What Is D-Day Deception

The Deception of D-Day Andrew McDonald COM-156 March 31.2013 University of Phoenix The Deception of D-Day Was it through deception or quantity of material and personnel that aided the Allies win over the Axis in the European theater? Operation Fortitude started out small, just like all military operations it grew expeditiously as it matured. This allowed for the turning of German spies into double agents, hiding thousands of tons of equipment in plain sight, even the use of magical illusions brought the Allied forces closer and closer to the eventual day of June 6, 1944, or as more know it as D-Day. This Operation was so large in fact it is a miracle
Army Group or (FUSAG), which was a fictitious group. Originally conceived in London during 1943 as a planning group for the Allied invasion of France that was placed under General Omar Bradley, which existed only on paper as part of Operation Quicksilver. Stationed directly across from Pas de Calais in the area of Dover in the southern England, this allowed the allies to spread even more deception throughout the German High Command and Intelligence community. While George Patton was placed in command of the 1st Army Group, Dwight D. Eisenhower increased the groups size to make it seem large than the British’s Twenty-first Army group which was led by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. This keep the Axis more interested in keeping an eye or sending agents to obtain the size and what the FUSAG was up to. Operation Quicksilver was invented to allow the Germans to think that this was the main part of the invasion that was to come. Since it was a direct route across the English channel into France it was made to think that the Allies would use this route since it had less obstacles to take to commence its invasion plans. This also had the Germans place more material that could have been used elsewhere to defend the original landing
Also utilizing the use of sound trucks, trucks equipped with large speakers playing recording of tanks and other types of war sounds. Phony radio and telephone transmissions help immensely with covering the actions of real units operating with their area. June 1944 began Task Force Mason, a mission of 15 men that was sent ahead of the Ghost Army’s main force. There in Normandy they made use of dummy artillery emplacements located a mile ahead of the actual artillery unit. There they made the dummy emplacements to confuse and fool aircraft and counter artillery units from the Germans. This resulted in an experimental success for the unit and surprisingly there were no casualties from this. In September 1944 during Operation Bettembourg, Patton massed his army to take the city of Metz, it left a 70-mile gap in his lines, the Ghost Army was called up to pretend they were 20 thousand men along with all its equipment. What they called the sonic company, using trucks with giant speakers played sounds of tanks, soldiers and equipment for four