6. Operation Fortitude
Operation Bodyguard turned into a massive, sprawling, and multifaceted deception plan. All of its components aimed to prevent the Germans from discovering the when and where of the Allied invasion of France. One of Bodyguard’s sub-plans was Operation Fortitude, which created a fictitious “First US Army Group” (FUSAG) in southeast England under the command of General George S. Patton. Fortitude used a variety of schemes to sell the Germans on the existence of FUSAG.
Fake radio traffic was conducted between fictitious FUSAG units. German aerial reconnaissance was allowed to overfly and photograph concentrations of FUSAG tanks and transports. In reality, the tanks and transports were just inflatable dummies, that looked like the real thing from the air. Most importantly, German intelligence was fed fake reports via double agents and turned spies, about FUSAG’s intentions to invade the Pas de Calais. A subsidiary, Fortitude North, created a fictitious British Fourth Army in Scotland, and convinced the Germans that it planned to invade Norway, in order to tie down the hundreds of thousands of Germans there.