far, in providing them reliable information about Allied plans. Leakage of such information at the hands of neutral diplomats also strengthened the German opinion in regard to the impending attack on Calais. With this eventuality facing them, the Germans actually got down to mobilizing their forces and equipment in the direction of Calais to meet the might of the Allied forces, which now had added strength due to the entry of American forces in the war. The Allied powers also did not take chances in creating any iota of doubt amongst the Germans and did in fact dispatch armies in the direction of Calais so that German forces were sure of the Allied strategies in this regard. This deceptive exercise was called “Operation Quicksilver” and was one of the most carefully planned, vital, elaborate, and successful of all the deceptive operations launched by the Allied forces. Several deceptive techniques such as the deployment of dummy paratroop, aircraft, sea crafts, radio deception, fake lighting systems, sonic devices were used in view of the several year’s experiences of the Allied forces in this regard. Truly, the German forces were deceived into believing as real, the presence of such dummy equipment in the fields, roadsides, harbors, and creeks as also the local estuaries surrounding Normandy. There was a giant oil pumping head that was made of paper mache, stationed over Dover and real convoys were entrusted the job to continuously drive back and forth in the area to give the impression to the Germans of troop movements in anticipation of Allied attacks. Additionally, the Germans were misguided by way of fictitious radio signals between nonexistent units and assumed that they were eavesdropping on Allied communications. Surely such elaborate exercises would have positive results in meeting the objectives in this regard.
The prime objective of the operation was to misguide the Germans into believing that they should not increase their number of troops in Normandy in order to defend their territories in other places where impending attacks by Allied forces had to be met with all efforts. It also envisaged that by misguiding them there would be a delay in the movement of troops to the Normandy beach so as to offset a strong counterattack by the German troops. Hence the main objective was to mislead the Germans into believing that the Allied forces were going to attack from the direction of Scandinavia. The modes of Operandi were many and included the use of German agents who were captured by the British and later released in using them as decoys to send radio messages about possible encounters to put them off track. Dummy tanks and aircraft and landing crafts were placed at strategic places for German air reconnaissance to view them and take action under deception. The deceptive practices were carried out using five specific tactics. Firstly fake equipment was used by displaying rubber tanks and plywood artillery to give a wrong impression to the enemy. Secondly, there was intentional leakage of information through diplomats of neutral countries who would pass it of to the Germans thus misguiding them about the factual situation. Thirdly the wireless traffic was used to create non-existent units by way of simulation in the wireless traffic that such units would generate, which would be detected by the Germans and make them take incorrect remedial measures. Fourthly there was an effective use of enemy agents controlled by the Allies through a double-cross system to transmit incorrect information to the German intelligence agencies. Fifthly there was a phantom presence of iconic personalities such as George Paton, the senior Allied Commander, in public places which rendered the operation as being authentic in the viewpoint of the Germans.
Most of the deception was done using fictitious wireless traffic as also with the help of German double agents. The latter was very vital in making such tactics successful. In fact, Fortitude was so truly deceptive that Hitler considered the Normandy invasion as a fake possibility and he kept his Panzer units where he expected an attack and at a distance from Normandy until the battle was fatefully decided against him in Normandy. When Normandy was invaded, the German resistance was very strong, but there were hardly any defensive launches by the reserve panzer forces which were actually being held in preparation for the actual invasion at Calais as conceived by the Germans. The German army was transfixed and taken aback by the stealth and precision of the phantom First U.S. Army Group and the sight of Patton wading ashore with his troops at Calais. Sure the Germans had no chance of combating at short notice the precision and strategic actions of this nature. They maintained the knowledge of the target information and other factors that threatened Calais for quite some time after D-Day, possibly till the end of World war II. This was very important for the success against the Germans by the plans of the Allied forces since it forced the Germans in keeping most of their might intact to be used at the right moment as perceived by them to be used for Calais which unfortunately for them, never came, thereby enabling the Allies to maintain and strengthen upon their initial foothold at Normandy.
Both the stages of Operation Fortitude were a total success from all fronts. The major difference between Fortitude North and Fortitude South was the time period of each operation. Fortitude North essentially became outdated after the real operations had begun, but the most important strategies of Fortitude South did not come into action until after the D-Day invasions at Normandy. Since the Germans believed that the Normandy invasion was a fake and least expected it, they kept their troops committed for the defense of Calais, thus giving ground to the Allies to gain a permanent footprint in German annexed Europe. In view of the strength of the German army, Operation Fortitude proved to be of immense value for the success of the Allies, and its aftereffects and positive results, and backlash lasted throughout the war. Because of the Americans, the Germans mistakenly underestimated the number of tanks that the Allied forces had, and thus were forced to keep much of their own weapons and artillery back in reserve to deal with a nonexistent threat at Calais. In his context, the practice is still followed in using rubber tanks to mislead enemies in days of nuclear weapons threatening the existence of mankind.
The operation was indeed successful from all fronts due to the coordinated efforts of the Allied forces in meeting the might of Hitler’s Germany at a time when defeating him had become a very bleak possibility especially in view of the constant flow of successes he had in Europe. Added to his victories were his un-daunting aspirations to move on with conquering other countries. It was primarily for these reasons that the USA had to join the war in fear of its own sovereignty being jeopardized in the event of Hitler continuing with his winning sprees. The efforts of the Commanders of Britain, USA, and France in coordinated teamwork that was directed at winning over Hitler, ultimately resulted in the strategy to outwit Hitler by deceptive means only in the true spirit of the saying “everything is fair in love and war”. Surely under the circumstances that the Allies were suffering at the hands of Hitler, there were no other means to achieve their objectives. The dedicated cooperation with which all the Allied powers executed the plans of Operation Fortitude enabled the victory against Hitler.
The key factors that led to the success of this operation related to the teamwork and synergy that resulted from such actions. The British Intelligence had a big hand in making the relevant information available by using their resources in cultivating agents that were used against German interests to provide requisite intelligence reports. These agents proved to be very helpful in providing a long-term channel for the inflow of required information without which it would have been impossible to devise the plans and strategy for the operation. The development and use of decrypting techniques that enabled enigma-coded messages between the German High Command and its contacts to reach the Allied Commanders as also in sending the deceptive messages to the German Commanders helped a great deal in making the deception to be effective with the Germans. A tactical strategy that was very effective for the operation was the insistence by some British commanders that for every radar station destroyed in the actual invasion area, two more were to be destroyed outside such areas so as to make the deception exercise effective and real. The German intelligence system was indeed very extensive and highly advanced but there was extreme rivalry amongst different elements in the army, which rendered it ineffective in catching up with the deceptive tactics of the Allied forces. Above all were the dedication and untiring willingness of an already battered army that wanted to have the war finished as soon as possible. Every soldier in the Allied army was aware that there had to be a victory for them if the world was to survive and they knew that victory would be for them. They saw in Hitler a personality that was determined to enslave the world by using the inhuman strategies that he had been using in exterminating his rivals such as Jews, millions of whom were killed in concentration camps and gas chambers just to keep himself satisfied that his enemies were being terminated.
Sure Operation Fortitude succeeded much beyond the expectations of the Allied Commanders. For long Hitler was under the illusion and false impression that the Normandy landings were tactics to divert his attention in inducing him to remove his army from Calais so that e significant attack could be carried out against him in that area. It was for this reason that he maintained his stand in stationing his best-equipped forces in that area ready to counter the anticipated attacks. However, it was too late by the time he got over his misconception in scanning the empty horizons while waiting for the attack that was never to come, and which in turn signaled the success of the Allied forces at Normandy in being the beginning of his defeat in the war.
References
- Fourteenth Army. Web.
- Hesketh, Roger, “Fortitude”, Overlook Press, New York, 2000
- Howard, Sir Michael, Strategic Deception, British Intelligence in the Second World War, Volume 5 Cambridge University Press, New York, 1990
- Latimer, Jon, “Deception in War”, Overlook Press, New York, 2001
- Major Richard G. Ricklefs, D- Day Deception, Military Intelligence Bullettin. Web.