The Wall_Spring 2023_Issue 9

Matthew Thorburn , (he/him), S10, explores the complex, tense planning and twists and turns of the Allies persis tence for victory inWW2

Stage 1: Fooling the Fuhrer

all the counterfeit divisions. Operation Fortitude South, however, was even more complicated. Operation Fortitude South aimed to fool the Nazis into believing that the British preparations to attack Normandy were a diversion, and the real attack was coming in Calais.The fictional ‘First United States Army Group’ was apparently stationed in Dover, directly across the Channel from Calais.The Luftwaffe, however, would be able to conduct surveillance over Kent, so the British used movie magic to fool the surveillance! Through the use of theatre props and even inflatable tanks and vehicles, they created what would look exactly like an army from above. Inflatable ships were moored in harbours around Kent, as well as giant tent cities and fake airfields. Using special radars to triangulate the location and decipher the frequency of German radars, they knocked out most radars along the coast using the RAF. Finally, the Allies fooled the remaining radar equipment by using aircraft to drop small strips of a specific type of metallic paper over the Channel. These papers were dropped in the pattern of where ships would be to invade Calais. Now that the Allies had successfully deterred the Nazis from Normandy, it was time to think properly about landing on the beaches.The Channel was littered with mines which would obliterate any fleet attempting to cross, and, dotted along the French coastline, were guns so powerful they could blow any ship out of the water.The Luftwaffe were at large, and the prospect of Luftwaffe aircraft dive bombing the Allies at Dunkirk was truly terrifying. Stage 2: Clearing the Channel

Operation Argument was devised on the 20th of February 1944, and over the next year it would play a crucial role in D-Day preparations. The operation began with an intense bombing campaign, with aircraft coming in from Italy and England to bomb German aircraft manufacturing lines to cripple the air force’s fleet.The operation was largely a success, with only 257 bombers being lost out of the total 3800.Attacks continued for 6 days, pausing briefly due to severe weather on the 23rd and 24th.After the initial heavy bombing, the campaign persisted until the Luftwaffe retreated from the region. Next, the British needed to clear a passage for the vast number of ships to cross the Channel.A passage through the mines was created called ‘Zebra’, nicknamed Piccadilly Circus after the busy streets of central London. 255 vessels cleared ten 900-metre-wide channels in Zebra, two for each beach. Clearing the mines was not an easy task, due to the different types of munitions and novel technologies employed in the mines to prevent them from being cleared.Apart from one hiccup, however, with the unfortunate loss of USS Osprey (carrying 6 men), the operation was a success. Finally, once the thousands of ships were through the passageways, the final danger loomed.The German guns, called batteries.The RAF bombed these guns surrounding the beaches they would land on, whilst the American Air Force bombed Calais to keep the deception tactics in play.The bombings

The Allies needed to find an ideal spot to land their troops in France: it needed to be easily accessible, unexpected by the Nazi forces lined across north-western France, whilst remaining tactically viable to invade France. Normandy’s large, flat beaches and the few German army divisions guarding it made it an ideal location. Once this position was chosen, the Allies knew it needed to be kept secret from Nazi intelligence.Therefore, they started possibly the most elaborate lie inWW2, in the form of Operations Fortitude North and Fortitude South, aiming to deter Nazi forces from defending Normandy in favour of Norway and Calais. Firstly, the Allies wanted to convince the Nazis they were landing their forces at a different location, somewhere far away. Operation Fortitude North, the British intelligence operation formed to convince Nazis they were landing in Norway, commenced with the ordering British double agents to inform the Nazis that there was a heavy army presence in East Scotland, along with the implication that they were training with mountaineering equipment in the Scottish Highlands.This fooled the Nazis into believing the troops were planning an attack on the Norwegian fjords, a similarly mountainous terrain. They were also told to mention troops in Iceland for a similar reason. Out of all the units called over radio and through spies only one of them actually existed, based near Aberdeen.The Allies also allowed the Nazis to intercept fake radio communication about the activities of

44