Operation Bodyguard was a World War II deception strategy employed by the Allied states before the 1944 invasion of northwest Europe. Bodyguard set out an overall stratagem for misleading the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht as to the time and place of the invasion. Planning for Bodyguard was started in 1943 by the London Controlling Section, a department of the war cabinet. They produced a draft strategy, referred to as Plan Jael, which was presented to leaders at the Tehran Conference in late November and, despite skepticism due to the failure of earlier deception strategy, approved on 6 December 1943.
Bodyguard was a strategy under which all deception planners would operate. The overall aim was to lead the Germans to believe that an invasion of northwest Europe would come later than was planned and to expect attacks elsewhere, including the Pas-de-Calais, the Balkans, southern France, Norway and Soviet attacks in Bulgaria and northern Norway. The key part of the strategy was to attempt to hide the amount of troop buildup in Southern England, by developing threats across the European theatre, and to emphasise an Allied focus on major bombing campaigns.
The main stratagem was not an operational approach; instead it set out the overall themes for each subordinate operation to support. Deception planners in England and Cairo developed a number of operational implementations (of which the most significant was Operation Fortitude which developed a threat to Pas-de-Calais).
In June 1944 the Allied forces successfully landed and established a beachhead in Normandy. Later evidence demonstrated that German intelligence had believed significant parts of the deceptions, particularly the order of battle for the armies in Southern England. Following the invasion, Hitler delayed redeploying forces from Calais and other regions to defend Normandy for nearly seven weeks (Bodyguard had been intended to delay this for at least 14 days). Evidence suggests that the threat against Pas-de-Calais, and to a lesser extent Norway and Southern Europe, contributed to the German decision.
Background
During World War II, prior to Bodyguard, the Allies made extensive use of deception and developed many new techniques and theories. The main protagonists at this time were 'A' Force, set up in 1940 under Dudley Clarke, and the London Controlling Section, chartered in 1942 under the control of John Bevan.Latimer (2004), pp. 148–149Cruickshank (2004) German coastal defences were stretched thin in 1944, as they prepared to defend all of the coast of northwest Europe. The Allies had already employed deception operations against the Germans, aided by the capture of all of the German agents in the United Kingdom and the systematic decryption of German Enigma communications. Once Normandy had been chosen as the site of the invasion, it was decided to attempt to deceive the Germans into thinking it was a diversion and that the true invasion was to be elsewhere.
At that stage of the war, Allied and German intelligence operations were heavily mismatched. Through the signals work at Bletchley Park, many of the German lines of communication were compromised since decrypted intercepts, codenamed Ultra, gave the Allies insights into how effectively their deceptions were operating. In Europe, the Allies had good intelligence from resistance movements and aerial reconnaissance. By comparison, most of the German spies sent into Britain had been caught or had handed themselves in and turned into double agents (under the XX System). Some of the compromised agents were so trusted that by 1944, German intelligence had stopped sending new infiltrators. Because of internal politics, suspicion and mismanagement within the German command structure, intelligence gathering had only limited effectiveness.Latimer (2001), pp. 207–208Holt (2004)
By 1943, Hitler was defending the entire western coast of Europe, not knowing where an Allied invasion might land. His tactic was to defend the entire length and to rely on reinforcements to respond to any landings quickly. In France the Germans deployed two Army Groups. One of them, Army Group B, was deployed to protect the coastline; the Fifteenth Army covering the Pas-de-Calais region and the Seventh Army in Normandy.Latimer 2001, pg 206 Following a decision to defer the invasion, Operation Overlord, until 1944, the Allies conducted a series of deceptions intended to threaten invasion in Norway and France. Bodyguard was preceded in late 1943 by Operation Cockade, which was intended to confuse the German high command as to Allied intentions and to draw them into air battles across the Channel. Cockade did not achieve the latter goal, as German forces barely responded even as a fake invasion force crossed the channel and turned back some distance from its "target".Holt 2004, pp. 478–480
Plan Jael Planning for Bodyguard began even before Operation Cockade was fully under way, following the decision that Normandy would be the site of the coming invasion. The departments responsible for deception, 'A' Force, COSSAC's Ops (B) and the London Controlling Section, began to address the problem of achieving tactical surprise for Overlord. They produced a paper, entitled "First Thoughts", on 14 July 1943 that outlined many of the concepts that would later form the Bodyguard plan. However, since Cockade concluded with limited success, most of the Allied high command were sceptical that any new deception would work.Holt 2004, pp. 494–496
In August, Colonel John Henry Bevan, head of the London Controlling Section, presented a draft plan. Codenamed Jael, a reference to the Old Testament heroine who killed an enemy commander by deception, it would have attempted to deceive the Germans into thinking that the Allies had delayed the invasion for a further year but instead concentrated on the Balkan theatre and on air bombardment of Germany throughout 1944. The plan had a mixed reception in the Allied High command, and in October, a decision on the draft was deferred until after the Tehran Conference, a month later.Crowdy 2008, pp. 226–228
Meanwhile, COSSAC had been working on its own deception strategy, "Appendix Y" of Operation Overlord plan. The plan, also known as Torrent, had originated in early September at COSSAC and started life as a feint invasion of the Calais region shortly before D-Day and eventually, after the failure of a similar scheme during Cockade, transformed into a plan to divert attention from troops building up in the south-west of England.Holt 2004, pp. 502–503 The early ideas, which later became Operation Bodyguard, recognised that the Germans would expect an invasion. Instead of trying to conceal that fact, the core of the plan suggested misleading the Germans as to the exact time and location of the invasion and keeping them on the back foot once it had landed.
In November and December 1943, the Allied leaders met twice, first in Cairo (23–27 November) and then in Tehran (28 November–1 December), to decide on strategy for the following year. Bevan attended the conference and received his final orders on 6 December. Furnished with the final details of Overlord, Bevan returned to London to complete the draft. The deception strategy, now codenamed Bodyguard, was approved on Christmas Day 1943. The new name had been chosen based on a comment by Winston Churchill to Joseph Stalin at the Tehran Conference: "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies".Holt 2004, pp. 504–505Cave Brown 1975, pp. 1–10
Early 1944 planning
Operation Bodyguard aimed to deceive the enemy as to the timing, weight and direction of the prospective Allied invasion in France. It had three main goals: to make the Pas-de-Calais appear to be the main invasion target, to mask the actual date and time of the assault and to keep German reinforcements in Pas-de-Calais (and other parts of Europe) for at least 14 days after landing.
Bodyguard set out a detailed scenario that the deceivers would attempt to "sell" to the Germans. It included Allied belief in air bombardment as an effective way of winning the war, with the 1944 focus on building bomber fleets. It then specified invasions across the entire European coastline: in Norway, France and the Mediterranean. In January, planners began to fill in the details of Bodyguard, producing the various sub-operations to cover each of the invasions and misdirection.Crowdy 2008, pp. 229–230
The task fell to two main departments. 'A' Force, under Dudley Clarke, which had been successful early on, once again took charge of the Mediterranean region. In Europe, however, responsibility shifted away from the LCS, which took on a coordination role. Prior to Dwight Eisenhower's appointment as Supreme Commander, all planning for Overlord fell to the Chief of Staff to the Supreme Commander Allied Forces (COSSAC), Frederick E. Morgan. Under his regime, the deception department, Ops (B), had received limited resources and left most of the planning so far to the London Controlling section. With Eisenhower's arrival, Ops (B) expanded and Dudley Clarke's deputy from 'A' Force, Noel Wild, was placed in control. With the new resources, the department put together the largest single segment of Bodyguard, Operation Fortitude.
By early 1944, it became clear that for Operation Bodyguard's deception strategy to be truly effective, the Soviets needed to play a role. Their cooperation was essential in creating the illusion of large-scale troop movements that would mislead the Germans and prevent them from reinforcing the Western Front. However, persuading the Soviet leadership to participate and ensuring they fully understood the intricacies of the plan, posed a significant diplomatic challenge.
Recognizing the need for a coordinated approach, the United States and Britain agreed to send their top deception experts to Moscow. Col. John Bevan, the chief architect of the operation from the British side, and Col. William H. Baumer, his American counterpart on Eisenhower's staff, were chosen to present the plan and negotiate Soviet involvement. The two spent nearly a month in Moscow, carefully navigating Soviet skepticism and logistical hurdles to secure their full commitment. Baumer recorded the details of this mission, along with the broader planning of Operation Bodyguard, in his personal diary and papers.
Western Front Bodyguard focused on obfuscating the impending Normandy landings, planned for spring/summer 1944, and so the main effort was focused around the Western front. The planners created Fortitude, building on elements of the earlier Cockade, which encapsulated an entire fictional Allied invasion plan against targets in France and Norway. Its main undertaking was, through the various deception techniques, to overstate the size of the Allied forces in Britain through early 1944, enabling them to threaten multiple targets at once.
Operation Fortitude
Under the Fortitude "story", the Allies intended to invade both Norway and Pas-de-Calais. Using similar techniques to the 1943 Cockade operation (fictional field armies, faked operations, and false "leaked" information) the intention was to increase the apparent size of the Allied forces to make such a large-scale attack seem possible. To allow the plan to stay manageable it was divided into two main sections, each with numerous sub-plans; Fortitude North and South.
Fortitude North was aimed at German forces in Scandinavia and based around the fictional British Fourth Army, based in Edinburgh. The Fourth Army had first been activated the previous year, as part of Cockade to threaten Norway and tie down the enemy divisions stationed there. The Allies created the illusion of the army via fake radio traffic (Operation Skye) and leaks through double agents.Holt 2004, pp. 486Cave Brown 1975, pp. 464–466