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highest importance. It is generally acknowledged that the number of witting personnel should be minimized, even to the point of misleading your own forces. Professor R.V. Jones, with a keen eye of irony recounts one example where concern over security as well as uncertainty of success of a deception operation resulted in an unnecessary mobilization of forces. Citing an example from World War I, Jones writes (53):
| “ | [another feint took place in August 1916] ... "with the object of relieving pressure on the British front line by diverting German troops to prepare for a British invasion of North Belgium. Hall built up the intelligence picture for the Germans by providing clues that would lead them step by step to the desired conclusion. Besides carefully spread rumors, Hall arranged for signals to be sent to ships in the bogus code instructing them for their tasks in conveying the invasion fleet in the groups starting from Harwich, Dover, and the mouth of the Thames, where a fleet of monitors and tugs was being concentrated. As the final touch, he arranged for a bogus edition of the Daily Mail to be printed and withdrawn, allowing a few copies to be sent to Holland; some of these appeared to be of a later censored edition, the others uncensored. The censored copies had one item missing, of which the headline ran, "East Coast Ready. Great Military Preparations. Flat Bottom Boats," and the article reported the large concentration of troops in the eastern and southeastern counties. Can we see here the ancestor of the deception plan for D-Day in 1944?
The ruse was successful, and the Germans moved a large number of troops to the Belgian coast; but it had an awkward consequence. British agents began to report German troop movements, and our |
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