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00:01Next on Secrets of War, it was perhaps the most important battle of World War II, D-Day.
00:09As the future of Europe and the world hung in the balance, an intricate web of lies hit the when,
00:15where and how of the Allied landings at Normandy.
00:18From double agents to phantom armies, the battle behind the battle, D-Day Deceptions is next on Secrets of War.
00:58Secrets of War
01:28Secrets of War
01:41The 6th of June, 1944.
01:54As dawn breaks over Western Europe, a savage naval barrage pounds the coast of France.
02:10And thousands of British, American, Canadian, French and Polish soldiers storm onto the beaches of Normandy.
02:3420,000 paratroops have already landed in an attempt to take strategic points inland.
02:46By the end of the day, nearly 150,000 men will have come ashore.
02:51The largest amphibious assault in history.
02:55The liberation of Europe is underway.
02:58But the Battle of Normandy had really begun more than a year earlier.
03:04It had been a campaign of wits, secrets, and deception.
03:09For D-Day to be successful, the element of surprise was critical.
03:13Indeed, essential.
03:16The plans for the Allied invasion of France were among the most important and closely guarded secrets of the entire
03:22war.
03:24In the summer of 1943, Lieutenant General Frederick Morgan, the acting chief of staff to the Supreme Allied Commander, presented
03:32the initial plans of Operation Overlord.
03:35In it, he outlined the objectives, needs, and conditions for the invasion of France.
03:44The plan called for massive amounts of men and material from the United States, and for complete air superiority.
03:59In addition, Morgan stated that the plan required a much higher standard of performance than any previous operation.
04:06But the report acknowledged that the invasion had only a reasonable chance of success.
04:13The task facing the liberation forces was daunting.
04:17The Wehrmacht, a German war machine, was the most powerful fighting force in the world.
04:23It was comprised of over 300 divisions, nearly 4 million men.
04:28In the winter of 1943, 46 of those divisions were in Belgium and France.
04:34By D-Day, there would be more than 60.
04:38Conventional military tactics dictated that attackers should outnumber the defenders by at least 2 to 1.
04:46But the Allies would be able to land only about 10 divisions on D-Day.
04:52Also facing the Allies was the problem of the Atlantic Wall,
04:56the complex of concrete, barbed wire, and massive guns that stretched from Scandinavia to Spain.
05:06Begun in 1940, soon after the occupation of France,
05:10the Atlantic Wall was still not completed by the winter of 1943.
05:15Yet Hitler believed that once completed, it would be invincible.
05:25Hitler was very much the man for the grand statement and the grand design.
05:29The idea of a Festung Europa, a fortress Europe,
05:32with an Atlantic Wall that would throw back the Anglo-American hordes when they tried to do it,
05:37it was all very much part of the Hitlerian concept of the grand design of history.
05:44He believed, certainly, this massive concrete barrier on the Atlantic Wall
05:50was in places immensely effective.
05:56Today, more than 50 years after it was commissioned as the first line of defense of Fortress Europe,
06:02the Atlantic Wall is still imposing and ominous.
06:06The remnants of the concrete bunkers, metal obstacles, and the great guns
06:10stand in mute witness to what transpired here more than half a century ago.
06:19In November of 1943, Hitler issued his Directive 51,
06:23in which he predicted that the Allies would invade in the spring of 1944.
06:28He promised that he would no longer weaken his Western defenses in favor of other fronts.
06:35To this end, he ordered the strengthening of the Atlantic Wall.
06:42In December, Hitler's most trusted and charismatic general,
06:46Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, came to France to inspect the wall.
06:52Rommel had gained a reputation as a brilliant tactician in the deserts of North Africa.
07:03But since being driven from the deserts,
07:05he'd been relegated to a low-profile position in northern Italy.
07:11In January of 1944,
07:13he was made commander of Army Group B
07:16and put in charge of the Atlantic Wall.
07:20There was still a feeling that Rommel
07:22was at the peak of his tactical capabilities as a commander.
07:26He had the respect of the troops.
07:28To a certain extent, there was a feeling that
07:31Rommel's presence would be a morale booster
07:33because he had been so successful in the early campaigns in North Africa.
07:37He was a man of flexible thinking.
07:39He was a good tactician.
07:41And if anything was going to go wrong,
07:42then Rommel would be the man on the spot
07:44to be able to put that right.
07:48Rommel was one of the two army commanders in France under Rönscher.
07:53He was put there because
07:55A, he was one of the best generals Hitler had got.
07:59B, Hitler thought correctly that the English were frightened of him.
08:05Rommel's first order of duty was to upgrade the wall's defences.
08:13Within weeks, he'd increased the rate at which the Germans were laying mines
08:17from 40,000 to more than a million a month.
08:23By May, soldiers and slave laborers
08:26had laid more than 500,000 obstacles along the French coastline.
08:33If Hitler stationed enough of his troops at the Allies' point of attack,
08:37the Atlantic Wall might well be the impregnable barrier he sought.
08:45But the bulk of Germany's manpower was scattered throughout Europe.
08:51More than half, over 150 divisions, were engaged on the Russian fronts.
08:58There's great pressure on the Allies coming from Stalin
09:01that Stalin has been asking for what he calls a second front since 1942.
09:09And the United States and England have been holding him off.
09:12He is convinced that there's some kind of plot against him by this time
09:15because he felt that surely there should have been an invasion in 1943.
09:20Certainly, the truth of the delays of a second front,
09:24I don't think it was for the want of trying,
09:26but I think it was absolutely certain that
09:30the British and the Americans felt that they would really only have one proper crack at it
09:34and you couldn't get it wrong.
09:38Not getting it wrong would take more than the continued dissipation of German forces in Russia.
09:44The plans for overlords stated that success would also be reliant upon unspecified diversionary operations.
09:52The cover and deception plans for Normandy were born in the slaughter of World War I
09:58on Plunders Plains and on the Sark.
10:01When the British lost 60,000 men before breakfast in the first assault,
10:06Churchill was resolved never to fight a war again in that fashion
10:09and decided instead to select a policy of artifice,
10:14leaving the enemy baffled as well as beaten, as he put it.
10:18Winston Churchill established a secret committee called the London Controlling Section, or LCS,
10:24with just such operations in mind.
10:27It had no powers to carry out its own plans.
10:30It was only charged with inventing the intrigues
10:33and plotting the deceptions that would serve as cover plans for military operations.
10:38The chairman of the committee called the Controller of Deception
10:41was Colonel John Henry Bevan.
10:43A peacetime stockbroker, Bevan had served as an officer in the cavalry in the First World War
10:48and had been awarded the Military Cross.
10:53And he too agreed with Churchill that it would be impossible to fight World War II in the same fashion
10:58because the civilian populations would not accept casualties on those scales again,
11:05nor would the army fight for that matter.
11:08Bevan's small committee convened beneath the streets of Westminster
11:12in Churchill's secret war rooms.
11:14In July, they were given the task of creating cover operations for Overlord
11:19and for Operation Neptune, the amphibious assault itself.
11:26If you're going to attack France across the Channel,
11:31there are a variety of options of where you're going to go.
11:34But quite clearly, you have to start thinking about making the enemy look in the wrong place.
11:41And the London Controlling Section was the central point
11:45for an awful lot of this making the enemy look the other way.
11:52The LCS came up with two plans.
11:55The first was to mislead the Germans as to where the Allied armies would attack.
12:00It included feints and deceptive operations
12:03planned to cause Hitler to scatter his forces throughout Europe,
12:07from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean.
12:12The second plan was designed specifically to obscure the time, date, and place
12:17of the Allied invasion of France.
12:19The overall deception plan, codenamed JL,
12:23was presented to the Allied chiefs of staff in October of 1943.
12:28Approved in December, the plan was renamed Bodyguard,
12:31a title which may have been inspired by a quote attributed to both Churchill and Stalin.
12:37In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.
12:45Secrets of War will continue in a moment here on the History Channel.
12:50We now return to Secrets of War.
12:57When General Dwight David Eisenhower arrived in England in January of 1944,
13:03the plans for Operation Overlord had been in motion for more than six months.
13:07But as the newly appointed supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force,
13:12it was his job to see that those plans were refined and executed.
13:16He had a reputation of being a proficient soldier
13:19and a composed, if sometimes hesitant, commander.
13:26General George S. Patton brought an entirely different reputation to England.
13:32A hero in North Africa and Sicily,
13:35he was known as a consummate leader and a brilliant technician.
13:39A tough-as-nails soldier, his men had nicknamed him Blood and Guts.
13:45An incident in which he'd slapped a soldier hospitalized for battle fatigue
13:49had many stateside calling for his court-martial.
13:53But everyone, even the German High Command,
13:56believed that any invasion of fortress Europe would involve Patton.
14:02He was put in command of the 1st United States Army Group
14:05stationed in Kent in southeast England.
14:11The 1st United States Army Group, or FUSAG, as it was known,
14:16was made up of the 1st Canadian Army and the American 3rd Army.
14:19An additional 50 American divisions were to join the group
14:23once a beachhead had been established.
14:25It was a formidable fighting force, and it was a lie.
14:30The 1st United States Army Group didn't exist.
14:34It was an invention of the London Controlling Section.
14:37Patton was the focal point of one of the most elaborate deceptions of the war.
14:42Here are the planners of the deception plan,
14:45and they have created a fake army,
14:49and they've gone to a great deal of trouble.
14:51They've got to have a general really in charge of it.
14:54And they look around, and they come up with Patton, General Patton.
14:58Germans have got to know that Patton is going to be in the invasion.
15:02He's a general there.
15:03You know they're going to fear.
15:06The aim of Fortitude South was to convince the Germans
15:10that the target of the upcoming invasion was the Pate-Calais,
15:13some 150 miles northeast of the actual invasion site.
15:22By doing so, it was hoped that Hitler would hold the Panzer Division stationed there
15:27until after a beachhead had been established in Normandy.
15:31It played on the Germans' preconceived notions
15:33about the most likely site for an invasion.
15:36The Germans were convinced that the Pate-Calais area
15:39was going to be the site of a future invasion.
15:43And I think this reflects the very land-based philosophy
15:47which their armed forces had.
15:49They had no experience in amphibious warfare at all.
15:52So they thought, in terms of the shortest sea crossing,
15:55was going to be the quickest one,
15:57and therefore the one which the Allies would take.
16:00It was, in fact, the same area the Germans had planned to use
16:04for Operation Sea Lion,
16:06their unrealized plan for the invasion of England.
16:10It was only 22 miles from the British coast,
16:13so that troops and materials could be ferried across the channel
16:16to the invasion beaches quickly,
16:19and so that the strong Allied air forces
16:21could easily fly over targets and return to their British bases.
16:28But there were other reasons Hitler believed
16:30that the Pate-Calais was a primary target
16:33of the Allied invasion plans.
16:36The V-1 and V-2 missile sites,
16:38which would soon rain terror down on London,
16:40were in that area.
16:48And it was in a direct line to the Ruhr,
16:51the industrial heartland of Germany.
16:55Despite these strategic considerations,
16:57the initial plans for Overlord
16:59had discounted the Pate-Calais,
17:01citing its beaches as being too shallow
17:03for a large-scale landing.
17:05As D-Day approached,
17:07real troops from Fusag
17:09joined the forces preparing for the Normandy landing
17:12and were replaced by false or notional divisions.
17:17Many of these divisions had been created
17:20as part of deceptive operations in Africa
17:22and remained in the German estimates
17:24of the Allied order of battle.
17:26By reporting that these units
17:28had been transferred to England,
17:30the Allies increased the German assessment
17:32of Fusag's strength.
17:35The 50 divisions that were to join Fusag
17:38after the invasion had never existed at all.
17:43Now, it's easy, perhaps,
17:44to write off this particular means
17:47of strategic deception by saying,
17:48well, the Germans had no aerial reconnaissance
17:51over the south of England in the summer of 1944,
17:53so who was going to see these things?
17:55Well, at the time,
17:56the British and Americans were by no means sure
18:00that there were no German agents
18:02operating in the south of England.
18:03Also, there were neutral diplomats in London,
18:06not all of whom were particularly favourable
18:08to the Allied cause.
18:09So it was important to cover every angle.
18:12The planners for the overall landings
18:14were charged with the safe transport
18:16of thousands of British, American, Canadian,
18:20Polish, French troops over on the day,
18:23and they had to consider everything.
18:25On the 6th of June,
18:27there were nearly a quarter of a million men,
18:29some of Germany's best divisions,
18:31stationed in the Pas-de-Calais,
18:33divisions that could easily have been
18:35on the Atlantic Wall in Normandy.
18:39Secrets of War will continue in a moment
18:42here on The History Channel.
18:45We now return to Secrets of War.
18:51In spring of 1944,
18:54less than two months before the Allied landings
18:57at Normandy,
18:58a lone Luftwaffe aircraft
19:00strafed the wireless station
19:02of the British 4th Army
19:03in Edinburgh, Scotland.
19:09No one was hurt,
19:10and the station resumed broadcasting
19:13soon after.
19:15It was the only combat
19:17the British 4th Army would see,
19:19because other than a handful
19:20of wireless stations,
19:21there was no British 4th Army.
19:24It was another Phantom,
19:26conjured by the London Controlling Section.
19:28Fortitude North was an operation
19:30designed to take advantage
19:32of Hitler's obsession with Scandinavia.
19:42When Hitler invades Norway,
19:45there's a great resistance group
19:46that springs up in Norway,
19:49and there starts to be ideas,
19:51well, maybe this would be a way
19:52to invade Europe.
19:53It doesn't make an awful lot of sense
19:55when you get down to really planning it
19:57in terms of logistics,
19:58in terms of season, and so on.
20:00But the deception planners
20:02get a hold of this and say,
20:03well, let's build up a deception plan
20:05that looks like the possibility
20:07of an invasion through Norway.
20:11By creating a false army in Scotland,
20:14the LCS hoped to convince Hitler
20:16that an invasion of Norway
20:18was being planned,
20:19and by doing so,
20:20keep him from pulling his forces
20:22out of Scandinavia
20:23to reinforce the French coast.
20:27By the end of 1943,
20:30there were more than 300,000 German troops
20:33stationed in Norway,
20:35including a Panzer Division.
20:37But Hitler had good reason
20:38to protect his Norwegian holdings.
20:41Almost all of his iron ore and steel
20:44came from the Swedish ore fields.
20:46If he'd lost that,
20:47the rare industries
20:48would have had no raw materials.
20:50The war would have come to an end.
20:51To a certain extent,
20:52he was right.
20:53We played his game there
20:55from the first days of the war
20:56until the last days of the war.
20:59The commander-in-chief
21:00of the notional British army
21:02was Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Thorne.
21:06Like General Patton,
21:07his counterpart in Fortitude South,
21:09Thorne was chosen by the LCS
21:12to get Hitler's attention.
21:14While serving as the military attache
21:16to Berlin in 1934,
21:18Thorne had met Hitler
21:19at a formal reception.
21:21Hitler recognized the medals
21:22Thorne wore as those awarded
21:24to veterans of the Battle of Ypres,
21:26where Hitler himself
21:27had first seen action
21:29in World War I.
21:31The divisions which made up Thorne's army
21:34were not entirely notional.
21:36There was a great deal of activity
21:38in the north of Great Britain
21:39in early 1944.
21:43Of the eight divisions
21:44that initially comprised
21:46the artificial army,
21:47only the 55th U.S. division
21:49was totally false.
21:53The others,
21:54while stationed or training in the area,
21:56were never assigned
21:58to the British 4th Army.
21:59Other bogus divisions were added
22:01until the fictional force
22:03exceeded a quarter of a million men.
22:06Due to the growing strength
22:08of the Allied air forces
22:09and the notoriously unpredictable
22:12Scottish weather,
22:13there was very little,
22:14if any,
22:15German aerial reconnaissance
22:16over northern Great Britain
22:18in the spring of 1944.
22:20So, unlike Fortitude South,
22:22little was done
22:23in the way of visual deceptions.
22:25Other means were used
22:27to give the false army life.
22:30In order to carry conviction
22:33with these phantom divisions,
22:34they'd have wireless squadrons
22:37up there
22:38making noises like an army,
22:40sending messages
22:42backwards and forwards
22:43as if there were tank brigades
22:44who were on the move
22:45practicing
22:46and all the rest of it.
22:47Radio stations
22:48were set up around Scotland
22:50in Dundee, Stirling,
22:52and in the army's headquarters
22:53at Edinburgh Castle.
22:55By the second week of April 1944,
22:58a handful of officers
22:59and wireless operators
23:00were simulating
23:01the radio traffic
23:02of an entire army.
23:04But radio wasn't
23:05the only means
23:06of deception used
23:07to convince the Germans
23:09of the army's existence
23:10or of its intentions.
23:13Double agents
23:13working for the British
23:15sent messages
23:16to their German controllers
23:17corroborating
23:18the army's presence,
23:19citing troop movements
23:20and describing
23:21the insignia
23:22of non-existent divisions.
23:25Double agents
23:25also reported
23:26that the Soviets
23:27had established
23:28an office in Scotland
23:29to coordinate
23:30a joint invasion.
23:31the Russians
23:32working with
23:33the Western Allies
23:34leaked disinformation
23:36about an unspecified
23:37Arctic invasion
23:38scheduled for June.
23:41Information was planted
23:42in the civilian press
23:44about sporting
23:45and social events
23:46involving the men
23:47of the 4th Army.
23:50in late May
23:51and early June
23:52the Allies
23:53stepped up
23:54aerial reconnaissance
23:55over Scandinavia
23:56and Russian submarines
23:57were spotted
23:58patrolling
23:59the Norwegian coast.
24:01British commandos
24:02executed
24:03a series
24:03of small raids
24:04against German
24:05installations
24:06in Norway.
24:08Shipping was sunk,
24:12oil refineries
24:13destroyed,
24:15power stations,
24:17industrial plants
24:18and mines
24:18were hit
24:19in the type
24:20of actions
24:21that generally
24:22precede an invasion.
24:27Sweden
24:28was also
24:29a target of
24:30and an unwilling
24:31participant
24:32in Fortitude North.
24:34Though neutral,
24:35Sweden traded heavily
24:36with the Nazis,
24:38selling their reich
24:38such things
24:39as machinery,
24:40steel
24:40and ball bearings.
24:41A sub-plan
24:43to Fortitude North,
24:45Drafem,
24:46was a diplomatic
24:46operation
24:47designed to
24:48convince the Germans
24:49that Sweden
24:50was in negotiations
24:51with the Allies.
24:53It began
24:54with the British
24:55making
24:56not entirely
24:57discrete requests
24:58for meteorological
25:00data
25:00and permission
25:01to set up
25:02navigational equipment
25:03in Sweden.
25:04More urgent
25:05requests
25:06followed
25:06requests
25:07for permission
25:08to fly
25:08reconnaissance missions
25:09over Swedish
25:10airspace
25:10and for the right
25:12to refuel
25:12and repair
25:13aircraft in Sweden.
25:15Rumors were spread
25:16that Allied engineers
25:17were inspecting
25:18Swedish railroads
25:19and runways.
25:22In June of 1944,
25:24Great Britain,
25:25the United States
25:26and Russia
25:27jointly demanded
25:28that in the event
25:29of an Allied invasion
25:30of Norway,
25:31Sweden deny Germany
25:32passage for its troops.
25:34These diplomatic
25:36deceptions
25:36were the final piece
25:37of a puzzle
25:38that showed
25:39that Norway
25:39was the target
25:40of Allied invasion plans.
25:43Hitler consequently
25:45kept over 300,000 men
25:48garrisoning Norway
25:50right through
25:51to the end of the war.
25:54Secrets of War
25:55will continue
25:56in a moment
25:56here on
25:57The History Channel.
25:59We now return
26:00to Secrets of War.
26:06Fortitude North and South
26:08weren't the only
26:08deceptive operations
26:10implemented
26:10to cover
26:11the invasion
26:12of Normandy.
26:14In the months
26:15leading up to D-Day,
26:16dozens of other
26:17lesser plans
26:18were executed
26:19throughout Europe
26:19and Africa
26:20with the same objective,
26:21to keep German forces
26:23dispersed
26:24and to conceal
26:25the date and place
26:26of the landings.
26:28Some of the operations
26:29long secret
26:30have remained obscure.
26:32Operation Zeppelin
26:33began in January
26:34as a cover operation
26:36for the assault
26:36on Anzio.
26:37It continued
26:38through July
26:39in order to keep
26:40German forces
26:40in the oil-rich Balkans.
26:42Once again,
26:43the Allied deception
26:44masters used
26:45notional forces
26:46to imply a threat
26:48to another
26:48of Germany's sources
26:49of raw materials.
26:50With so many troops
26:52in North Africa,
26:53it was a simple matter
26:53of rumor
26:54and disinformation
26:55to create the impression
26:56of an army in Tobruk
26:58poised for an attack.
27:03In fact,
27:04only half
27:05of the British 12th Army,
27:07the Allies'
27:08major force
27:08in the scenario,
27:09was real.
27:11The story was spread
27:13that at the Tehran conference,
27:15Stalin had requested
27:16that the Allies'
27:17first offensive of 1944
27:18be directed at the Balkans
27:20to hinder German efforts
27:22in the south of Russia.
27:26Double agents
27:27informed the Germans
27:28that the Allies
27:29planned to attack
27:30Greece, Crete,
27:31and the Dalmatian coast
27:33in late March and April.
27:34They then reported
27:35that these attacks
27:36had been postponed
27:37for various reasons
27:39until May
27:40and eventually
27:41until late June
27:42to pin German forces
27:44in the area
27:45until after the landings
27:46in Normandy.
27:51Another Mediterranean deception,
27:53code-named Vendetta,
27:55feigned a threat
27:55to the Marseille region
27:57of southern France.
27:58the 7th U.S. Army
28:00based in Algiers
28:01was the primary component
28:03of the operation,
28:04which once again
28:05included notional divisions
28:06and the convenient appearance
28:08of two aircraft carriers
28:09in the area.
28:10The carriers were simply
28:12passing through the region
28:14on their way
28:14to another destination,
28:16but their presence
28:17reinforced the illusion
28:18of an impending assault.
28:22Allied soldiers
28:23were given a booklet
28:24entitled
28:25A Guide to Southern France,
28:27some of which
28:27just happened
28:28to be left behind
28:30for the benefit
28:31of German spies.
28:33The Allies also approached
28:35the Spanish government
28:36about setting up
28:37medical facilities,
28:38knowing that the Germans
28:40would deduce
28:40that an attack
28:41from the south
28:42was at hand.
28:44One component
28:45of Vendetta
28:45has become famous
28:46for its simplicity
28:47and audacity.
28:51Operation Copperhead
28:52began when a British officer
28:54involved in cover
28:55and deception
28:55saw a photograph
28:56of a soldier
28:57who bore
28:58a remarkable resemblance
28:59to British Field Marshal Montgomery.
29:04Lieutenant Clifton James,
29:06a peacetime actor,
29:07had little trouble
29:08impersonating
29:09the famous general.
29:12Montgomery's stand-in
29:13lands in Gibraltar
29:15and there's a, quote,
29:17leak of the information
29:19so that there's knowledge
29:21that Montgomery
29:22is in Gibraltar
29:23and it looks like
29:25maybe he's starting
29:27to set up an invasion
29:28of Europe
29:29through the Mediterranean.
29:30So the Germans
29:32have got to keep people
29:34also in the Mediterranean.
29:38Also working
29:39in the Allies' favor
29:40was a burgeoning
29:41intelligence network
29:42that had gathered
29:43and continued
29:44to gather massive amounts
29:45of data
29:46on the disposition
29:47and strength
29:48of German forces.
29:51At the center
29:52of this intelligence gathering
29:54were the codebreakers
29:55at Bletchley Park.
29:57Early in the war
29:58they'd succeeded
29:59in deciphering Enigma,
30:01the code used
30:02by the German armed forces
30:03for tactical-level communications.
30:07Even more importantly
30:09was the German
30:10Lorenz machine
30:11used by the German
30:12high command.
30:13And although this had been
30:15started to be broken
30:16in 1942,
30:18they hadn't had much
30:18success with it
30:19getting it broken
30:20in time to be useful
30:22until luckily
30:23just before D-Day.
30:24And that was caused
30:25by the advent
30:26of the Colossus computer
30:27which was designed
30:29at Dulles Hill
30:30in England
30:31to help to break
30:32this Lorenz cipher.
30:34And that was installed
30:35here in December 1943,
30:37came on stream
30:38in January 1944
30:40and it suddenly
30:41reduced the time
30:42to break these
30:43very important messages
30:44from weeks
30:45to hours.
30:46And so just in time
30:47before D-Day
30:48these very important messages
30:49were broken.
30:53The messages decoded
30:55by the room-sized
30:56Colossus
30:57were top-secret
30:58communications
30:58from the highest
30:59levels of the Reich,
31:01often between
31:02his generals
31:02and Hitler himself.
31:05These intercepted
31:06messages provided
31:07the Allies
31:08with highly classified
31:09and critical information
31:11about Axis plans
31:12and movements.
31:13They also provided
31:14proof that
31:15planned bodyguard
31:16was working.
31:17The Germans
31:18were being deceived
31:19about Allied intentions.
31:22The benefits
31:23of the intelligence
31:24gathered by the
31:25cryptologists
31:26at Bletchley Park
31:27cannot be overestimated.
31:30There's never been
31:31an operation
31:31in the history
31:32of the world
31:33in which
31:33the attacker
31:35had more information
31:37about the attacked.
31:40It was an absolute
31:43encyclopedia
31:44of information.
31:47All the pieces
31:49were in place
31:49but intelligence,
31:51availability of materials
31:52and troop readiness
31:53were not the only
31:55factors considered
31:56in choosing the date
31:57of the invasion.
31:59The planners first
32:01had to consider
32:01the phase of the moon.
32:03A full or nearly full moon
32:05was needed to give
32:06the pre-dawn maneuvers
32:07enough light.
32:10The second factor
32:11contributing to the choice
32:12of time and date
32:13was the tide.
32:15The flat-bottomed
32:16landing craft
32:17that were to carry
32:17the Allied troops
32:18ashore
32:19could only land
32:20at low tide.
32:23The final element
32:24in the decision
32:25couldn't be controlled
32:26or planned.
32:28The weather
32:29would determine
32:29when the liberation
32:30of Europe
32:31would be possible.
32:33The date was set.
32:35D-Day would be
32:36the 5th of June,
32:371944.
32:43On the 29th of May,
32:45a storm was spotted
32:46in the Atlantic
32:46heading towards Europe.
32:48By the 1st of June,
32:50the situation
32:51had developed
32:51to the degree
32:52that Group Captain
32:53John Stagg,
32:54the chief meteorologist
32:55of the expeditionary force,
32:57advised Allied
32:58Supreme Command
32:59that the outlook
33:00for the 4th,
33:025th,
33:02and quite possibly
33:04the 6th
33:04was not good.
33:07By the 3rd,
33:08weather prognosis
33:09had not improved.
33:11Eisenhower pondered
33:12the alternatives.
33:14The decision
33:14about whether
33:15to proceed
33:16was his alone.
33:19At 4.15 a.m.,
33:21on Sunday,
33:21the 4th of June,
33:23with 5,000 ships
33:24and hundreds
33:25of thousands
33:26of men
33:27prepared for the initial
33:28stage of operation,
33:29Neptune,
33:31Eisenhower gave his order.
33:33D-Day was to be postponed
33:34for 24 hours.
33:37Suddenly,
33:38a year's planning
33:39and preparations
33:40were in jeopardy.
33:42If the assault
33:43wasn't launched soon,
33:44it would have to be postponed
33:45for at least two weeks.
33:47But would the fragile
33:48house of cards
33:49that obscured
33:50the most vital operation
33:52of the war crumble?
33:53Could the unloading
33:55of so many men
33:56and so much material
33:57go unnoticed
33:58by the Germans?
33:59Could the slower ships
34:00that had been sent ahead
34:01go undetected?
34:06Throughout the day,
34:07the generals
34:07and meteorologists
34:09watched and waited
34:10in anticipation
34:11and apprehension.
34:13A wrong forecast
34:14could lead to disaster.
34:18On the other side
34:19of the channel,
34:20the Germans,
34:20whose weather ships
34:21in the North Atlantic
34:22had been sunk
34:23by the Allies
34:23earlier in the war,
34:25now tried to second-guess
34:26the Allies' intentions.
34:31There was a conviction
34:32within the German armies
34:33in France
34:34that we would never land
34:34in weather like that.
34:36When the English channel
34:37gets turbulent,
34:38it gets rarely turbulent.
34:40And flat-bottomed landing craft
34:41can't land
34:42and great fleets
34:43can't maintain their positions
34:45when they're at sea.
34:46and the air forces
34:47are grounded
34:48so that everything combined
34:50to ensure that that night
34:53Hitler took a sleeping pill
34:55and went to bed
34:56quite early.
34:57At 9.30 p.m.
34:59on the 4th of June,
35:00meteorologist Stagg
35:02once again secretly
35:03met with Eisenhower
35:04and the other commanders
35:05of the Allied forces
35:06at Suffolk House
35:07near Portsmouth.
35:08Eisenhower said,
35:09well, I don't know
35:10whether we can invade
35:10in this type of weather.
35:12And it was only
35:13when Group Captain Stagg,
35:14the meteorologist,
35:15found a break
35:16in the clouds
35:17out in the central Atlantic
35:18that he was able
35:19to make a recommendation,
35:20we can start at 0700
35:22tomorrow morning, sir.
35:24One of the most dramatic
35:25statements of the war.
35:27By 10.45,
35:29Eisenhower had weighed
35:30his options
35:30and calmly said,
35:33we'll go.
35:41On the evening
35:42of the 5th of June,
35:431944,
35:45the 5,000 ships
35:47of the Allied invasion fleet
35:48began their journey
35:49across the English Channel
35:51to the beaches
35:52of Normandy
35:53and destiny.
36:00Secrets of War
36:01will continue in a moment
36:02here on
36:02The History Channel.
36:05We now return to
36:07Secrets of War.
36:18The landing had achieved
36:19one of its goals,
36:21tactical surprise.
36:25Confident that the Allies
36:26couldn't attack
36:27in such weather,
36:28many of the German officers
36:29assigned to coastal defense
36:31were away,
36:31leaving some divisions
36:33virtually leaderless
36:34at one of the most
36:35critical moments
36:36of the entire war.
36:43Rommel himself
36:44went off
36:45to attend his wife's
36:46birthday party,
36:48stopping en route
36:48to buy her a pair
36:49of shoes in Paris.
36:51I think it's one of the great
36:53ironies of the war
36:54and one of the great strokes
36:55of luck the Allies had
36:56that Rommel,
36:57the most charismatic leader
36:58that the German army had
37:00at the time,
37:01had chosen that time
37:02to go home.
37:04But Rommel had done a good job
37:06of reinforcing the Atlantic wall.
37:09Even though the German defenders
37:10were tactically unprepared,
37:12they were well armed
37:13and well fortified.
37:16Eisenhower himself
37:17was so concerned
37:19about the possibility
37:20of failure
37:22that he's prepared
37:23a whole statement
37:25which he was prepared
37:26to read
37:27saying that
37:28the invasion has failed.
37:30So it was in Eisenhower's
37:32mind and heart
37:32that there was
37:34the possibility
37:35of failure.
37:36Away from the front lines,
37:38the battle of wits
37:39and deception
37:40continued.
37:42In an operation
37:43codenamed Titanic,
37:45hundreds of dummy
37:46paratroops
37:47were dropped
37:48as soldiers on the ground
37:49played recordings
37:50of battle sounds
37:51through loudspeakers.
37:55At three o'clock
37:56on the morning
37:57of the 6th of June,
37:58the reserve regiment
37:59of 352 Division
38:00was called out
38:01and it spent
38:02the morning of D-Day
38:03beating the woods
38:04for a major airborne landing
38:05that wasn't there.
38:07Instead of being available
38:08to put the Omaha Beach
38:09landing back into the sea,
38:12operations Glimmer
38:13and Taxable
38:14simulated assaults
38:16on the coast of France.
38:20A half a dozen bombers
38:22flying in precise
38:24oval patterns
38:25ejected foil strips
38:26known as window
38:27or chaff
38:28at two-minute intervals.
38:33Used in conjunction
38:34with tug-based
38:35barrage balloons
38:36and a radar
38:37amplification device
38:39called Moonshine,
38:41this technique
38:41produced a startling effect.
38:44On a German radar set,
38:47this spoof
38:48looked like
38:49an invading fleet.
38:51Comparatively trivial reports
38:53of landing
38:54in West Normandy
38:54got overlooked.
39:01The double-cross system,
39:02the British program
39:03of passing disinformation
39:04to Germany
39:05through turned
39:06and double agents
39:07transmitted more than
39:08250 messages
39:10concerning the invasion.
39:12The transmissions
39:13were supposed to stop
39:14with the landings,
39:15but the committee
39:16in charge of the program
39:17decided that there could be
39:19some benefit
39:19in continuing the deception.
39:23The agents
39:24who are now
39:25part of the continent
39:28are telling
39:29their German
39:30spy masters
39:31that they're behind
39:32the lines
39:33as the Allies
39:33are moving across France
39:35and they're sending
39:35information about
39:36troop dispositions,
39:38how many railroad cars
39:40are going this way
39:40and that,
39:41and it's all not true.
39:42The Germans
39:43are still believing it.
39:45There was evidence
39:47that the German
39:48intelligence staff
39:50was still believing
39:52these agents
39:53even as the war
39:54came to an end.
39:57One such double agent,
39:58Juan Pujol,
39:59a Spaniard
40:00known as Garbo,
40:02was involved
40:03in one of the most
40:03significant deceptions
40:05of the invasion.
40:06As Allied troops
40:07were en route
40:08to the French coast,
40:09Garbo transmitted
40:10a message
40:10warning the Germans
40:11that the invasion
40:12was imminent
40:13but that the landings
40:14in Normandy
40:14were only a faint
40:15designed to draw
40:16German strength there.
40:18The message was sent
40:19too late
40:20for the Germans
40:20to act upon
40:21but its receipt
40:22strengthened Garbo's
40:24already considerable
40:25credibility
40:25in the eyes
40:26of his German controllers.
40:33More than a week
40:34after the initial landings
40:35with the situation
40:36still very tenuous,
40:38Hitler,
40:39concerned about
40:40the massive amounts
40:41of men and materials
40:42coming ashore
40:43in Normandy,
40:43finally released
40:45the Panzer Division
40:46stationed in the
40:47Pas de Calais
40:48to join the battle.
40:53It was then
40:54that Garbo passed
40:55on a critical piece
40:56of disinformation,
40:58confirming to his
40:59German contacts
41:00that the real invasion
41:01was still to come.
41:07Hitler, receiving the message,
41:10called the Panzer units
41:12back.
41:13Once they were
41:14stopped
41:15and turned around,
41:17they were never again
41:18committed
41:19until Normandy,
41:21the beachhead,
41:21was established
41:22and it was too late.
41:23The entire operation,
41:25years of work,
41:26finally were culminated
41:28in one key critical message.
41:32Ten days after the invasion
41:34had started,
41:35there were actually
41:36more enemy troops
41:38in the Pas de Calais
41:39than there were
41:40ten days before
41:41the invasion.
41:44And after the war,
41:45from captured enemy documents,
41:47it became perfectly clear
41:48that General Jodl,
41:50with Hitler's support,
41:51had stopped the 1st SS Panzer Division
41:53on information
41:55from a spy in England,
41:58trusted source,
41:59codenamed Arabelle.
42:01We knew him
42:01by the codenamed Garbo.
42:08The Battle of Normandy
42:10storms ahead.
42:11American forces
42:12have cut a wide path
42:14from coast to coast
42:15across the Cherbourg Peninsula.
42:17Fleets of tanks and guns
42:18and transport of all kind
42:20continue to pour
42:21across the Channel,
42:22virtually unmolested.
42:26The Allied liberators
42:27punched through
42:28the Atlantic Wall
42:29and moved inland.
42:30Over 9,000 men
42:32were killed or wounded
42:33on the first day.
42:34But by the end of the week,
42:36more than a quarter
42:37of a million men
42:38had come ashore.
42:39The Allies had a foothold.
42:41It was the beginning
42:43of the end of the war
42:44in Europe.
42:47The success and importance
42:49of operations bodyguard
42:51and fortitude
42:51cannot be disputed.
42:54Documents captured
42:55after the war
42:55showed that the German
42:56high command
42:57had believed some,
42:58if not all,
42:59of the deception
43:00produced by the Allies
43:01concerning the invasion
43:02of Normandy.
43:05I think that probably
43:07the single greatest intelligence coup
43:12of the Second World War
43:14was the entire deception operation
43:16that covered the D-Day landings.
43:20You have to understand
43:22that the Germans anticipated,
43:25they made precisely the same kind of judgments
43:27as the Allied military commanders.
43:29they knew that an invasion was coming,
43:31they knew roughly when it was coming,
43:34but they didn't know the target.
43:37Of the more than 300 divisions
43:40of the mighty Wehrmacht,
43:41only six were in Normandy on D-Day
43:44to repel the Allied landings.
43:49Hitler had huge reserves,
43:51which if they had been put
43:53into the Normandy beachhead
43:54on the first day,
43:56I'm afraid it would have been
43:58curtains for Eisenhower's armies.
44:00We couldn't have withstood that.
44:02Can you imagine what would have happened
44:03if Hitler had managed
44:04to get all these divisions together
44:05and put them on the Normandy front?
44:07We'd never have broken out.
44:10Less than a year after D-Day,
44:13the war which had held Europe
44:14in its icy grip for six years was over.
44:20It wasn't until the 1970s,
44:23nearly 30 years after the surrender of Germany,
44:25that the truths about bodyguard
44:28and fortitude slowly began to come to light.
44:31Some have yet to be revealed
44:33and some may never be known.
44:35But for a moment in time,
44:37with the fate of the world hanging in the balance,
44:40those secrets and the deceptions
44:42designed to keep them hidden
44:43secured an Allied victory
44:45that changed the course of history.
44:52From underground war rooms
44:54to the beaches of Normandy,
44:56much more than truth
44:57was protected by a bodyguard of lies.
45:17The deluxe buildings
45:18of the sun
45:18to the sea
45:18and to the Committee
45:25and the sea
45:25and the sea
45:26to the sea
45:27in their vicinity
45:28in the sky
45:32in their north.
45:32It's been a long time
45:34and the sea
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