There were three main considerations, the solution of which was to determine the organisation of the Deception Staff at SHAEF. First, should it come directly under the Supreme Commander, or should it form a section of the Operations Division? Second, should the head of the Deception Staff also command the specialist troops who would execute the cover plans? Third, should he directly control the Special Means1 channels?
When General Morgan’s staff was established in April 1943, a section known as Ops (B)2 had been formed within the Operations Branch to write the cover plans. As COSSAC was endowed with no executive powers, the command of specialist troops could not in any case have been considered at this stage. So far as Special Means channels were concerned, these remained, as yet, in the hands of the Controlling Officer.
It being felt that these arrangements might not prove adequate in the coming year, some discussion took place during the summer of 1943, and it was to the Mediterranean that attention was now turned and guidance sought in the experience of ‘A’ Force, which had been active in that theatre since the time of General Wavell’s campaign.
The Commander of ‘A’ Force acted as adviser on deception to the Service commanders in the Middle East. As such he was independent of the Operations Staff. He had under his command specialist troops and he directly controlled3 all Special Means channels. His staff was divided into two sections, ‘Operations’ ’and Intelligence’. The former was concerned with the physical aspects of deception, such as camouflage and wireless; the latter performed an Intelligence function in the collation of enemy information regarding ourselves and an operational function in deceiving the enemy through controlled leakage.
In July 1943 the Controlling Officer recommended that the Head of Ops (B) should, following the Mediterranean example, come directly under the Chief of Staff. ‘Experience in other theatres shows the need for a deception staff to be a distinct section within the General Staff and directly under the Chief of Staff. Though it should not come directly under Ops or “I” it must, however, establish the closest touch with these sections and with senior officers in other branches of the Staff.’4 At COSSAC, however, the opposite view was held. “A” Force is possibly rather a private army and I see no reason for this being directly under the Chief of Staff, although on certain occasions it should have direct access. Real, cover and deception plans and operations should all be made or conducted by the Operations Branch of the Staff. I think it would be a mistake if it can possibly be avoided to differentiate in any way between real and deception operations or to depart from normal staff channels.’5 A fortiori, this ruled out any question of commanding specialist troops.
In 1943 all Special Means requirements were canalised through the London Controlling Section. A committee known by the name of TWIST, of which the Controlling Officer was chairman, sat weekly and allotted tasks to the various channels held at their disposal. It was supposed that this system would continue in 1944, and when recommending that Ops (B) should be divided on the ‘A’ Force pattern into ‘Operations’ and ‘Intelligence’ elements, the Controlling Officer had specifically stated that since ‘all implementation by secret means is in the hands of LCS’, there would be no need for a large Intelligence staff. By contrast it seemed to him that the operational element might have to be stronger than was the case in other theatres. The authority of a commander-in-chief in the United Kingdom was limited, since considerable control was exercised by Service and non-Service Ministries and other departments, many of which might be concerned with the execution of real or deception plans. The co-ordination of such widespread interests, in so far as they affected deception, would fall upon the operational side of the Deception Staff, which should accordingly be strengthened.
After this exchange of views, the question of organisation lay dormant for several months and it was not until January 1944, when COSSAC became absorbed in the newly created SHAEF, that the matter was brought up again for consideration.6 Opinion at SHAEF still favoured the retention of Ops (B) as an integral part of the Operations Division and continued to set its face against any proposal that the head of the Deception Staff should also command specialist troops: ‘The Commander of Force “A” controls directly his own cover and deception units; and in addition he and his subordinates act as advisers to the various military commanders. … In the United Kingdom organisation, on the other hand, the cover and deception staff at Supreme Headquarters and at 21 and First Army Groups forms an integral part of the G-3 staff;7 the special cover and deception units coming directly under the command of the Army Group Commanders. We feel that the advantages lie with the United Kingdom set-up. The Deception Staff, forming an integral part of the Headquarters, are likely to be more fully in the operational picture, and more likely to influence the G-3 Staff and Commanders in their decisions. The burden of administering the special units rests with the Army Groups, who can deal with them in their stride. In this respect no change is recommended.’8 On the other hand, where Special Means was concerned, a unanimous change of opinion is to be observed. As early as 3rd January, 1944, the Controlling Officer had made it clear that in his opinion the TWIST Committee did not provide an ideal solution: ‘The directive to the Controlling Officer from the Chiefs of Staff includes the following: “You will control the planting of deception schemes originated by Commanders-in-Chief by such means as leakage and propaganda.” In practice this means that the cover plan prepared by SAC, UK, will be planted by LCS through channels available to LCS and in accordance with the characteristics of these various channels. It would seem desirable to have SAC Deception Staff more closely associated with this detailed implementation and in these circumstances it is felt that SAC, LCS and MI5 (B1A)9 should form a small combined Intelligence Staff, which will be responsible for “planting” the story on the enemy. The exact form in which this should be done is a matter for discussion and will obviously depend to some extent upon SAC, UK’s deception establishment. As a first step, it would seem advisable for representatives of SAC, LCS and B1A to meet twice weekly to review the existing situation and decide on any immediate action which may be necessary. This Committee would in fact take the place of TWIST’10 On 15th January the Controlling Officer translated these views into action. Just as SAC, UK, should coordinate the activities of all forces in the United Kingdom, whether under his command or not, in implementing real plans, ‘equally SAC, UK, should co-ordinate the output of all deception material concerned with deception plans covering real operations for which SAC, UK, is responsible. For this purpose a permanent liaison between MI5, MI6, LCS and SAC’s Deception Staff will be set up at HQ, SAC. SAC will thus instruct directly MI5, MI6 and LCS with regard to deception material for channels controlled respectively by them and the necessary co-ordination between all channels will be secured at the Headquarters of SAC The TWIST Committee will cease to exist.’11 This was accepted by SHAEF. ‘It has been clear for some time that SHAEF must take over control of the “planting the story”. In fact, a measure of control has already been taken over (since 12th January) in that the Ops (B) Sub-Section at SHAEF have agreed to hold regular meetings with. LCS and MI5 to initiate the planting of the story for OVERLORD.’12 Henceforth LCS was to be regarded, to use the Controlling Officer’s own words, ‘as the authority through which co-ordination of implementation … of European cover plans should be conducted. In other words, SAC, UK, Deception Staff, Main Headquarters “A” Force and JSC, Washington, should, when necessary, communicate to one another through LCS and not directly with one another.’13 These arrangements continued to work satisfactorily until the end of the war.
Thus, of the three main issues referred to at the beginning of this chapter, the first two had gone contrary to, and the third, in accordance with, the ‘A’ Force precedent.
To meet these changed conditions and to provide a staff that would be capable of undertaking the larger tasks which now lay ahead, a new and increased establishment14 was approved in January 1944.
The Sub-Section now had at its head a British colonel, newly posted from ‘A’ Force. The British lieutenant-colonel who had been head of Ops (B) since its formation became Deputy Chief as well as head of the Operational or Physical Deception element.15 In the latter capacity he had under him two majors, one British and one American. The Intelligence or Special Means element was placed under the charge of the British major, who had hitherto been attached to Ops (B) from the Intelligence Branch. He had as assistants a British captain and, a little later, a British major lent by B1A. The Physical Deception Staff made use of the G-3 pool for clerical work. The Special Means Staff, on account of the secret nature of its activities, was supplied by MI5 with a civilian secretary and kept its own separate registry. ANCXF and AEAF provided, respectively, a commander and a wing-commander who acted as advisers both to Ops (B) and to the Joint Commanders.
In June 1944 Ops (B) was enlarged, mainly by the addition of American officers. An American lieutenant-colonel became Deputy Chief, the former Deputy Chief continuing to fulfil his second role as head of the Physical Deception Staff. The Physical Deception Staff was strengthened by the addition of an American major, and later, in July, of two American captains.16 The British major in charge of Special Means was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and, soon afterwards, his assistant to major, while the burden of the civilian secretary in charge of the Special Means registry was eased by the addition of two ATS officers. The organisation did not undergo any further notable change until September 1944, that is to say after FORTITUDE had come to an end. This rearrangement, which was made when Ops (B) went overseas, will be alluded to briefly in a later chapter.
The official cover plans, which received the approval of the Supreme Commander through his Chief of Staff, were drafted by the Physical Deception Staff under the direction of the Chief or Deputy Chief of the Sub-Section. Drafts were revised at meetings to which members of other branches of the Staff and representatives of the other Services were invited. The Special Means plans, on the other hand, received no approval beyond that of the Chief of the Sub-Section. For in theory at least they were no more than adaptations of the official plans, prepared by the Special Means Staff with the object of serving the stories to the controlled channels in a palatable form.
The Deception Staffs at the two Army Groups did not follow the SHAEF example. 21 Army Group adhered very closely to the ‘A’ Force pattern, and the Deception Staff, at first known as Ops (D) but re-christened G (R)17 on 22nd February, 1944, came directly under the Chief of Staff. The head of G (R) was also the Commander of ‘R’ Force, a mixed force of specialist troops trained to perform a variety of deceptive tasks.18
At the time of which we are speaking, the American Army Group was still in embryo and as yet had no organisation for deception. Although the problem of forming and training an American deception staff was the subject of discussion throughout the winter months and officers with experience of the subject were already attached to ETOUSA, it was not until 26th March, 1944, that the new ‘Special Plans Section’ was formed. At first it came under ETOUSA and worked in close co-operation with 21 Army Group, its function being to help the latter in deceptive operations where United States troops under command of 21 Army Group were involved. Later in the year it took its place under the American Twelfth Army Group, when the latter went overseas. The American organisation lay somewhere between that of SHAEF and 21 Army Group. On the one hand it was not, like Ops (B), a sub-section of the Operations Division, but came directly under the Chief of Staff; on the other, it had no troops under command but had to make its demands through normal channels to the heads of the army services for the use of specialist troops in aid of deceptive operations.
The delegation of command and control in respect of FORTITUDE has already been described. Let us now consider its effect upon the work of the Deception Staffs. The Joint Commanders had been made responsible for the detailed planning and control of FORTITUDE SOUTH in its physical aspects. Similarly the Army’s share of FORTITUDE NORTH had gone to the GOC-in-C, Scottish Command. Thus from February until the middle of July, when SHAEF resumed the undivided control of FORTITUDE SOUTH, the main function of the Physical Deception Staff was one of co-ordinating the plans of the Joint Commanders in the South with those of the GOC-in-C, Scottish Command in the North, the latter becoming the executants. The function of the Special Means Staff was to adapt the plans, both North and South, to suit the needs of the channels under their control and then to plant them on the enemy.
Such was to be the organisation and distribution of responsibility for the development of the plans and for the control of the operation. Before proceeding further let us see what technical resources the Deception Staffs had at their disposal. Most of the technical processes by means of which FORTITUDE was carried out have been the subject of special reports to which reference is made in the footnotes. It is only necessary here to enumerate the principal methods employed and to point out their respective capabilities and limitations in order that the reader may appreciate how far each was able to contribute to the FORTITUDE story.
In view of the great importance attached to physical deception in the early days of cover planning, it was natural that COSSAC should lose no time in making its demands upon the Service Ministries in order that requirements could be met in time. The need for deceptive wireless being regarded as paramount, negotiations for marshalling the necessary resources were opened in the autumn of 1943 with the Admiralty, the War Office and the War Department at Washington. By the spring of 1944 there were in the United Kingdom four separate signals organisations available to carry out the wireless deception programme of FORTITUDE: ‘No. 5 Wireless Group’ to represent British land forces, ‘3103 Signals Service Battalion’ for American land forces, ‘Fourth Army’ for British formations taking part in FORTITUDE NORTH, and the ‘CLH’ units to represent naval assault forces.
In forming No. 5 Wireless Group the War Office (Signals 9) introduced a number of original features. All traffic was recorded in advance, and the equipment required for that purpose was provided. A mechanism was devised which made it possible for one wireless transmitter to simulate six. Thus the wireless traffic of a divisional headquarters with its brigades might be represented by sounds emanating from a single wireless truck. This unit was equipped to provide the essential wireless communications of three divisions, either armoured or infantry. Becoming operational in February 1944, it was immediately placed under the command of 21 Army Group and so remained until its disbandment at the end of the war.19
To satisfy United States requirements, a complete wireless deception unit, 3103 Signals Service Battalion, arrived from the United States in the early spring of 1944 fully equipped and trained. The official claim for this unit was a capacity to represent a corps of one armoured and two infantry divisions. In fact, by omitting links below the divisional level, it was able in FORTITUDE SOUTH to represent no less than three army corps and nine divisions as well as the headquarters of an army group and an army. Unlike No. 5 Wireless Group, it used normal equipment. Traffic passed directly between operators without the intervention of recording apparatus, the wireless trucks moving through the country just as the formations which they represented would have done. When the Battalion first reached England it came under ETOUSA. Later it was placed under the command of Twelfth Army Group.
Scottish Command had no ready-made specialist signals unit to carry out the wireless programme required by FORTITUDE NORTH and therefore had to improvise. A team was made up from the 2nd British Corps and the 9th British Armoured Division, both formations being then in process of disbandment, to which were added personnel from Scottish Command and from certain miscellaneous small units. This unofficial group, which became active in March 1944, received the name of ‘Fourth Army’, the imaginary force which it represented. Like the American battalion it operated with normal signal equipment. In FORTITUDE NORTH it was able to represent one arm and two army corps. As the services of this improvised force were still needed after FORTITUDE NORTH had come to an end, it was given an establishment in July 1944 and received the name of ‘Twelfth Reserve Unit’. As such it operated under War Office control.20
The formation of three ‘CLH’ units was undertaken by the Admiralty in the autumn of 1943. Each unit was designed to represent the naval force associated with an assault division. Like No. 5 Wireless Group, the ‘CLH’ unit operated numerous circuits from a single van but not on the recording system. Two of these units were ready for action at the end of March 1944. The third became active at the beginning of June. They remained at all times a part of the Signals Division of the Admiralty, being lent to commanders as required.21
Unlike the Navy and the Army, the Air Force employed no specialised troops for wireless deception, but made its contribution by detailing operators for each particular task.
Two matters of general policy affecting the conduct of wireless deception in support of FORTITUDE call for attention. The first relates to controlled leakage, the second to dummy traffic. On the ground that it would place too great a responsibility on script writers and operators, and would tax their ingenuity unduly,22 controlled leakage in FORTITUDE wireless traffic was at all times forbidden. This decision, of course, limited the scope of wireless as a vehicle of deception. It meant that the enemy could not be given the designation of an imaginary formation by this means, nor could it reveal intention except in so far as this could be deduced from the type and grouping of formations and the character of training.
Throughout FORTITUDE the use of dummy traffic was forbidden on the ground that the German cryptographers might deduce from the general pattern of the groups that behind the cipher there lay nothing but a random series of letters. The opposite view was held in the Mediterranean theatre. There it was thought that any increase of ‘live’ traffic added ‘depth’ to the cipher material and so made it easier for the enemy to break it. Wherever the true answer may lie, there can be no doubt that the use of live traffic involves a great deal of extra and very highly skilled work. It also exposes one to the danger of a leakage in the traffic, resulting from a slip on the part of an operator, which cannot arise with dummy messages.
In the field of camouflage and visual misdirection, the only extensive use that FORTITUDE made of special equipment was in the employment of dummy landing craft. These were supplied by the War Office (SWV8).23 Between the middle of May and the middle of June 1944 two hundred and fifty-six were displayed. The few dummy aircraft used in FORTITUDE NORTH were supplied by the Air Ministry. Sir John Turner’s department at the Air Ministry was responsible for installing and operating decoy lighting apparatus at fictitious embarkation points on the east and south-east coasts.
Both American and British Army Groups had under their command camouflage companies and specialist troops trained in the art of sonic warfare. Although these were used extensively overseas, they played no significant part in FORTITUDE.
Having completed this short catalogue of the physical resources, we must now examine the ‘Special Means’ channels in somewhat greater detail and discover the processes whereby controlled misinformation could be planted on the enemy.
‘Special Means’, as has already been explained, was the non-committal name given to all those channels which the Controlling Officer used for passing false intelligence to the Germans. Theoretically, there is no limit to the number of backstairs methods by which one can misinform the enemy; in practice, the only channels that were being used at all extensively at the end of 1943 were the German agents controlled by the British, the neutral embassies and legations in London, upon whose members it was sometimes possible to plant false information, and our own diplomatic representatives abroad, who could be asked, as the occasion arose, to repeat in the countries to which they were accredited the stories which we wished the enemy to believe. A certain amount of deception was practised by introducing false items of news into letters addressed to prisoners of war for the benefit of the German censors, while the Deception Staffs in Washington, in the Mediterranean and elsewhere were always willing to lend their services. The Special Operations Executive (SOE), the organisation controlling sabotage and the activities of resistance groups in enemy-occupied countries, and the Political Warfare Executive (PWE), the British propaganda organisation, were both accounted possible deception channels at the disposal of the London Controlling Officer.
The agencies which controlled the three main channels referred to above were, for deception through the British Diplomatic Service abroad, the Foreign Office; for deception through the neutrals in London, MI5 (Diplomatic Section); and for the controlled agents, MI5 (B1A). When the TWIST Committee was abolished, SHAEF entered into direct relationship with MI5 in respect of the two last-named channels, but continued to deal with the Foreign Office through the London Controlling Officer. The latter also handled requests for help from other operational theatres.
SHAEF did not revive the TWIST Committee at Norfolk House, but found it easier to deal with each agency on a day-to-day footing. Before many weeks had passed, it became evident that the controlled agents provided far the best medium for the passage of false information to the enemy. With the diplomatic channels one could never be quite sure whom the story would reach and in what form it would arrive. As instruments of deception they lacked precision. Thus while visits between the Special Means Staff at SHAEF and B1A were soon of daily occurrence, meetings with LCS and MI5 (Diplomatic Section) became increasingly rare. By March attempts to plant stories on the neutral diplomatists in London had been given up altogether. On the other hand, the Foreign Office remained an occasional channel for strategic deception in support of FORTITUDE.
The point has now been reached at which we must examine the inner working of section B1A.24 Before doing so, however, it will be necessary to make a few observations on the German Intelligence Service, without whose co-operation the double-cross system in the United Kingdom could not have existed.
The German Intelligence Service suffered to some extent from that dual control which affected the whole German conduct of the war and which arose from the struggle for supremacy between the fighting services and the Party. So far as espionage was concerned, the matter was temporarily settled by a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ arrived at in 1939 between Heydrich, the Party man and head of the RSHA,25 and Canaris, the head of the Abwehr, whereby the latter was left in sole charge of the German spy system. The Abwehr, which combined the functions of security and secret services, possessed a widespread and well-established organisation with its Leitstelles in occupied countries and its Kriegsorganizations in the neutral capitals. As Himmler’s power increased the Secret Intelligence Branch of the RSHA known as Amt VI, in spite of the agreement of 1939, began to run its own spies. But it displayed a singular ineptitude in the art of espionage; it put its agents in touch with each other and in other ways broke the most elementary rules. The Abwehr at least proved itself capable of administering a large network of British-controlled agents in the United Kingdom. The RSHA could not even do that. All the spies that we used in FORTITUDE were Abwehr agents. In spite of this, the Abwehr was now suffering eclipse on the home front. In the spring of 1944 Canaris was dismissed, being replaced by Hansen, and on 1st June, five days that is before the invasion, the whole Abwehr was taken over by the RSHA. This might have been a very serious thing for deception, and it caused a good deal of anxiety at the time. In the event, however, it turned out to be a gain rather than a loss. Although all the Abwehr chiefs were swept away, the machine was preserved, a course which the RSHA could in fact hardly avoid as it had nothing to put in its place. Now Schellenberg, the head of Amt VI, who replaced Hansen after the coup d’état of 20th July, was a more influential man than any of his Abwehr predecessors and for him to claim possession of our controlled agents could be nothing but an added strength to the Allied cause. There was some fear of the ‘new broom’ when Amt VI took control. It was thought that they would submit the easy-going Abwehr organisation to a close scrutiny, in which case we might have some difficulty in preventing our channels from falling under suspicion. As it turned out, however, the RSHA preferred to let well alone.
The old Abwehr’s activities had not ended with the maintenance of the British-controlled network. It also purported to glean information about what was going on in this country from an equally spurious type of spy. Certain individuals, residing in neutral capitals, having persuaded the Abwehr that they controlled networks of agents operating in the United Kingdom, were able, by the exercise of ingenuity and imagination, to supply the Germans with a constant stream of intelligence which had little foundation in truth. They do not usually appear to have been actuated by any feeling of hostility towards the Central Powers, nor by a wish to help the Allied cause, but were moved either by a desire for personal gain or to avoid the inconvenience and hardship of active service.26 These gentlemen generally met with a success which the quality of the information that they supplied would scarcely seem to have justified. To us they were always a nuisance and often a real danger. Sometimes, by intelligent guesswork, they came alarmingly near to the truth; at other times they talked such nonsense that they lowered the credibility of agents in general in the eyes of the military commanders, but unfortunately seldom went quite far enough to discredit themselves.
The fact that B1A effectively controlled all German espionage in the United Kingdom, and this was probably so from the beginning of the war, was only gradually realised. ‘Dimly, very dimly, we began to guess at the beginning of 1941 that we did, in fact, control the enemy system, though we were obsessed by the idea that there might be a large body of German spies over and above those whom we controlled.’27 The potential value of B1A’s organisation as a vehicle for deception could not be fully appreciated until this state of affairs had become known, and it is true to say that in the early days of the war the main object of catching spies and ‘turning them round’ was not so much to help the deceivers as to prevent the Germans from knowing what was going on here, in other words to improve security. By controlling the agents who were already here, one had a better chance of catching the new arrivals. Also, so long as the Germans felt that they had a network upon which they could rely, there would be no need to replace it. The view of B1A was that as the Allies turned to the offensive and important operations came to be launched from this country, the value of their controlled agents as instruments of deception would increase, while the time that they were obliged to devote to their counter-intelligence role would, with the perfection of security arrangements in the United Kingdom, tend to diminish correspondingly. Their first notable contribution to operational deception was made in 1942, when measures were taken to conceal the landing in North Africa. They also played a part in COCKADE in 1943. It was always felt, however, that their great opportunity would come with OVERLORD.
In the absence of a deception policy, it becomes difficult at times to find enough for double-cross agents to say, that is, enough of the right quality. Once there is a deception plan, one has one’s material ready-made, high-class and abundant, even if wholly inaccurate; but there was seldom enough of this, at least before the days of FORTITUDE, to satisfy the keen appetites of all the controlled agents. One had to maintain a reasonable standard of interest in their messages, yet by doing so there was always a danger of giving away a vital secret. ‘It will readily be believed’, writes the historian of B1A, ‘that the ultimate responsibility for allowing any message to pass to the enemy is a dangerous power. In communicating with the enemy almost from day to day in time of war we were playing with dynamite, and the game would have been impossible unless the “approving authorities” had been willing to assume this ultimate responsibility.’28 A solution was found in the creation in January 1941, under the auspices of the Directors of Intelligence, of the XX Committee, which held weekly meetings from then until the end of the war with Germany. The essential purpose of the Committee was to decide what information could safely be given to the Germans. It also acted as a clearing-house where the work of the various agents could be compared and kept within a reasonable measure of consistency. In addition it weighed the needs of different departments and, if necessary, reconciled those of one with another. The members of the XX Committee, as representatives of the Directors of Intelligence or of the other departments affected, such as the Foreign Office and the Home Defence Executive, were in effect the approving authorities. Messages requiring approval were submitted at the weekly Committee meeting.
After each meeting of the Committee its members had the opportunity of seeing the officers in personal charge of the controlled agents and of agreeing with them the precise wording of any messages that were to be sent on their behalf so as to make sure that the style of the agent employed was not departed from and at the same time that the meaning was not obscured. Every controlled agent had such a ‘Case Officer’. The Case Officer lived the life of the individual who had been placed under his care, was responsible for his domestic affairs and had to see that his messages were in character and that the reported episodes of his imaginary life were not contradictory. As deception began to play a larger part in the agents’ traffic, a tendency developed for matters to be settled directly between the Case Officer and the approving authority of the Service or Department whose interests were being served by the deception. This arrangement was more expeditious since it avoided the necessity of having to wait for the next meeting of the Committee. The Committee was, of course, informed of all that happened.
By the time that SHAEF was constituted an approving authority this had become the established practice. During the weeks immediately preceding and following the invasion it would probably be true to say that messages in support of FORTITUDE constituted as much as three-quarters of the whole traffic sent. The substance of these messages was worked out, the traffic of the various agents dovetailed together and the final drafts approved by means of daily meetings between the Special Means officer at SHAEF and the Case Officers affected. On one or two occasions of particular importance the agent himself joined in the consultations.
When the partnership between Ops (B) and B1A was first established in January 1944, the detailed plans had not, of course, yet been written. We only had BODYGUARD and FORTITUDE to guide us and these dealt in broad trends rather than in detailed and precise facts. At this time the traffic was therefore supplemented by a method which had been introduced during the previous summer, when shortage of military material had been even more acute. This means of providing a constant flow of information on military subjects was found in the Field Security Report. Through the agency of GHQ, Home Forces, all the Field Security Sections in the United Kingdom were told to put themselves in the position of a German spy and to send in a fortnightly report of observations which, in their opinion, would have helped a spy to draw conclusions about the invasion. This was represented to the Sections as a security measure and copies were sent to the War Office (MI11), who, incidentally, found them to some value. The real object, however, was to give our controlled agents something to say. We could pick items from these reports which had all the attributes of realism because they had in fact been seen. B1A also employed an officer with a motor-car, who could supply local colour about places which the agents had visited in imagination only.