Paul Addison
Gabbo & Bovril
Churchill’s Wizards: The British Genius for Deception 1914–1945
By Nicholas Rankin
Faber & Faber 466pp £25
‘In wartime’, Churchill told Stalin at Teheran, ‘truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.’ Discussing the preparations for the forthcoming cross-Channel invasion, the two warlords were agreed on the importance of plans to deceive the Germans about allied intentions. The key plan, the work of a secret circle of British officers who wrote the script, was FORTITUDE, an entirely fictitious operation accompanied by all the appropriate theatrical props: bogus wireless traffic, dummy tanks, landing craft and so on. A British Fourth Army in Scotland was to invade Norway. Another phantom force, the United States First Army Group supposedly under the command of General George Patton, was stationed in the south-east of England, apparently poised for an assault on the Pas de Calais. At the core of the conspiracy was a truly fantastic web of misinformation supplied to the Germans by Juan Pujol, a Spanish double agent originally known as BOVRIL but happily, and felicitously in view of the starring role he played, renamed GARBO.
It worked. Though practising deception themselves, and always aware that it would be used against them, the German High Command were led to believe that the Normandy landings were a feint intended to draw German forces away from the main allied objective, the Pas de Calais. By the time they
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
When @djbduncan notices the text for a literary jigsaw puzzle had been written by a former colleague, his head spins. A wild surmise. Are jigsaws REF-able?
Dennis Duncan - The W Factor
Dennis Duncan: The W Factor
literaryreview.co.uk
In an effort to scold drinkers, Victorian temperance societies furiously marked every drinking establishment with a red X on city maps. It was a spectacular case of propaganda backfiring.
@foxtosser explores the history of drink maps
Edward Brooke-Hitching - From Beer Street to Gin Lane
Edward Brooke-Hitching: From Beer Street to Gin Lane - Drink Maps in Victorian Britain by Kris Butler
literaryreview.co.uk
How did a workers’ insurance agent who died of tuberculosis at the age of forty become a global literary icon?
@MortenHoiJensen on Kafka's metamorphosis
Morten Høi Jensen - Paranoid Humanoid
Morten Høi Jensen: Paranoid Humanoid - Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka by Karolina Watroba; Kafka: Making o...
literaryreview.co.uk