Holt - The deceivers: Allied military deception in the Second World War

(Imperial War Museum)
Brigadier Dudley W. Clarke, C.B., C.B.E.
The Master of the Game

Copyright 2007 by Thaddeus Holt

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ISBN: 978-1-61608-079-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Holt, Thaddeus.
The deceivers: Allied military deception in the Second World War/Thaddeus Holt.
p. cm.
Originally published: New York: Scribner, c2004.
ISBN-13: 978-1-60239-142-0 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-60239-142-4 (alk. paper)
1. World War, 1939-1945DeceptionGreat Britain. 2. World War, 1939-1945-Deception-United States. 3. Deception (Military science) I. Title.

D744.H64 2007
940.54'86-dc22

2007015369

Printed in Canada

For W.
Thank you

Virgil put it with Roman bluntness and economy. Dolus an virtus, quis in hoste requirat? cried Aeneas's comrade as they fought their way out of burning Troy disguised in Greek armor; which may be loosely translated: It won't matter to the enemy whether you beat him by guile or by valor.

The Western Allies in the Second World War beat their enemies by valor in full measure. But that valor was aided by guile on a level never before seen; the most systematic and skillful deception ever practiced in warfare. This is the story of that guile. In particular, it is the story of the people who practiced it; of the cadre of officers, British and American, who developed and applied that system and that skill. Some were regular soldiers and sailors and security men, but the men of guile, like the men of valor, were mostly plain civilians who had left their peaceful occupations for a time to help their country. They were a cross-section of free citizens: old Etonians and plain Midwesterners, a City of London financier, an international banker, a railroad executive, a gentleman wine-merchant and thriller-writer, a construction contractor, an art dealer, a sociology professor, a film star, a colonial administrator, one of New York's leading journalists, one of the pioneers of stereophonic sound, a world traveler and adventurer; businessmen and schoolmasters and lawyers and Oxford dons. This is their tale.

That tale, particularly its American side, has never been fully told. During the war and for years afterwards the very fact that the Allies engaged in strategic deception at all was a closely-held secret. Portions of the story came out over the years, often in distorted form, often sensationalized. Balance and accuracy were restored, at least for the British side, when Professor Sir Michael Howard's British official history was published in 1990. But only in recent years have important original documents been declassified. And the present author is the first nonofficial historian to have had access to the surviving records of the American Joint Security Control.

Mistakes are inevitable in any work of this length. They should be charged to the author and not to any of the scores of people who so kindly helped him, and without whose aid it could not have been written.

First and foremost are those who shared with the author their first-hand memories, ranging from long interviews, in person or by telephone, to brief notes. They include Mrs. Clarence Beck, Lady Jane Bethell, Desmond Bristow, Anita Burris-Meyer, Alice Crichton, Kenneth M. Crosby, Philip C. Curtis, Arne Ekstrom, Diana Eldredge, Douglas Fairbanks, Mark Felt, Richard D. Fletcher, Stuart Giles, Carl Goldbranson, Jr., Rex Hamer, Christopher Harmer, Sir John Harvey-Jones, Erwin C. Lochmueller, Robert A. Maheu, Lady Maynard, Colonel John R. Nickel, John B. Oakes, Captain Wyman Packard, General Robert Porter, The Countess of Ranfurly, Canon David Strange-ways, Father Eugene J. Sweeney, Will Hill Tankersley, Sir Peter Thorne, W. Ray Wannall, Colonel H. N. H. Wild, and Sir Edgar Williams.