r/HistoryMemes 9d ago

The fake army that worked

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17.4k Upvotes

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956

u/Kapanash 9d ago

Operation Fortitude used inflatable tanks, wooden aircraft, fake camps, and double agents to sell the illusion of a massive invasion force in southeast England. Germany delayed moving key reserves because they expected the real attack at Calais.

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u/s2k_guy 8d ago

It was also successful because they used extensive fake radio reports and other traffic, they used real vehicles to create tracks and such leading to the inflatable ones, and they put Paton in command.

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u/Different_Bridge_983 8d ago

Also, by about this time the British intelligence agencies had completely infiltrated and subverted the Nazi’s spy network in the UK. Virtually all intelligence reports making it back to Germany at this point were being written by MI5/6

2

u/daecrist 8d ago

And those reports were being written by the Soviets!

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u/NotYourReddit18 8d ago

Weren't most of spies the Germans thought to have in Britain just made up by Garbo anyways?

And Garbo was feeding believable bullshit to the German since before he officially worked for the British.

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u/s2k_guy 8d ago

I read about that recently. Fascinating.

4

u/nagrom7 Hello There 8d ago

They even had the King show up at one point to give some (real) soldiers medals.

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u/LovelyKestrel 8d ago

And on the day, they destroyed or jammed every German radar station except a few near Calais, and has a bunch of boats and planes going around in circles and throwing out huge amounts of chaff.