11 Military deception during World War II

The Benson House, listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Wading River Radio Station, is a three-story, red-shingled wood-frame home in Wading River, New York, situated on the North Shore of Long Island, on a 150-foot-high (46 m) bluff overlooking Long Island Sound. From 1942 until 1945 it housed an important World War II counterintelligence operation, designed to deceive Germany and Japan about Allied war plans.

Bodyguard of Lies is a 1975 non-fiction book written by Anthony Cave Brown, his first major historical work. Named for a wartime quote of Winston Churchill, it is a narrative account of Allied military deception operations during the Second World War. The British and American governments resisted Brown's attempts to research the book. Many of the topics were still classified and he was denied access to British war records. The material in the book is predominantly based on oral testimony as well as some American records, declassified toward the end of Brown's research.

Operation Bodyguard was the code name for a World War II deception plan employed by the Allied states before the 1944 invasion of northwest Europe. The plan was intended to mislead the German high command as to the time and place of the invasion. The plan contained several operations, and culminated in the tactical surprise over the Germans during the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) and delayed German reinforcements to the region for some time afterwards.

The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War, by Thaddeus Holt, is a 2004 historical account of Allied military deception during the Second World War. The book focuses primarily on the work of Dudley Clarke in the Middle East, John Bevan in London, Newman Smith in Washington, and Peter Fleming in the Far East, detailing their work in creating strategic and tactical deceptions for the Allied forces.

The Ghost Army was a United States Army tactical deception unit during World War II officially known as the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops. The 1100-man unit was given a unique mission within the Allied Army: to impersonate other Allied Army units to deceive the enemy. From a few months after D-Day, when they landed in France, until the end of the war, they put on a "traveling road show" utilizing inflatable tanks, sound trucks, fake radio transmissions, scripts and pretence. They staged more than 20 battlefield deceptions, often operating very close to the front lines.

The Ghost Army is a 2013 American documentary about the United States Army 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, produced and directed by Rick Beyer.

The London Controlling Section (LCS) was a secret department established in September 1941, under Oliver Stanley, with a mandate to coordinate Allied strategic military deception during World War II. The LCS was formed within the Joint Planning Staff at the offices of the War Cabinet, which was presided over by Winston Churchill as Prime Minister.

The British Middle East Command Camouflage Directorate organised major deception operations for Middle East Command in the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War. It provided camouflage during the Siege of Tobruk; a dummy railhead at Misheifa, and the largest of all, Operation Bertram, the army-scale deception for the decisive battle of El Alamein in October 1942. The successful deception was praised publicly by Winston Churchill.

A paradummy is a military deception device first used in World War II, intended to imitate a drop of paratroop attackers. This can cause the enemy to shift forces or fires unnecessarily, or lure enemy troops into staged ambushes.

R Force was a British deception force during World War II that consisted of armoured vehicles, field engineers and a wireless unit. During Operation Fortitude it attempted to exaggerate the strength of Allied forces in Britain, and deceive German intelligence about Allied intentions. Later it performed a similar role during the fighting in Western Europe in 1944–45. It was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel David Strangeways.

Starfish sites were large-scale night-time decoys created during the Blitz to simulate burning British cities. The aim was to divert German night bombers from their intended targets so they would drop their ordnance over the countryside. The sites were an extension of Colonel John Turner's decoy programme for airfields and factories. Following the bombing, and near destruction, of Coventry in November 1940, Turner was tasked with creating decoys for seven major cities.