First Published in 1987. New information obtained from the declassification of Ultra intercepts and other Second World War documents as well as from recent scholarly research has credited Allied deception operations with an even more important contribution to winning the war than was previously supposed. Yet deception is only one factor in the achievement of victory; it cannot guarantee success. It must be fully understood and exploited by the highest levels of command. Most histories of deception operations during the Second World War have focused on those that were successful. Instances in which deception operations failed to achieve their objectives are discussed by John Campbell, who describes an early attempt to convince the Germans that the Allies intended to invade at Pas de Calais in the summer of 1943, and by Katherine Herbig, who gives the first detailed description of US deception operations in the Pacific. Klaus-Jurgen Moiier questions the actual effectiveness of deception operations against the Germans. He argues that many successes attributed to the Allies' use of deception were in fact achieved by independent considerations on the German side. Professor Moiier builds a particularly strong case in challenging the success of Operation Fortitude North, in which the Allies tried to divert German troops to Norway before invading Normandy. Although very little is known of Soviet deception operations on the Eastern Front, it must be remembered that they were conducted on a much larger scale than those of either the British in Europe or the Americans in the Pacific. Colonel David Glantz's account of Soviet deception and covert activities offers a version of the historiography of the war between the USSR and Germany which may explain some of the monumental German failures. Tom Cubbage not only contributes a synthesis of the primary and secondary sources available on the deception operations preceding Overlord, but also reviews the so-called Hesketh Report - Fortitude: A History of Strategic Decep­tion in North Western Europe April 1943 to May 1945, Colonel Roger Hesketh's official report on Allied deception operations against the Germans in north-west Europe which was declassified in 1976, yet remains unpublished. It indicates that Professor Muller's suspicions that the Allies over-estimated the impact of Forti­tude are unfounded. Edited and with a comprehensive introduction by Michael Handel, these important and original studies put the entire deception effort during the Second World War into a more balanced and accurate perspective.

Mod slutningen af Stillehavskrigen planlagde den amerikanske hær en invasion af Japan i form af operationerne Olympic på øen Kyushu og Coronet i nærheden af Tokyo. For at vildlede japanerne gennemførtes to skinoperationer, Pastel og Coronet Deception. Forfatteren gennemgår forberedelser til, indhold og konsekvenser af skinoperationerne og analyserer ligeledes japanernes reaktioner undervejs.

In February 1942, intelligence officer Victor Jones erected 150 tents behind British lines in North Africa. "Hiding tanks in Bedouin tents was an old British trick," writes Nicholas Rankin. German general Erwin Rommel not only knew of the ploy, but had copied it himself. Jones knew that Rommel knew. In fact, he counted on it--for these tents were empty. With the deception that he was carrying out a deception, Jones made a weak point look like a trap. In A Genius for Deception, Nicholas Rankin offers a lively and comprehensive history of how Britain bluffed, tricked, and spied its way to victory in two world wars. As Rankin shows, a coherent program of strategic deception emerged in World War I, resting on the pillars of camouflage, propaganda, secret intelligence, and special forces. All forms of deception found an avid sponsor in Winston Churchill, who carried his enthusiasm for deceiving the enemy into World War II. Rankin vividly recounts such little-known episodes as the invention of camouflage by two French artist-soldiers, the creation of dummy airfields for the Germans to bomb during the Blitz, and the fabrication of an army that would supposedly invade Greece. Strategic deception would be key to a number of WWII battles, culminating in the massive misdirection that proved critical to the success of the D-Day invasion in 1944. Deeply researched and written with an eye for telling detail, A Genius for Deception shows how the British used craft and cunning to help win the most devastating wars in human history.

This research was undertaken to gain a better understanding of the relationship between deception and the urban environment, first to explore the power of deception when employed against U.S. forces in urban operations, and second to evaluate the potential value of deception when used by U.S. forces in urban operations.

June 1940. The Italians declared war on the British. Completely unprepared for war, the British had only 35,000 troops to defend Egypt. Opposing them, the Italian army in Libya numbered at least 215,000; in East Africa, the Italians could muster another 200,000 men against a meager 19,000 British and commonwealth troops positioned in the Sudan and East Africa. Out-numbered and unlikely to receive sizable reinforcements of men or desperately needed supplies, it is surprising that the British survived. But they did. How? They got creative. Under the leadership of General Archibald P. Wavell, the commander-in-chief of the Middle East, the British set out to greatly exaggerate the size of their forces, supply levels, and state of battle readiness. When their deceitful charades proved successful, Wavell turned trickery into a profession and created an entirely new agency dedicated to carrying out deception. “A” Force: The Origins of British Military Deception during the Second World War looks at how and why the British first employed deception in WWII. More specifically, it traces the development of the "A" Force organization - the first British organization to practice both tactical and strategic deception in the field. Formed in Cairo in 1941, "A" Force was headed by an unconventional colonel named Dudley Wrangel Clarke. Because there was no precedent for Clarke's "A" Force, it truly functioned on a trial-and-error basis. The learning curve was steep, but Clarke was up for the challenge. By the Battle of El Alamein, British deception had reach maturity. Moreover, it was there that the deceptionists established the deception blueprint later used by the London planners used to plan and execute Operation Bodyguard, the campaign to conceal Allied intentions regarding the well-known D-day landing at Normandy. In contrast to earlier deception histories that have tended to focus on Britain’s later deception coups (Bodyguard), thus giving the impression that London masterminded Britain’s deception efforts, this work clearly shows that British deception was forged much earlier in the deserts of Africa under the leadership of Dudley Clarke, not London. Moreover, it was born not out of opportunity, but out of sheer desperation. A” Force explores an area of deception history that has often been neglected. While older studies and documentaries focused on the D-day deception campaign and Britain’s infamous double-agents, this work explores the origins of Britain’s deception activities to reveal how the British became such masterful deceivers.

A thoroughly updated revision of the first comprehensive overview of intelligence designed for both the student and the general reader, "Silent Warfare" is an insider s guide to a shadowy, often misunderstood world. Leading intelligence scholars Abram N. Shulsky and Gary J. Schmitt clearly explain such topics as the principles of collection, analysis, counterintelligence, and covert action, and their interrelationship with policymakers and democratic values. This new edition takes account of the expanding literature in the field of intelligence and deals with the consequences for intelligence of vast recent changes in telecommunication and computer technology the new information age. It also reflects the world s strategic changes since the end of the Cold War. This landmark book provides a valuable framework for understanding today s headlines, as well as the many developments likely to come in the real world of the spy."