Fortitude: The D-Day Deception Campaign

Now, for the first time, the classified official history of the entire operation, written by Roger Hesketh as Allied counter-intelligence experts were gathering the evidence of what had been accomplished in early 1945, has been declassified and released. In Fortitude the intricate details of this fantastic diversionary scheme—replete with hundreds of bogus agent reports, an entire U.S. Army Group that did not truly exist, false radio signals, and inflatable tanks—are disclosed with the type of immediacy that can only come from first-hand material.

Behind the astonishing success of D-Day was the most sophisticated deception scheme ever devised. Its code name was Fortitude, and its objective was to persuade the enemy that the long-awaited landings would take place in the Pas-de-Calais, and that any attack in Normandy would be nothing more than a diversionary feint that could be safely ignored. The Nazis relied on aerial reconnaissance, wireless intercepts, news from London based diplomats, and reports from the Abwehr s extensive network of agents to predict the time and place of the Allied offensive, and much of this information was helpfully supplied by Roger Hesketh s team of deception specialists, who coordinated the most complex conjuring trick of the century.

Now, for the first time, the classified official history of the entire operation, written by Roger Hesketh as Allied counter-intelligence experts were gathering the evidence of what had been accomplished in early 1945, has been declassified and released. In Fortitude the intricate details of this fantastic diversionary scheme—replete with hundreds of bogus agent reports, an entire U.S. Army Group that did not truly exist, false radio signals, and inflatable tanks—are disclosed with the type of immediacy that can only come from first-hand material.

Foreign Affairs - Eliot A. Cohen

Nothing less than the official history of the D-Day deception campaign...a superbly written insider's account.

Roger Hesketh, was director of the sub-section of the Fortitude operation that was devoted to spreading misinformation during World War II. Fortitude remained highly classified throughout his lifetime, and when he died in 1987 the names of the double agents who had participated in many operation still had not been disclosed.