Operation Fortitude

British intelligence works closely with the French resistance, organizing sabotage missions triggered by coded messages broadcast over the BBC.

Amid all of this, a sleight of hand operation, Operation Fortitude builds a phantom army group in Southeast England.

There are some real units and real radio traffic, yes, but also inflatable, fake tanks and artillery, fake aircraft, and even scarecrows in uniform.

It might look ridiculous up close, but to the rare Luftwaffe aircraft that stamps a photo with a flat 2D lens, it's absolutely convincing.

[laughs] Anyway, they had more respect for Patton than any other Allied commander, and considered him to be central to any plan to invade Europe from England.

Now, because of this, Patton was made a prominent figure in a deception scheme called Operation Fortitude during the first half of 1944.

Through the British network of double agents, the Allies told the Germans and the intelligence, they gave them a set, steady stream of false reports about troop sightings, and that Patton had been named commander of the First United States Army Group.

They did this to convince the Germans that Patton was preparing this massive command for an invasion at Pas de Calais.

Speed, use of armored vehicles, never retreating, you know, all of that stuff, constant engagement of his armored, you know, vehicles with the enemy's front lines, pressure, that kind of thing.

This entire ruse helped to mask the real location of the invasion of Normandy, and Patton was ordered to keep a low profile to deceive the Germans into thinking he was in Dover throughout early 1944, when he was actually training the Third Army.

As a result of this deception, Operation Fortitude, the German 15th Army actually remained [laughs] to defend against Patton's supposed attack, and they believed in this false story so strongly that they held their position in Pas de Calais even after the invasion [laughs] of Normandy, believing the invasion of Normandy was a diversionary force.

Patton flew to France a month later and then returned to combat command.

1942, he was brought to Britain and became a British double agent, receiving the code name Garbo.

He became, uh, central to Operation Fortitude, the Allied deception surrounding D-Day.

So he, uh, the network reported where they were going to go.

Failed chicken farmer rejected by British intelligence, volunteers to spy for Hitler, invents an entire fake spy network, becomes one of Germany's most trusted agents, secretly works for Britain, feeds Hitler false information, plays a major role in D-Day.

They had fed the Nazis a mountain of sophisticated misinformation, fake radio traffic, inflatable tanks, double agents, trying to convince Hitler that the invasion would land at Pas-de-Calais, not Normandy.

The deception was called Operation Fortitude.

But to know if Hitler actually bought the lie, the Allies couldn't just intercept low-level Enigma traffic from a U-boat captain or a field commander.

They needed to read the mail of the German high command.

Therefore, a specific deception effort would be needed to keep the enemy focused on the wrong target.

This led to the creation of Operation Fortitude on the 20th of January, 1944, at the same time that Normandy was finalized as the location for the landing.

The official purpose of Fortitude was to induce the enemy to make faulty strategic dispositions in relation to operations by the United Nations against Germany.

Whereas Operation Bodyguard served as the umbrella plan for all Allied deception efforts, Fortitude would primarily focus on distracting the enemy from the landing at Normandy.

The operation would be split into two main efforts, Fortitude North and Fortitude South.

The northern focus of the plan would be a fake buildup of men and material for a supposed invasion of Norway.

This was of particular interest to the Führer, who believed holding Norway was key to the German war effort.

A deception effort pointing towards the invasion of his prized possession in Scandinavia would hopefully convince the Wehrmacht to send reinforcements there, where they would join the more than 300,000 German troops already occupying the country.

We just have no idea.

But having Stanton on the bench kind of reminds me of Operation Fortitude in World War II.

So the Allies used inflatable tanks and a fake army to throw off the Germans and and make them think that the invasion was going to be in one location, and the actual invasion was at Normandy.

So it was just like psychological warfare.

Anyway, Patton was put in charge of part of the deception operation, which was implemented by British intelligence.

It was called Operation Fortitude.

There was a Fortitude North and there was a Fortitude South.

Fortitude North was the fictitious British Fourth Army in Scotland that was supposedly going to land in Norway.

And then there was the FUSAG, the first U.S. Army group, which was supposedly going to land in Calais in France.

The British had captured... all the German agents in Britain, I don't think any of them escaped their net, and turned most of them into double agents and fed the Germans these stories about these two fake armies.

Before I read your book, um, I wasn't aware of Operation Sparrow.

And I've been covering stories of espionage on my channel for a while now, and the well-known campaigns are like Fortitude and the Double Cross system.

Everybody, well, a lot of people will be more familiar with those.

So I'm just wondering why h- is Operation Sparrow been not, uh, known about until, until now?

So, so the, the initial Allied plan for Bodyguard, uh, was basically spring of 1944, uh, we're going to make it look like the invasion's gonna happen, uh, in Southeastern Europe and, and some other places.

And then as we move forward closer to actual D-Day, when, uh, German intelligence is going to pick up on these signs that something is happening on, on the Southeastern coast of England, then we'll admit, well, sure, there's some kind of invasion happening, but it's going to be, uh, near France's, uh, border with Belgium, so, so to the north of where Normandy would actually happen.

All of these different deception plots, so, so Double Cross and Fortitude, uh, and Sparrow were all part of this.

They were being sponsored by different bureaus with some communication between them, not a- not always perfect communication.