Operation Fortitude

Operation fortitude was a deception operation used in the Second World War by the allied forces against Germany (Barbier, 2007). The allied forces used this deceptive operation to convince the Germans that their main target was Pas de Calais. By convincing the Germans about their main target, the operation intended to prompt the Germans to concentrate their forces in Pas de Calais. Secondly, the deceptive operation created the impression that the allied forces were also planning to attack Norway, which was occupied by the Germans. The main objective of Operation fortitude was to divert the Germans’ attention from Normandy, which was their prime target. Due to the careful planning and execution, the operation was able to achieve its objective.

The success of operation fortitude was based on its careful planning. The plan was created based on the Germans’ belief that Pas de Calais was the most convenient location to mount an attack due to its short proximity from England. To reinforce the belief, and thus create a credible deception, a fictitious army with dummy trucks, tanks, and tents was built up in southern England. The Presence of General George Patton as the commander in-charge of the fictitious army probably made the attack on Pas de Calais appear more imminent to the Germans. General Patton was very famous to the Germans. The Germans believed that any attack by the allied forces would only be led by the best of their generals. Therefore, the inclusion of General Patton as the commander of the allied forces increased the credibility of the deception.

Apart from the physical deception mechanisms employed by the allied forces, false radio transmissions also contributed to the success of operation fortitude. The False transmission created the perception that the First US Army Group posed an imminent threat. The German intelligence was expected to intercept the radio transmissions and act on the information being transmitted. Since the information was false, the decisions made by the German military would be based on incredible information. Consequently, the decisions would lead the Germans to act as expected by the allied forces.

In addition to the transmission of false intelligence information, the British intelligence was able to use German agents who agreed to operate as double agents. These agents played a very critical role in the success of operation fortitude (Levine, 2011). The double agents provided the Germans with real time occurrences in the allied forces’ camp. Since these agents had earned trust from the Germans, any information they provided was likely to be trusted.

The success of the deception was so massive that when the allied forces attacked Normandy, the Germans were reluctant to commit any significant forces to the area since they thought Normandy attack was diversionary. Consequently, the Germans were too late to oust the allied forces by the time they decided to react. Therefore, Normandy invasion was successful following the success of operation fortitude.

Despite the success of operation fortitude, several lessons were learnt by the allied forces. The first lesson was the importance of considering the effects of weather conditions in the planning process. Initially, several of the dummy operations did not occur at the appropriate time due to bad weather conditions (Latimer, 2001). For instance, Special Task Force A, headed by Lieutenant Commander Calder had to change their plans since their arrival at the target could not be met. The delay was caused by rough seas. Consequently, Lieutenant Calder made new decisions to divide his forces so that they could proceed with the mission independently. From this the allied forces were able to conclude that such interference of operations by weather conditions could have led to the failure of the operation or massive loss of lives. Moreover, the alternative decision made after the bad weather hindered the implementation of the first plan and was less effective. This ineffectiveness could have stemmed from the fact that less time for deliberation was allowed before the decision was made.

The second lesson learnt by the allied forces was that the deception could have been effective even without moving the dummy trucks and tanks from one place to the other. The movement did not make any difference because it was intended to be spotted by Germans’ aircraft. However, the Germans did not conduct any aerial surveillance over the allied territory due to previous bombing of their aircraft by the allied forces. Therefore, the movement did not achieve any effect as the Germans did not see it. The allied forces could conclude from this lesson that proper evaluations of all the activities can eliminate ineffective ones and concentrate efforts on those that could yield more results.

In conclusion, operation fortitude was a total success since it facilitated the Normandy invasion by diverting the German’s attention to other areas. The role of double agents in Operation fortitude cannot be overemphasized as they spread misinformation to the German military with great success. From this operation, the military maxim that ‘those who defend everywhere defend nowhere’ proved true in the case of Germany, as they defended several frontiers, but lost the battle.

References

Barbier, M. (2007). D-Day Deception: Operation Fortitude and the Normandy Invasion. London: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Latimer, J. (2001). Deception in War. Virginia: Overlook Press.

Levine, J. (2011). Operation Fortitude: The True Story of the Key Spy Operation of WWII That Saved D-Day. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Limited.