Churchill’s Wizards, by Nicholas Rankin
Deception plays a large part in war, just as feinting plays a large part in sport. The British excel at it, and used it with much success in both the 20th century’s world wars, particularly in the second. That war’s conspiracy theorists are fond of suggesting even more deceptions than did in fact take place; luckily, there are now two sound history books by which they can be confuted. If a wartime deception is not mentioned either in Michael Howard’s Strategic Deception of 1990 or in Thaddeus Holt’s The Deceivers of 2004, it is hardly likely that it happened: useful sticks with which to beat scaremongers.
Churchill’s Wizards forms an anecdotal appendage to these two books, with the storyline carried back to cover the first world war, in which several other large deceptive schemes succeeded.
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