Rommel's Dilemma With Taking Africa For Hitler | Secrets Of War | Timeline

[Music] next on secrets of war in the critical battle for North Africa German General Erwin Rommel the desert fox seemed unstoppable a warrior with a mystical feel for the battle but how did he really get his intelligence the British countered with secrets of their own phony spies phantom armies and battlefield magic the story of Rommels enigma is next on secrets of war [Music] [Music] in February 1941 Hitler's favorite General Erwin Rommel landed in North Africa to take command of the Africa Corps [Music] the German generals mission was to bail out their Italian allies Italian forces had been driven from their Libyan colonies by the British General Sir Archibald Wavell who'd taken ceranae acha captured Tobruk and now threatened to throw the italians out of North Africa rummells secret orders were to drive West to Cairo and Suez destroy the British continue into Palestine Arabia Persia and link up with the northern pincer coming down from the Crimea if successful this campaign would give the Germans control of the Arabian and Caspian oil fields and the entire Middle East BrahMos first order was one of deception he paraded his forces through the streets of Tripoli in a classic movie drove his tanks in a giant circle the Panzers passed the reviewing stand again and again a massive show of exaggerated force a force that then disappeared into the desert rummel had long been a hero he'd won the poor the merit a Germany's highest award for valor in the First World War he wrote the best-selling book infantry Griffin expressing the doctrine of mobile attack which was required reading for German officers when he led Hitler's bodyguard he attracted the attention of the Fuehrer in the battle for France his 7th Panzer Division became known as the ghost division for its ability to appear behind enemy lines without warning Rommel had advantages in the proven revolutionary doctrine of blitzkrieg and in his own personal energy drive and brilliance he had what his troops called finger spittin Gifu a feel in his fingertips for the ebb and flow of battle he was a warrior there was nothing artistic about him at all he existed to kill he existed entirely for victory his job was to march into Cairo as as the new conqueror and that's what he planned to do the Africa Corps was made up of veterans vest infantry in the world and the Panzer doctrine of rapid tank thrusts supported by mechanized infantry mobile artillery and air support had swept all before it in Europe now Rommel saw before him the vast deserts of North Africa a perfect battleground for his tanks his weapons were the best in the world the German tanks outgunned of the British while the rounds from the light British guns bounced harmlessly off German Armour Rommel had taken a high-velocity 88 anti-aircraft gun and adapted it to anti-tank service where it was a deadly destructive surprise the British forces in the Western Desert were scattered at the end of the long supply lines stretching back to Alexandria Rommel sensed their weakness and quickly attacked driving east through mersa Matruh rommel led from the front hopscotching the battle from his Storch aircraft directing quick thrusts into the deli of the british leaving open flanks and relying on speed and shock to freeze his enemy while he cut into its flanks he would faint and withdraw drawing the pursuers on to his anti-tank gun screen [Music] his lightning tactics earned him a new appellation the desert fox remote advances absolutely astounded the Germans you know Berlin was often having to reprimand him he wouldn't wait for that kind of thing if he saw a chance and he knew how weak the British forces were disorganized he would take it Rommels tactics and strategies seem to be mystically brilliant his uncanny ability to anticipate British strategies seemed to be a supernatural gift but in this campaign he had a secret weapon one which would eventually be used against him by his enemies with devastating results that weapon was the intelligence he gathered through various means but the british too had covert means in Bletchley Park outside of London a secret army of cryptographers worked on breaking the German Enigma this encoding machine used by every command in the Vermont generated codes which were considered to be unbreakable they were not polish cryptographers had been working to break the machine since the 1920s with the help of ham stylish MIT a spy in the German coding office they'd had some success now with the Nazi occupation of Europe brilliant mathematicians gathered at the government code and cypher school at Bletchley Park to attack the machine code on May 22nd 1940 the had their first breakthrough into the German Air Force code Luftwaffe signals revealed an Italian plan to attack British convoys shuttling between Piraeus in Greece and Alexandria the message was passed - the British Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham who set a trap off Cape Matapan British cruisers struck unbeknownst to the Italians Cunningham had a second secret weapon the first ship Bourne radar directed his fire to an Italian fleet in darkness and fog [Music] unable to return fire unable even to find their enemy the Italians were helpless as British gunfire sank the pride of their fleet the Italians were demoralized Benito Mussolini's hopes of turning the Mediterranean into an Italian Lake were sent to the bottom of the sea I'm at De Panne was important of course because it left the Italian fleet not prepared to sail as a fleet for the rest of the war at sea the Italians ceded dominance to the British but on land Rommel retook the initiative in April he captured Benghazi Bardia Solem and the vital halfa a pass Tobruk alone stood the British who were on the defensive the Luftwaffe code couldn't tell them anything about Rommel and his tanks they had very little with which to defend themselves but if the Germans had a wily phox the British had a cagey lion Winston Churchill wrote battles are won by slaughter and maneuver the greater the general the more he contributes in manoeuvre the less he demands in slaughter there is required for the composition of a great commander an element of legerdemain an original and sinister touch which leaves the enemy baffled as well as beaten the British embraced this need for deception the idea derived true general wave form who spotted how weak the British Empire had become and how necessary it would be for it to work some sort of deception on the enemy to persuade the enemy that in fact it was a great deal stronger than it was the technical term is creating a notional order of battle General Sir Archibald Wavell commanded British forces in North Africa playing for time he created a new organization known as a force to initiate and orchestrate deception it was not enough to conceal what he proposed to do it was necessary to persuade the enemy that Wavell was going to do something else to have a complete cover plan a cover plan called kamil sought to convince the Axis forces that Wavell had weakened his forces by sending troops to Cyprus it was a ruse there was suspended phantom headquarters being set up one officer went backwards and forwards over Cyprus pretending to be the headquarters of this limp attending to the headquarters of that the Germans and Italians were misled into thinking that the British had been weakened Wavell then attacked and achieved tactical surprise he drove through a split in the Italian defensive line retook Bardia and Solomon by April 1941 under relentless German attack the British were forced to evacuate their troops in Greece to Crete and to Alexandria then the code breakers at Bletchley broke further news Crete was next in the axis list ultra the material from Bletchley gave us absolutely the whole German plan we knew where they were going to land we knew which airfields they got targeted and where there parachutists were coming in allied general Bernhard Freiburg forces were too weak to repel the attack but his few gunners deployed around the drop zones and decimated the german paratroopers for the paratroops Crete was a Pyrrhic victory over 4,000 men of Hitler's elite assault troops were killed another 2,000 wounded the Pallas would never fight as an airborne assault force again but again the British faced defeat they were driven from the island as a relief forces were sunk at sea now Malta stood alone astride the critical sea lanes to the east Malta a British colony stood only 60 miles from Italian bases on Sicily the aje Romantica the Italian Air Force should have had an easy conquest the convoy routes from Gibraltar to Alexandria passed within a range of Axis forces in North Africa and Sicily should the British lose control of the island and the choke points between it and the coasts they would have to ship supplies to Cairo around the Horn of Africa dogged all the way by German subs if the Italians took Malta Rommels supply lines would have been protected British supply lines extremely vulnerable Moltres fate depended on Britain's ability to supply it by convoy from Gibraltar in the West and Alexandria in the East British strategists thought Malta indefensible and urged Churchill to abandon it and save his forces but Admiral Cunningham knew that Malta was an ideal base for a striking force an unsinkable aircraft carrier that controlled the Mediterranean we started reading the Italian convoy cipher the c-38 and worth killing so many exit ships that they decided that he wasn't safe for Rommel to go forward until they knock Malta out operation Hercules was Hitler's next secret plan for the invasion of Malta but the unexpected and devastating losses in the paratroop forces through doubt in the German designs and had a marked effect on Hitler the Germans had no idea the British were reading their message traffic they had no idea why they took such heavy losses they came to believe that paratrooper assaults were suicidal the first discussions that came in our ultra were that there should be an invasion there was the question of whether it should be accompanied by parachute forces German ruled it out it had to be done by Italian ships German air cover but no parachute ultra had weakened their resolve the Germans couldn't decide what to do with Malta with the de starve it or bomb it into submission Goering announced that Malta would be destroyed by massive attacks from the air one of the greatest strategies of the British Empire also centered around a certain amount of bluff and size of the British fleet was self-evident what was not quite realized was the weakness of the air defences and the weakness in the event of other landing the islands hopes rested on his hair defence this defense rested on three obsolete biplanes Gloucester gladiators faith hope and charity were all the aircraft left to defend against the might of the Italian and German air forces until modern planes arrived bombs plunged down on Maltese airfields at Harbor eight times a day virtually every British convoy sent to supply the rock was destroyed food and munitions grew scarce bombers and subs were forced to withdraw to Alexandria sailing and the surface was suicidal submarines were pressed into magic carpet and underwater supply service from Alexandria by August the Maltese were near starvation near defeat a fast convoy was ordered codenamed Operation pedestal attacked by subs dive bombers torpedo bombers a boat's aerial mines and destroyers the convoy was decimated the carrier Eagle the cruiser Cairo and several merchant ships were sunk other cruisers destroyers and transports damaged off Sardinia the escorting carriers and cruisers pulled out leaving the unsorted convoy to face the Italian fleet they had no real defenses when air vice-marshal Keith Park operating from Malta pulled a bluff unable to mount a real attack he sent only two bombers but then faked massive air forces using wireless deception the Italian fleet intimidated by the torpedo bombers withdrew tanka Ohio finally reached limped into Grand Harbor heavily bombed and relieved the island with 55,000 tons of vital fuel supplies then Hitler's secret Operation Barbarossa suddenly gave the Maltese relief the invasion of Russia drew the Luftwaffe off to the east by late 1941 Malta based sub and air crews were destroying three-fourths of axis jibing German general Albert Kesselring and Rommel argued Malta's fate Rommel demanded forces for his advance into Egypt he reasoned that if he took to Brook and Alexandria Malta would fall on its own back by Hitler Rama's view prevailed in November Wavell was replaced by General Sir Claude Auchinleck who planned operation Crusader a battle to drive Rommel back to Sarah naka but while they prepared they still had to forestall Rommels attack a forces mission was to mislead the enemy with an appearance of strength carried out through wireless deception and an orchestra of notional axis spies throughout the Middle East during the summer months a force faked preparations to attack three times and each time at the last minute they stood down to outfox the desert fox they were crying wolf to delude axis aerial reconnaissance the British turned to magic Jasper masculine was Britain's foremost stage magician masculine Colonel Geoffrey barkas a film set designer and the magic gang ragtag outfit of film technicians writers painters and other consorts were brought together to deceive Rommels eyes the war to me involves something very strange and rather alarming the focusing of my whole imagination and knowledge on the problem of how best to mobilize the world of magic against Hitler Jasper masculine masculine understood the use of light shadow and illusion he knew how to hide things he'd built his life around misdirection and now used night as his black velvet in his desert workshop known as Magic Valley masculine magicians turned out all sorts of visual illusions masculine used canvas and plywood to create tanks from the air they looked real even found a way to make tank tracks look like those made by truck wheels he created trucks that fit right over the top of a tank and could be detached by turning one little thing at the top and from the sky these things looked exactly like trucks and they cast precisely the right shadows and they were called Sun shields and they could be detached from a tank in less than a minute in desert warfare the critical issue was supply access bombers were pounding Alexandria Harbor a force was asked adult masculine and his magic gang set to work defending the harbor they decided the best way was to move it he took photographs of the pattern of ground lights at the Harbor and three miles down the beach he recreated the light pattern where there had been ships in the harbor with tall masts they put up sticks with lights on it he built bombs that would look from the air like they were aerial bombs detonating as German bombers flew over the magic gang blacked-out the harbor and turned on their lights they set off their explosives the German fliers saw what looked like an attack they made a right turn and dropped their bombs in the water the Suez Canal was the only means to move supplies from the east it was impossible to camouflage so they gave the job to masculine if he couldn't hide the canal from the ground he must obscure it from the air he took the searchlight and he turned it into a strobe light and then he made it spin anytime a pilot looked down and saw this strobe light spinning it made it impossible to get your bearings it certainly made it impossible to see anything [Music] now in the West at the far end of his supply lines general Auchinleck operation Crusader ground to a halt Rommel again seized the initiative he attacks again in the beginning of in January 42 by now we have enigma on him but it's late it's late in being broken and of course it's even later getting to the front to support Rommels new campaign maldo was hit by tremendous bombardment ships were sunk in the harbor the defenses blasted Maltese destroyers sunk by mines there was no fuel Maltese forces couldn't interrupt Ramos supplies the desert fox was on the move again probing fainting and building for a major attack [Music] 19:42 North Africa as Field Marshal Rommel attacked the British achieved a breakthrough not in the field of battle at sea or in the air but in the ether and in the mine during the Battle of Gazala the amount of traffic goes up the carelessness in German signalling naturally goes up we began to read every cipher in use in North Africa and to read them currently Rommel pushed forward from the Egyptian frontier Auchinleck fought him to a stop on the Alamein line that use of enigma minute by minute day by day by Auchinleck to keep Rommel on the hop to keep hitting him and preventing him from consolidating what a brilliant use of intelligence but by March 1942 ever dangerous Rommel who was about to attack the British had to hold him by deception their target was the Vermont intelligence section located in a secret underground bunker complex hidden under a meadow and sawsan near Berlin here analysts tracked the British forces we were very successful in persuading Rommel that the number of troops we had in the Delta area was 50% higher than indeed it was zossen also encrypted its message traffic with enigma the British commanders read rummells orders sometimes before he did and now ultra made them increasingly suspicious Rommel seemed to have a preternatural knowledge of British dispositions strengths and intentions Rommel simply was the who knew too much beginning of 42 we began to notice in especially catch the ringing signal but also in some other an eclipse they were referring to information about British intentions or conditions from a special secret source US military attache for Cairo Colonel Frank fellers toured the British positions in the desert the British desperate Ted the US enter the war showed the American everything fellers and detailed messages to the US from the Cairo telegraph office he used the US diplomatic black code a code he believed was absolutely safe it wasn't a seeker to people in London tidied up with the discussion that the Middle East people were having with the US military attache sufficiently to realize that this was the source the black code had been stolen from the safe of the American Embassy in Rome by the Italian Secret Service rubble was reading the Allies mail and worse his radio intercept company led by captain Alfred C Baum monitored British radio traffic [Music] he had a company there of a hundred experts in wireless telegraphy men who could so read the whispers in the heavens and make the corrected actions from them a friend of mine in a catenary taken prisoner in the desert as might happen to anybody and the first question is that his interrogation was not the usual name rank another but how's the Colonel's dog today loose chatter by British operators gave away more than idle gossip but Rommel had another secret weapon Rommels field intelligence was reading British books ciphers at the division level see Baum was a brilliant and ambitious officer by gauging the strength direction the times and the call signs of signals and by his own intuition he was able to give Rommel a complete picture of the forces opposing him and their positions and movements in the field but to capture the signals see bombs company had to be on high ground closer to the front for the coming battle he found a forward position just off the sea it was called tell Alisa the well of Jesus the British decided to eliminate this post on July 10th and Australian battalion wrapped their boots in burlap for a silent night assault led by Colonel H H hard as nails hammer they silently stalked uphill they moved up onto the hill of Jesus and encountered a regiment of Italian infantry they were all asleep they managed to worm their way through the sleeping italian infantryman and took seabone by surprise the Germans fought back viciously but they've gotten too far out front they were taken so fast the Germans didn't have a chance to destroy their papers gravely wounded see bomb was taken to a field hospital but without revealing his methods he died in morning light British intelligence examined their find they knew where we would concentrated our artillery where we had our tanks how many aircraft were available for employment the state of repair of our of our armored forces where the fighting infantry were concentrated there of course this was the sort of intelligence that if it appears on a general spec firstable makes it very difficult for him to lose a battle they saw that C bomb had gotten a complete picture of the British forces punched C bomb was dead in his company destroyed Rommels loss was great the whispers in the heaven are banished even now but they are blinded man with his main source of intelligence eliminated Rommel now only heard what the British wanted him to hear the British saw that they could use what they learned about German radio intercept operations to plant a great deception in the destroyed headquarters of Rommel radio intercept company until L aisa among the code papers British intelligence found a book a best-seller by Daphne du Maurier but one thing was strange it was in English and on the Flyleaf the price in escudos was in Portuguese Lisbon the capital of Portugal a neutral country was a nest of spies British intelligence paid a visit to the bookstore yes the book was available in English 12 copies had been sold to the German Embassy why would the Germans want 12 copies of a book in English to British intelligence multiple copies could only mean one thing a book cold the Germans had a spy somewhere the fact that the book was in English meant that it was somewhere where a German book would cause suspicion the Germans had a spy among the British but where a German desert explorer went deep down into the southerly part of the desert in the worst possible conditions great heat no water and made his way down to the Nile one of the great expeditions of all time he turned off making its way to Cairo his purpose to set up an espionage forward intelligence post for Rommel Cairo was a divided city filled with intrigue the British colonial power was deeply resented and secretly undermined by Egyptian nationalists at night the city sought relief in revelry the famed belly dancer beautiful hikmah Thani performed her exotica nightly at the KitKat cafe and lived in a houseboat on the Nile Heckman Fahmy was an Egyptian nationalist if she heard anything which would weaken the British she passed it along to nationalist officers as the toast of Cairo Fahmy heard a lot at the club she was introduced to a free-spending gentleman named Epler yet a lot of money his English Pounds came from SS counterfeiters he was the German spy trained it up their intelligence headquarters in Berlin he trekked a thousand miles through the southern desert Fahmy wanted to weaken the British hold over her land the Germans would help her do that she would use her exotic means to charm information from the British information which would then be transmitted to Ramos forces through Emperor's radio Eppler moved into the hospital next door the Fahmy on the Nile dressed as a British officer Epler would frequent shepherds the turf club and other British watering holes listening and paying for drinks with counterfeit notes but with the destruction of Rommels intercepts company the British knew of a spy in Cairo and were watching for counterfeit bills while Fahmy had no trouble enticing lonely officers with her nightly gyrations at the Kit Kat club a rather flabby English major had become a close friend so friendly was he that he was seen to be visiting the houseboat on the loud to consult with his belly dancer friend Tommy's beauty attracted many men among them a major from British headquarters in her houseboat bedroom she pumped him for secrets which Epler then transmitted a bar bill paid in counterfeit notes alerted British counterintelligence they rushed his houseboat Epler was gone but they found papers and a book they found the radio but they still had no means to break the code at headquarters they let the book fall open it opened to the same page as the book found in sea bombs outpost they had found the key to Rebecca Daphne du Maurier's potboiler was the basis of the simple book code they were ready to play the double-cross the British were slowly building up their forces breaking the naval enigma they safeguarded American convoys of new Sherman tanks which would outnumbered Rommel Spencer's in August 1942 Churchill replaced Auchinleck with General Sir Harold Alexander and placed general Bernard Montgomery and commanded the 8th army arming him with ultra intercepts of Rommels messages to Kesselring in Rome [Music] El Alamein was a natural defensive line bordered on the north by the Mediterranean on the south by the Qatari depression impassable to tanks a 40 mile wide choke point which if breached would open the road to Cairo key to the field was a series of ridges the key ridge called Alam halfa Monti was privy to ultra information to the moment he arrived in the desert ultra showed that Rommel was rebuilding his forces and was expected to launch a major attack ultra did not tell him where the attack would come therefore it was up to Monty's judgment there as to what the enemy would be likely to do Rommel would have to capture the high ground Montgomery's plan was to put his forces on the ridge and site his anti-tank guns Rommel would break through and discover these forces but then what would he do in the desert there are two types of ground hard going packed sand and rock suitable for tank travel and soft sand jasper mescaline was ordered to prepare a map masculine created a map that looked like a very old map that had coffee stains it was torn this map would appear to be ancient and accurate it would depict the ground before Alam halfa as hard going but how to play the map into German hands in the first world war British general Sir Edmund Allenby had played a deception into Turkey shams it presented them with false attack plans in an intentionally lost officer's briefcase and had conquered Gaza now they would try that ploy again with the use of the unfortunate major who had fallen to the charms of the belly dancer ahmed fahmi it's unclear what happened whether the major sacrificed himself or was deceived by british intelligence he was expected to allow himself to be captured so that the laughs would be found on his person if he undertook that mission and it succeeded then he would be excused his sins at the houseboat on the Nile German forward observers saw a British armored car driving towards them driving directly into a minefield moments later there was a terrific explosion in the destroyed car was one dead major now restored to honour and a briefcase with a map but Rommel had secret agents in Alexandria and Cairo the rumors and messages were numerous but contradictory by what he'd learned through Foley and doubled spies and through deliberately misleading radio traffic it seemed the British line was weakest in the south Rommel was enticed to attack on August 30th ramos 15th and 21st pump sirs drove south with the Italian R&D division they breached the first minefields and drove the British back as the pump sirs drove toward Alam halfa Ridge hidden guns erupted rommel turned towards the region marked heart going on the map the pond sirs were suddenly up to their halls in soft sand as they wallowed helplessly pre-sighted guns and a bomber attack destroyed them Rommel had fallen into Monty's trap rummel had drawn up on the wire the Egyptian border and now the British built up their forces for the critical battle for North Africa the British realized that brute force could not create an advantage they would have to turn to deception once again October 1942 field general Erwin Rommel faced the British forces on the Alamein line to the enemy facing him his forces seemed strong as ever but he'd made a critical error over Malta and he was losing the Battle of the Mediterranean mould having survived the bombardment was back in action those supply lines were absolutely devastated 48 ships were sunk most of them tankers or ammunition ships now this completely ruin Rommel he couldn't move his forces short of fuel ammunition and food Rommel watched the British build for an attack Rommel expected the assault in the north and it created an enormous minefield called The Devil's garden an attacking force would be caught up in the mines while Panzer forces in reserve would destroy them the British realized that have to hold these forces in place for 48 hours while engineers cleared paths through the defences operation Bertram was a sleight-of-hand a misdirection in both place and in time its goal was to convince Rommel that the main attack would come in the south and that it would come later than a diversionary attack in the north to do this the Allies would need to disguise their forces one of Montgomery's aides put it to a force you must conceal 150,000 men with a thousand guns and a thousand tanks on a plane as hard and flat as a billiard table and the Germans must not know anything about it although they'll be watching every listening for every noise trodding every track you can't do it of course but you bloody well got to guns and tanks were moved to the south to staging areas an old trench system was packed with petrol cans aerial reconnaissance revealed that the new stockpile was invisible the trenches through the same shadows as before the fuel necessary for the attack had been hidden in plain sight on the field of battle they built a railroad in the south out of bull rushes and they would lay track out of jerrycans every day and move them the next day the magic gang built obviously phony guns out of telephone poles German reconnaissance recognized them as phony just before the battle the British replaced them with real guns masculine built dummy men from the waist up that cast the right shadow so it made it look like they were huge tent emplacements and camps in the south a phony fuel pipeline was started from the rear areas to the south its construction rate was calculated to be finished no earlier than weeks after the start date for the actual battle October 23rd 1942 the Germans knew that the British could not possibly move until the railroad was completed because that was their supply line until the pipeline was completed so they watched everyday trucks and transport were moved to the north some of these trucks were dummies some were not vehicles at all but stores of fuel and ammunition disguised so that from the air they looked like trucks they had all of their tanks in the south and all of their transport vehicles in the north two nights before the battle was to begin they moved the tanks back to a staging area and replaced them with masculine z' dummy tanks at night they brought the tanks up slipping them under shields little by little with tracks swept clean forces were moved forward in the glare of the Morning Sun nothing seemed to have changed the British were creeping imperceptibly forward Rommel was so unaware of the subtle deception that he left the front for a much-needed rest cure in the Alps the desert night of October 23rd 1942 erupted as shells from the British Eighth Army tore into German positions Monte's artillery walked across the devil's garden ripping gaps in the defences minesweeping tanks led sappers into the minefields carrying lamps and white tape to mark lanes for the infantry reports filtering into Panzer Army Headquarters indicated that the British were attacking all along the front the attack was faltering the defenses were formidable the mine sweepers were breaking down infantry was clearing mines by hand probing with bayonets into the sand the Germans held their reserves suddenly another front opened on the sea the British had launched an all-out amphibious landing the thunder of naval guns and rockets the sounds of anchor chains the smell of fuel oil signs of a massive attack and off the coast an enormous smoke screen obscured the forces the German 90th flight Infantry's Reserve and the Luftwaffe were diverted from the front lines to the beach as the ninetieth prepared to meet the landing german planes dropped tons of bombs into the smoke but as the smoke cleared the entire invasion force had disappeared only a few drifting barges floated harmlessly off shore the magic gang had struck again and the non-existent British landing had in fact gone up in smoke then on October 24th a critical convoy of five ships with crucial supplies for Rommel left Naples the British Navy wanted to sink all five but that might give the game away the rule was that no ship could be sunk without being sighted by aircraft and having the Germans in turns sight the aircraft which had discovered their position there was no time for this and sinking all five ships would raise suspicions these ships were critical but so was the ultra secret the decision must go to Churchill the grit deceptor pondered then in the British code rooms in Cairo and Malta headquarters a message from London decoded sink them one by one the ships were tracked down and sunk the last one within sight of the coast the Germans could not fail to take notice it altura been lost to misdirect a force sent a congratulatory message to their Harbor spy in Naples they gave him a bonus for targeting the convoy he never spent it he didn't exist but he was all too real for the Germans who was the British intended had decoded the message and believed it on October 25th the German tank force tried to attack through a dummy battery at municipal the real guns which had laid silent through two days of battle now opened up and devastated the attackers 21st pump Sur was held by the diversion Field Marshal Rommel returned to his desert headquarters to take command of the battle the reports were confusing British for attacking all along the line but Teramo it was clear the most dangerous games had been made in the north and threatened his supply lines he ordered the Panthers north the deception operation Bertram had delayed their entry into the battle for two critical days now as Rommel drove his forces north to meet the main threat Montgomery countered with operation supercharge an attack to cleave the Axis forces at their weakest point where the Panzer army met the Italians as the 21st prancer's raced north muddy slipped his xxx Corps south to the scene to cover his movement the general wanted the enemy to see tank groups in the north but it was impossible the dummy tanks were scattered destroyed there was no time the magic gang gathered as many as they could find and set out for the desert they said and moved the dummy tanks a dozen times a day they laid tank tracks in the desert dummy depots and tank groups were created and finally they resorted to the magician's favorite trick they did with mirrors plywood with aluminum paint breasts Oh in the desert masculine had produced a new Mirage multiple tanks El Alamein was one and Rommels march to cairo was stopped forever he would fight a delaying retreat and inflict casualties but the German threat to the Middle East was finished secret intelligence helped create the legend of the desert fox and helped destroy it and him what foiled Rommel was precisely what gave him such meaningful advantages in the first place secret information eventually Rommel turned against Hitler was implicated in the 20th of July 1944 assassination attempt on the Fuehrer and was forced to commit suicide as the Reich crumbled when the British stood alone against the Nazis the decrypted enigma messages and why service intercepts were used in concert with a force operations this campaign of deception was the ultra secret weapon huevos a force became the London controlling section and used many of the same stratagems in operation fortitude the d-day deception and in other covert operations throughout the war the people of Malta for their courage and dedication under fire were awarded the George Cross German Field Marshal Kesselring later said Malta was the rock upon which axis hopes in the Mediterranean founded after the war just by masculine retired from stage performing but not from magic he moved to Kenya and aided the police forces against the Mau Mau rebellion devising new means of deception the German spy Epler moved back to Europe and became a wealthy businessman Hekmat famiiy was considered by her Egyptian countrymen to be a heroine of the nationalist rebellion she lived in honor and luxury and died of natural causes in Cairo the Allies won the war but Britain lost her Empire Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat two of the Egyptian nationalist officers became leaders of an independent Egypt the war that saw the defeat of the greatest threat to civilization in the 20th century also saw the beginning of the end of colonialism and the start of a new world order of independent modern States

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

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Length: 50min 33sec (3033 seconds)

Published: Tue May 05 2020