The D-Day Landings of June 6, 1944 is characterized by military genuis, not merely because of military might, but due also in large part to the successful use of intelligence on the part of Allies and the failure of counterintelligence on the part of the Axis. The proper use of military intelligence permitted the Allies to take the Germans by complete surprise and in the process defeat them. It was this intelligence that gave historians the right to refer to D-Day as the beginning of the end of World War II. The Followig discussion examines the intricate role of intelligence in the defeat of the Germans with respect to the D-Day Landings on June 6, 1944.D-Day, June 6, 1944D-Day is the term commonly used to refer to the start of the Normandy Invasion by the Allied forces during the Second World War.
The Battle of Normandy was codenamed Operation Overload. Operation Overload remains the largest sea invasion in world history with approximately 156,000 entering France’s coast of Normandy via the English Channel from the UK. The Battle of Normandy commenced with glider and parachute landings in the dark of night with naval and air bombardments followed by further landings at dawn.[1]By dawn on June 6, 1944 the Normandy coast was occupied with appoximately 5,000 figher ships including 23 cruisers, 9 battleships, 104 destroyers and 71 varieties of landing sea craft comprisng transport for troops, merhantmen and mine sweepers.[2] By 5:30 a.
m. all of the Normandy coast stretching from Caen to Vierville-sur-Mer was occupied by the Allies’ armada. That day the only German response consisted of three torpedo boats that sank the Svenner, a Norwegian destroyer.[3] The Allied naval attack which started at 5.
50 a.m. detonated enemy minefields and destroyed blockhouses and many German military positions.[4] By nightfall the Allied forces had outdone the Germans, but the battle would rage on.[5]The Battle for Normandy would not go smoothly due in large part to the German’s relentless spirit. They would hold their ground and the battle would rage on for sex weeks until finally the Germans were defeated.
The success was attributed to the military genius of four years of planning, a plan that involved deception and double cross, concepts brought together by allied intelligence units.The Intelligence Behind the D-Day LandingCodename Neptune was the name given to the assault phase of Operation Overload.[6] This assault would not have been successful had it not been facilitated by a strategic plan which had been characterized by deception and double cross. This deception strategy was based on an age-old concept explained by Sun Tzu as follows:“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using force, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the adversary believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold our baits to entice the adversary, feign disorder, and crush him.
”[7]The deception element of the D-Day invasions encompassed thousands of active participants and endured for months contiuing even after the assault was launched.[8] Many historians agree that the deceptive strategy of the Allied forces was the difference between success and failure.[9] Operation bobyguard and the British Ultra dobule cross strategy were key intelligence deception strategies.a) Operation BodyguardThe catalyst for Operation Bodyguard lay behind the actual coastline comprising Hitler’s Atlantic Wall and the Allies’ belief that Germany could not possibly occupy the entire coast. Operation Bodyguard was calculated to exploit this weakness and envisioned a plan that would lure the Germans to the Atlantic Wall with a view to having them spread themselves out thinly. By taking this approach the Allies would improve the chances of success in the battle for Normandy.
[10]Codename Bodyguard finds its origins in a 1943 speech delivered by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in which he said:“In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”[11]In tribute to this observation Operation Bodyguard was designed to achieve two primary goals. One gaol would be to lure the Germans away from the location of the planned attack, and the second goal was to lead the Germans to contemplate that Normandy was just an aside and merely incidental to another larger attack planned much later.[12]Intelligence set about misleading Germany’s Adolf Hitler that the Allied strategy involced an invations that would commence sometime in the Spring of 1944 combining British, Russian and American forces via an attack through Norway. Another deceptive move was leading the Germans to believe that the Allies were focused on the a repeat of a failed 1943 attempt to inflitrate the Gustav Line and enter Greece and Balkans.
Moreover, the Allies led the Germans to believe that any invasion of France would focus on the Pas de Calais and that it would not take place prior to July 1944.[13]These deceptions were made possible by the Allies’ ability to exploit Hitler’s obsessions. He was convinced that Germany’s defeat in the First World War was a direct result of the country’s navy being tied up around Germany. Germany’s rapid invasion of Norway in 1940 paid homage to his belief. Also, the stationing of large numbers of troops and militia in the region backed up this conclusion.
[14] Hitler was also of the opinion that the Allies would launch a major attack via the Adriatic and Greece.[15] It was also well known among the Allies that Hitler had a personal concern and interest in the Pas de Calais and expected the invasion to originate in this region.[16]Intelligence units, Operations Fortitude and Zeppelin were divisions under Operation Bodyguard that made it possible to moniter Hitler’s obsesions. Fortitude North devised a scheme whereby the Nazis falsely anticipated a joint attack by the English, Americans and Russians in Norway.
Its sole purpose was to divert German forces northward and as a result away from the intended attack on Normandy. The Germans fortified their might in Norway in anticipation of this falsely anticiapted attack.[17]Fortitude South operated on intelligence that the Germans thought it likely that the Allies would not attempt a sea invasion via the Englisn Channel because of its turbulent waters. Further, intelligence indicated that any attempt by the Allies to cross the Channel would take its shortest route which were from Dover to Pas de Calais.[18]Another deceptive strategy under Operation Bodygaurd gave way to FUSAG which was codenamed Quicksilver.
It was described as the::“…the largest, most elaborate, most carefully-planned, most vital, and most successful of all the Allied deception operations. It made full use of the years of experience gained in every branch of the deceptive art -- visual deception and misdirection, the deployment of dummy landing craft, aircraft, and paratroops, fake lighting schemes, radio deception, sonic devices, and ultimately a whole fictitious army group.”[19]Quicksilver contained a total of 50 diviisions with at least one million men. Quicksilter’s aim was to continue to leak false intelligence to Germany that a major attack via Calais was underway and thereby leaving the impression that Normandy was no more than a mere diversion.[20]False intelligence via FUSAG’s wireless transmissions set the plan in motion.[21] The false wireless orders of battle plans were further exemplified by the deployment of dummy craft with the express purpose that German intelligence would detect them.
[22] The combined intelligence efforts of Fortitude South and Fortitude North forced German troops capable of mass devastation to deploy troops away from Normandy. By the time the Germans took Normandy seriously, the battle had already been lost to them.[23]Operation Zeppelin was in response to Hitler’s obsession with the Balkans where his three major allies were. These allies were Bulgaria, Rumania and Hungary. Intelligence information revealed that these regions provided Hitler’s main oil supply and manpower.
[24] The Allies fed sufficient intelligence to Germany that these areas were planned for Allied invasion, although the Allies merely meant to create some trouble in these areas and never really intended an all out attack.[25] Complicating things for Hitler false intelligence reports orchestrated by Operation Zeppelin were leaked implying that an army under the leadership of General George S. Patton was in the process of attacking Trieste, in Italy.[26]These false intelligence leaks were entirely successfu.
The Germans deployed Field Marshal Erwin Rommel to Italy in response to Patton’s perceived attack and was eventually deployed to the Atlantic Wall when the Patton plan never came to fruition.[27] Overall in response to these false intelligence leaks the Germans moved additional forces from France and placed them in other areas erroneously thought to be at risk.[28]In short, the intelligence efforts by Operation Bodyguard which had come to a head by Spring of 1944 had achieved its goal of deception. Fortitude North resulted in large contingents of German troops and militia in Norway in anticipation of a non-existent attack by the Allies. Meanwhile Fortitude South had Hitler jealously protecting pas de Calais instead of Normandy and Operation Zeppelin created unrest in the Balkans with the false threat of an attack pending.
