Operation Bodyguard: The Absolutely Crazy (And Successful) Plan to Fool Hitler Before D-Day

just past 6am on the 6th of june 1944 the largest amphibious invasion fleet the world had ever seen appeared out of the dawn mist off the shores of normandy at 6 30 a.m men began wading ashore across all five landing beaches many staggering through a hail of bullets raining down from the german defenders above it'll be nearly a year before the nazis finally surrendered but this this was the beginning of the end the success of d-day was certainly far from assured at the outset allied commanders knew that gaining a vital foothold in continental europe would likely come at a horrific cost in the end losses were actually significantly less than they had envisioned thanks in no small part to the complex deception plan the allies had used to confuse the germans over the whereabouts of the landings the world will forever remember operation overlord as one of the defining battles of world war ii but without operation bodyguard the outcome may well have been very different [Music] the importance of operation bodyguard is a topic that historians keep coming back to not to discuss whether or not it was a success but just how much of a success it was the grand allied plan was designed to confuse the germans into spreading their troops thinly across a wide area quite simply if the germans knew exactly where the landings would be the chances of success were slim the nazis may have gone through a chattany experience on the eastern front but the fear marked was still a fearsome proposition this was a plan of such dizzying scope and complexities that it can be difficult to keep up and it evolved everything from double agents fictitious armies inflatable tanks dummy parachutists fake radio broadcasts and bombing raids on targets that were not immediately needed following d-day operation bodyguard not only worked but it also acted as the springboard for the success of operation overlord intercepted communications between the japanese ambassador hiroshi shima and adolf hitler one week before d-day revealed the level of success with the german leader stating clearly that he expected the main allied invasion force to attack calais he was of course as you absolutely know completely wrong not only would the allies be facing one of the most lethal armies ever known but they would also have to break through the mighty atlantic wall in 1942 hitler's invasion plans of the united kingdom all but evaporated now embroiled in chaotic bloody fighting on the eastern front the german leader looked to shore up his defenses on the western front if he couldn't get over to britain well he was determined to prevent britain from coming to europe a series of small-scale commando raids have been carried out by the allies to test the viability of a full-scale invasion while also no doubt acting as a little fly in hitler's ointment it's unlike the attacks carried out in norway proved successful while others such as the debacle at dieppe in france were nothing short of target practice for the well-dug in german defenders in response hillary ordered the construction of a vast array of defensive fortifications that would spread from the bay of biscay where france and spain meet to the icy northern coast of norway a distance of some 6 200 kilometers that's nearly 4 000 miles a total of two thousand main fortifications were built along the walls with tens of thousands of smaller bunkers trenches and other buildings also constructed this is a true mega project isn't it it was a fearsome barrier but one that was certainly not perfect and well hitler absolutely knew it he placed his finest general the much feared and well-respected field marshal edwin rommel in charge of securing the wall in 1943 and further improvements were made along the line but in reality it was just too big to really defend with any great conviction it was massively long [Music] so the allies were watching the construction of the atlantic wall with a lot of interest of course it would have been absurd hitler not to fortify his position but as the fortifications and thousands of miles of defensive barriers went up the planned invasion of europe suddenly became a bit of a monumental undertaking the allies had plenty of choices where to attack but none of them were ideal the bedlam that had ensued when they tried to land against a well-defended ports at diapered taught them a very painful lesson the invasion of europe would have to begin in a relatively isolated spot in the end four sites came under consideration brittany the cotton in peninsula normandy and the pada calais area the closest to the uk but also the most obvious the first two options were rejected as both were peninsulas and could be easily cut off by the germans while padekale was ultimately shunned for being plainly obvious and where they would most likely meet their fairest opposition and that just left one standing normandy but while the allies made up their minds quite early the plan was to keep the germans guessing right up until the final moments operation bodyguard had begun back in 1943 and was split into a series of smaller operations designed to gently suggest a certain likely location for the allied landings and i do mean gently there because one of the master strokes of operation bodyguard was not to overcook the deception yeah be bad be like hey hitler yeah we're coming to calais get ready definitely a calais not normandy not at all we're not coming to normandy no way imagine basically they were just leaving some breadcrumbs and allowing the enemy to come to their own conclusions as well as the four locations initially shortlisted in france the allies also made a strong showing of a possible invasion of norway and also positions in the mediterranean broadly speaking we could break up the main operations under operation fortitude into two fortitude north which would give the impression of attack on norway and fortitude south which would allude to an evasion of calais then we have operation ferdinand designed to convince the germans that the allies would invade genoa and so put them away from the planned landing in southern france that would take place after d-day operation zeppelin which included the offshoots of operation vendetta and turpitude involved a bewildering five-stage deception plan that included fictitious landings against greece albania croatia turkey bulgaria and also france then we have operation royal flush in which allied ambassadors in neutral countries namely spain turkey and sweden would make some subtle but also not so subtle overtures took the neutral governments over their involvement after the invasion of europe with the hopes that rumors would eventually find their way back to the germans like i said at the beginning of this video things get complicated sadly we don't have nearly enough time to go through all of this but it was all very cool i assure you of that but we're going to focus on the main operations instead [Music] let us begin with the cold and frigid north surely such a massive european invasion wouldn't come through norway hitler thought it was unlikely but the lengths to which fortitude north went meant that thousands of germans remained in scandinavia to counter a possible invasion and as you would have it the british already had a fake army headquartered in edinburgh castle in 1943 during the build-up to the allied invasion of sicily the british had created the fictitious fourth army during operation kecade as a way of pulling german forces away from the italian island unlike fortitude south fortitude north primarily focused on false information communicated via radio essentially radio operators mimicked the build-up of a real-life army when in fact that army just didn't exist at all the british media even got in on the act by transmitting football schools and wedding announcements to the swelling number of imaginary men stationed in scotland waiting for the invasion of norway in early spring 1944 to add a little extra spice the british launched several commando raids on the norwegian coast aimed at destroying industrial targets such as shipping and power infrastructure as well as hitting military outposts exactly the kind of actions you would take if you were readying an invasion force there has been some debate as to the success of the wireless transmitting and in fact how much the germans were actually listening but what is clear is that when d-day began hitler had 13 army divisions in norway thought to number over 400 000 men whether it was down to the allied operation or simply hitler's own delusions over his future third reich empire the fact that so many troops remained marooned in scandinavia away from the fighting would be absolutely vital to the success of d-day fortitude south was a significantly larger operation than its northern cousin the problem here was that the allies knew that they had to amass their invasion fleet in the south of england so how do you quietly build up soldiers and military equipment for the largest amphibious landing in history without the germans noticing well like any magician will tell you it's all about the hands the allies were fully aware that such a build-up would not go completely unnoticed but luckily for them a certain hitler was gazing in the wrong direction as i mentioned earlier an attack on the pada calais area was the most obvious point it provided the shortest route across the channel it had a harbour and also lay close to the belgium ports further north and perhaps best of all it was also the shortest and most direct route to germany fortitude south involved the creation of another fake army this time the first u.s army group but the master stroke was to involve the man who the germans feared more than any other general george's pattern is a name that has gone down in military folklore on both sides of the fighting to the allies he was a brilliant maverick capable of inspiring astonishing success on the battlefield but also a man who could be brazenly uncompassionate highlighted by his slapping of soldiers who were suffering from shell shock an incident which saw him severely reprimanded to the germans he encapsulated their worst nightmare old blood and guts their fierce heartless yankee was by far the general they feared the most and with patton withdrawn from the public eye after the slapping incident he was seen as the perfect person to lead a completely fictitious army planning to attack calais and unlike fortitude north which lay outside of german reconnaissance aircraft range the preparations in the south had to look as real as they could be the allies needed to convince the germans that the primary invasion would come through calais to such an extent that even after d-day had begun and soldiers were arriving on the beaches of normandy that it was simply a large-scale diversion that would ultimately be followed by an even greater attack on cali fake buildings landing strips and barracks were constructed in the southeast of england and were regularly toured by patton to add a further sense of plausibility along with this dummy aircraft and landing crafts also added to the sense of a massive military buildup just as in the north radio messages coordinating the massing of the fake first u.s army group no doubt helped convince the germans radio traffic increased dramatically as the invasion date neared as allied bombers began hitting strategic targets such as railways bridges and military installations close to calais lastly was the use of double agents during the whole deception process by this point most german spies in the uk had been caught and either executed or turned after which they began feeding the germans bogus information regarding the plans of attack on d-day as well as that the allies utilized some superb homegrown spies during operation bodyguard the most famous of these agents was a spaniard by the name of juan pujol garcia reij a man fiercely loyal to the allies but who also passed on such impressive and substantial information to the nazis that he was eventually awarded the iron cross who was also awarded an mbe in the uk garcia created a fictitious spy network of 27 fake individuals all bankrolled by the germans and fed a torrent of information that went all the way back to hitler perhaps more than any one person involved in operation bodyguard garcia's role in convincing the germans that the allies would arrive in calais nothing short of extraordinary [Music] as the time to d-day became a matter of hours and not days operation titanic got underway look i'm well aware that you're probably already lost with a sheer amount going on in the buildup i kind of am but to speak of the extraordinary lengths that the allies went to to give operation overlord the best possible chance of success one night on the 5th of june with real airborne troops readying themselves with a frankly terrifying drop into the darkness of occupied france roughly 400.9 metre tall dummies known as ruperts were parachuted into areas of eastern west normandy with them went a small detachment of sas troops who then operated loudspeakers on the ground playing recordings of gunfire and men shouting to one another again to disrupt german defenses and generally confuse the entire situation later on once d-day had begun for real the allies began dropping aluminium foil known as window or chaff the aim here was to try and give the impression of a large-scale invasion fleet on radar screens a large number of small boats towing large radar reflecting balloons also began to steam towards calais as d-day began it was clear that operation bodyguard had worked at least in the early stages but while the allied invasion force met a much lighter german army that it could have much still depended on whether the germans pulled divisions from other areas to reinforce normandy once they knew that a large invasion was underway and this is where operation fortitude really came into its own what appeared off the coast of normandy was monstrous in size and most likely for the hapless german defenders staring out at the vast armada it must have been perfectly clear that this was where the main invasion was coming but operation fortitude had sowed so much doubt in the minds of the germans that their response remained paralyzed completely unsure where the reserve troops were needed the fact that rommel was back in germany for his wife's birthday and hitler's staff were too scared to wake him after news of the invasion came in no doubt helped the allied cause prior remarkably the allies managed to keep up their ruse of a planned invasion of calais until as late as september 1944 a full three months after d-day even after it became clear that the normandy landings were not fakes as many as 22 divisions were ordered to remain in calais to counter the anticipated real invasion that would soon come it was a horrible miscalculation by adolf hitler and one that aided the allies enormously [Music] look i think we'll know where the story goes from here but what we shouldn't forget is the hellish fighting that the allies had to overcome to break out from normandy securing the beaches had been a herculean effort but the bloody carnage in the fields of normandy would come at a high price for the allies and this was a price that may will have been insurmountable had the germans poured in the full might of their reserves instead hitler and his commanders dithered and on august 21 1944 the filet gap a pocket of german soldiers numbering over 50 000 was entirely encircled near the small town of fillet many managed to escape but it proved to be a huge turning point a few days after paris was liberated on the 30th august 1944 operation overlord was finally concluded it had been a hard-fought few months with many aspects having proved to be considerably more complex and frustrating than the allies could have ever imagined but it could have been a whole lot worse while men guns and bullets were needed on the ground to drive the germans back the battle of deception was absolutely pivotal we will forever remember operation overlords but its success was laid on the foundation of thousands of fake radio messages hundreds of messages passed on by double agents make-believe armies and the master stroke abusing the most feared general the allies had as a fictitious leader to carry the most dramatic slice of hand in modern warfare so i hope you enjoyed this video if you did smash that like button and don't forget to check out side projects there's so much content we wanted to cover on mega projects that we started a sister channel so a lot of stuff goes over there whenever there isn't a video on this channel there is a video on that channel except for sundays because that's the day of rest isn't it there is a link to side projects below and thank you for [Music] watching [Music] you

Channel: Megaprojects

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Length: 15min 47sec (947 seconds)

Published: Fri May 14 2021