Deceptions of World War II

From camouflage techniques to deception tactics

By Peter Darman

Published by Exisle Publishing
RRP $39.99 in hard cover | ISBN 9781921497957

This book, first published in the UK in 2017, is now published locally for the first time. It is fascinating on many levels.

Readers will be familiar with several of the deceptions covered in the book, for example, Operation Mincemeat, the objective of which was to deceive the Germans into believing that the planned Allied landings in southern Europe would take place in Greece rather than the intended target of Sicily.

It was an elaborate plan involving an unfortunate corpse, false identity papers and forged documents. The wallet with the corpse even included a photograph of a young woman, ostensibly the man’s fiancée and angry letters from his creditors. The plan, despite its flaws, worked. Hitler was convinced. Troops were diverted from Sicily.

In Australia, who knew such luminaries of the creative world as William Dobell and Max Dupain had turned their talents to camouflage efforts to fool the Japanese.

This book reveals the inner workings of many incredible, ingenious and decisive acts of military cunning during World War II. 

There is no doubt critical advantage was gained through deception – the projection of power in areas of weakness, camouflage, manipulation, and the transmission of false intentions. 

Operation Hackney in the Pacific, where an Australian cargo fleet loaded with empty packing and used fuel drums supplied the illusion, from the air, of a full brigade’s camps.

Not to mention, of course, the British effort to project a fighting force in North Africa where none in fact existed and the flawless Japanese plan to conceal an entire fleet on its way to Pearl Harbour.

And then there was the enigmatic double agent Garbo, who established a fictitious network of spies in Britain and then fed Germany a stream of false information.

This book is filled with ingenious acts of deception. How much these acts contributed to victory for the Allied cause is hard to measure. Nevertheless they demonstrate a capacity for ingenuity not always understood in the theatre of war.