THE ARMY THAT NEVER WAS

A well-researched military history about how getting your enemy to look in the wrong place can be the key to victory.

Sun Tzu once wrote, “All warfare is based on deception.” This concept formed the basis of Operation Fortitude, a strange undertaking that played a pivotal role in the D-Day landings of World War II. Cambridge historian Downing, author of The World at the Brink, Spies in the Sky, and Churchill’s War Lab, among other works of military history, draws on recently released documents and ably draws all the narrative threads together. The aim was to make the Germans think that the invasion would take place in Pas-de-Calais, not Normandy. The Allies built fake tanks, trucks, and airplanes from wood and canvas; troops marched back and forth, pretending to be a large army, and soldiers pushed out radio signals. The most convincing piece, however, was the “commander,” Gen. George S. Patton. He had established himself as a brilliant tactician but had caused serious problems for Dwight Eisenhower when he slapped several American soldiers suffering from battle trauma. Threatened with exile, he threw himself into the new role with gusto, making speeches and swaggering around with his pearl-handled revolvers and polished helmet. Even when the invasion was underway, some German generals still believed that Normandy was a diversion and the real attack was yet to come at Pas-de-Calais. Downing has a good time with his cast of colorful characters, but he sometimes seems surprised that the ruse was so successful: “A small group of men and women in a few top-secret planning departments, supported by a few hundred model-and-dummy-tank, aircraft-and-landing-craft makers, several hundred signallers, a top American general and his staff…managed between them to keep a German army of 140,000 kicking their heels in the Pas de Calais.”

A remarkable war story told with clarity and wit.