Macabre success story

Any bright schoolchild could tell, from a glance at his or her atlas, where the Allies were going to land next, after they had conquered Tunis in 1943: it would have to be Sicily. The deception service persuaded the German highest command that Sicily was only the cover for an attack on southern Greece, after which the Balkans could be rolled up. Hitler was always nervous about the Balkans, from which his armaments industry got the bulk of its chrome and, more importantly, his armed forces half their oil; the trick worked.

Its main plank lay in the floating ashore on the coast of south-west Spain of a body dressed as a major in the Royal Marines, bearing, in a briefcase chained to his belt, letters from General Nye to General Alexander and from Lord Louis Mountbatten to General Eisenhower, from hints in which the Germans were to infer — and did infer — all that the deceivers wanted.