Before the invasion began much effort was expended in trying to visualise what the position would be when we had armies fighting in France. Two things were regarded as fairly certain; first, that we should capture a number of German ‘stay-behind’ agents in the country that was overrun and that some of these would be turned round and used for strategic deception;1 second, that deception in support of current operations would continue to be a function of SHAEF. This would require little less than a duplication of the Deception Staff. Cover plans might well have to be executed simultaneously in London and at Supreme Headquarters in France, while provision would certainly have to be made for controlling agents on both sides of the Channel. With this in view a new war establishment for the Sub-Section was approved in June.2 In the event neither of the expectations which called this establishment into being were ever fulfilled. Nevertheless, when the Deception Staff went overseas in September 1944,3 it was reorganised in such a way that the rear headquarters in London and the main headquarters in France were both practically self-supporting.
Before the invasion Most Secret Sources and other intelligence channels had made it clear that the Germans were setting up an elaborate network of ‘stay-behind’ gents in Belgium and France. In many instances their names and addresses, as well as the tasks which they were expected to fulfil, were already known to us. It was therefore necessary to build up a reserve of case officers who could take charge of these agents when they fell into our hands. For that purpose, three Security Counter-Intelligence Units, known as SCI Units, were formed. 104 SCI Unit was attached to 21 Army Group, 106 SCI Unit was to remain with SHAEF and would provide a pool of British case officers which could be drawn on when required,4 while the American ‘SCI Unit France’ was to supply officers for all United States’ needs, including those of the Sixth and Twelfth Army Groups and of the American communication zone.
Co-operation with the French in the running of controlled agents was a matter much discussed in the pre-invasion days. Should we let them into all our secrets? On the other hand, it was quite clear that whatever we might say the Deuxième Bureau would run the agents that they caught and it was better that they should do so with our knowledge and approval than without it. Without our help they could hardly avoid sending reports which would contravene deception policy and endanger operational security. It was therefore decided at the outset that co-operation with the Deuxième Bureau in these matters should be full and free.
The first German agent in France who came over to us after the invasion had been launched was captured in Cherbourg at the end of June shortly after the fall of that place. A lull of some weeks ensued, but in August, when the Allied advance became rapid and widespread, members of the German ‘stay-behind’ network began to give themselves up at an alarming rate. On 21st August a committee of officers belonging to the British and American army groups were formed to consider the running of these captured agents and met for the first time at Domfront. Combining the designations of the two army groups it was known as the 212 Committee and at this meeting its objects were defined as being to approve ‘foodstuff’ for controlled agents operating in the theatre, to direct the deception policy governing the traffic of controlled agents and to authorise the use of controlled agents for particular operations. SHAEF was invited to send an observer to watch proceedings. It was realised that these newly captured agents were not yet in a fit state to be used for deception, but it was hoped to select one or two of the more promising ones and build them up over a period, at the same time manœuvring them into the situations best suited for the tasks which they would later be required to perform. The remainder, so it was felt, could be usefully employed in a counter-espionage role. As these agents continued to come in, the difficulties and dangers of trying to use any of them for deception became increasingly apparent. Apart from the normal and unavoidable risk of line crossers, the ramifications of the German networks seemed to be endless. While this raised their worth as counter-espionage agents it reduced their value as potential vehicles of deception. On 18th September the Committee was taken over by SHAEF.
It had been agreed at the Domfront meeting on 21st August that the 212 Committee should be the approving authority for the traffic of controlled agents in France. With the rapid advance of the Allied armies and the capture of agents in widely separated districts, a more flexible system for approving traffic became necessary. It must always rest primarily with the case officer to decide what requires approval. Once it has been found necessary to constitute more than one approving authority the case officer must be given some direction as to whom he should approach. With this in view an instruction was issued on 25th September.5 Henceforth army groups were authorised to approve military traffic affecting their own operations. Naval and air matters were to go respectively to ANCXF and AEAF, while messages dealing with higher strategy or affecting the communication zone as well as those with a political implication would go to SHAEF. SHAEF was also to receive confirmatory copies of all traffic to ensure that the agents were not working at cross purposes. Approval at each of these headquarters remained the responsibility of the operational staffs. So long as deception was being practised at all this was a necessary precaution, in spite of the fact that by far the greater part of the ‘foodstuff’ provided required higher approval from a security standpoint only. In the last weeks of the war, when deception had practically ceased, the responsibility for approving controlled agents’ traffic at SHAEF was assumed by the Intelligence branch.
It has been said that our expectation of continuing strategic deception on the Continent was not fulfilled. Let us see why this was so. In order to make any plans of strategic deception effective two conditions must be satisfied. First the operation must be regarded by the enemy as a feasible one; second, it must be a containing operation in the true sense of the term, that is to say there must be a recognised and accepted intention to draw enemy forces in front of the threatened sector and to hold them there for a reasonable period, for even under the most favourable conditions one must assume that it will take at least a fortnight to develop a strategic threat and not less than another fortnight to dissipate it.
Throughout the campaign the capture of the Ruhr remained the primary Allied objective. Bearing in mind the ever-present danger that unexpected developments in the real campaign might bring the true and the false operations into conflict, the Deception Staff at once sought to play a useful part by confining their efforts to sectors which might reasonably be expected to remain inactive during the coming months. Accordingly at the beginning of October a plan was drafted which suggested that the stiffening German resistance had caused the Allies to change their strategy and that in consequence the main axis of the Allied advance would be on Munich through the Black Forest, while an amphibious operation would be mounted in the United Kingdom against Norway. This plan was disapproved on the ground that it failed to fulfil the first condition, namely, that it would not be regarded by the enemy as feasible. In fact threats against both these sectors were maintained in a modified form throughout the latter months of the war, but they were not coordinated in an all-embracing strategic plan. The threat in the South became a part of Sixth Army Group’s deceptive operations. The latent threat across the North Sea was kept alive by the continued presence of Fourth British Army in the United Kingdom.
Strategic deception being thus precluded from operating against the extremities of the front, consideration was now given to the creation of a threat in the more active sectors. As the crossing of the lower Rhine and the capture of the Ruhr retained the first priority, this in fact meant a threat to the Frankfurt area through the Metz gap. Between the beginning of October 1944 and the crossing of the Rhine in March 1945 numerous plans were written which aimed to convince the Germans that our main line of advance would be in the direction of Frankfurt. They all failed to receive approval because, although the Ruhr continued to be at all times the first Allied objective, it also remained a fixed principle of Allied strategy that no positive step should be taken to draw German forces in front of the central sector. Glancing through the bulky files of abortive plans that were written during this period of vain endeavour, one comes across such comments as these: ‘I do not think this will work. We are setting Ops (B) a very difficult if not impossible task, but we must be sure that we have exhausted every possibility before we throw our hand in.’6 ‘The more I consider this matter the more convinced I am that the actual operations we intend to execute obviate the necessity for, and desirability of, a cover and deception plan.’7
When the German line stabilised at the end of September 1944 the day of strategic deception was over. Even if a continuation of strategic planning had been possible, a further difficulty would have arisen through the absence of suitable forces to carry out the deceptive operations. It was at no time the policy of SHAEF to hold a large reserve. When formations arrived in France they were assigned almost immediately to army groups. Thus when the Germans launched their offensive in the Ardennes on 16th December there were only two divisions in the SHAEF reserve, namely, the 82nd and 101st US Airborne Divisions. The only other immediately available formation was the 11th Armoured Division which had just landed. At the same time the opinion was gaining ground that to hold a large strategic reserve of imaginary formations in France would be fraught with danger. In August and early September, when the war seemed to be drawing to a close, we had no hesitation in arranging for the transfer of the Fourteenth Army to France because we did not think that the Germans would have time to discover that it was not really there, but to sustain a belief in its continued presence for many months with all the attendant risks of leakage and when none of its formations appeared in the front line might soon convince the enemy that it never had existed, with fatal consequences to strategic deception as a whole, and to the good name of our best agents. An argument against the continuation of strategic deception sometimes advanced at that time was that the Germans had no reserve themselves and could not therefore react. Subsequent events showed that this argument was hardly a good one, at any rate until after the Ardennes offensive had run its course.
The initiative had in truth passed to the army groups, who could still find scope for deception in support of the operations within their own sectors. In view of the larger part which the army groups were now being called upon to play in this field, it was thought advisable at the end of August8 to define their powers more precisely, and on the 28th and 31st of that month appropriate instructions were issued by SHAEF. ‘Supreme Headquarters AEF will plan and control overall cover and deception operations. The groups of armies, in conjunction with their associated naval forces and air forces, and the communication zone, will plan and carry out such part of these operations as may be allotted to them.
‘In order to assist operations in their own spheres, groups of armies are authorised to initiate cover and deception operations. Plans for these operations will be forwarded to this headquarters without delay to ensure co-ordination.’9 On the other hand all Special Means requirements were to be submitted to SHAEF.10 This precaution was considered necessary since all intelligence of that nature would be likely to go direct to the OKW for evaluation, so that inconsistencies would become more easily apparent than was the case with the other deception channels. Single control was therefore deemed to be essential. As long as we were only employing the controlled agents in the United Kingdom for deception, this arrangement could, incidentally, cause no added inconvenience, since requirements would in any case have to be canalised through SHAEF. Two months later, however, a difficulty arose. Quite legitimately the army groups were employing visual deception within their zones. But this raised the issue of the control of Special Means. If, for example, the insignia of some imaginary formation was paraded in the streets of Brussels it would be impossible for a controlled agent living in that city to fail to observe those things which were being displayed for the benefit of real German agents and which it was to be presumed were being reported by the latter to the Germans. It was therefore ruled on 13th November that ‘any military information which was supported by physical means should be classed as true and should, therefore, be put over by army groups’.11 In effect this gave to the army groups the right to use controlled agents operating in their own zones for deception. On 5th December this right was confirmed. ‘Cover planning staffs at army groups are authorised to approve operational traffic of all special agents within their own zones, providing such traffic concerns their own operations exclusively.’12 It was of course still obligatory for the army groups to obtain the approval of SHAEF where other interests were affected. SHAEF also remained the channel for obtaining the services of the agents in the United Kingdom. When enlisting the support of the British agents care was always taken to avoid associating their reports too closely with those furnished by the agents abroad, who were still regarded as being more or less unreliable. To have allowed such an association to develop would have been to run the risk of discrediting our best channels through the collapse of one of the Continental agents. This was why we decided in the end not to send BRUTUS to France.
No attempt is made here to describe the cover plans which the army groups initiated in support of their own operations, since these form the subject of reports prepared by the deception staffs of the headquarters concerned. Suffice it to say that it was only in the zone of Sixth Army Group that deceptive threats were sustained for any considerable period of time. Early in October, in answer to a request from the Supreme Commander Mediterranean Theatre, a cover operation was directed against the Franco-Italian frontier, and succeeded in holding the three German divisions stationed there until the end of the war. When this army group reached the Rhine, a second threat was initiated with the object of containing enemy forces in the Black Forest area. By a series of deceptive operations this threat was also kept alive until the time of Germany’s final collapse.
The cover plans of the other two army groups, in the Central and Northern zones, were mainly of a short-term character designed to support specific operations within their own sectors, the assistance of the London-controlled agents being enlisted from time to time through SHAEF. Only one of these, a cover operation initiated by 21 Army Group in November 1944 and known as TROLLEYCAR, need be considered in this report because it became linked with the larger strategic programme in circumstances that will be described in a later chapter.