Ops (B) facts for kids
Ops (B) was a secret planning group in the United Kingdom during World War II. It was set up in April 1943 to help the Allies trick the German army. Its main job was to make the Germans believe the Allies would attack in different places than they actually planned. This helped keep German soldiers busy and draw out their air force, the Luftwaffe, so Allied planes could fight them.
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How Ops (B) Started
In March 1943, General Frederick E. Morgan was put in charge of planning for Allied attacks in Northwest Europe. His orders from the top Allied leaders said he needed a "clever plan to trick and hide" their real intentions. This was to keep German forces in Western Europe and make their air force come out to fight. At this time, the big invasion of France was put off until 1944. The main Allied attacks that year were planned for Southern Europe. So, General Morgan's job was to help keep the enemy away from the real fighting.
A group called the London Controlling Section was in charge of all deception plans across the war. Its leader, Colonel John Bevan, convinced General Morgan to create a special deception team. This team, called Ops (B), was set up in April 1943. Colonel John Jervis-Read became its first leader. The idea for Ops (B) came from the success of another deception group, 'A' Force, led by Dudley Clarke in the Mediterranean. Ops (B) started with limited resources.
Ops (B) was meant to focus on physical tricks, like fake armies. Other groups handled double agents, who were spies pretending to work for the Germans but secretly working for the Allies. So, only one intelligence officer, Major Roger Fleetwoord-Hesketh, was assigned to Ops (B) to connect with the double agent committee. Two American officers, Lieutenant Colonel Percy Lash and Major Melvin Brown, also joined the team temporarily.
Operation Cockade
The first big job for Ops (B) was Operation Cockade. This plan was designed to make the Germans think the Allies would invade France and Norway. The goal was to distract them from the Balkans, where the Allies wanted to attack. However, Cockade was not very successful.
Operation Cockade included three main parts in 1943. They pretended to threaten invasions in Norway, Boulogne, and Brest. The most important part was Operation Starkey. This involved a large bombing campaign before a fake invasion across the English Channel. But the Germans did not react. They already believed that the Allies would focus their attacks on the Mediterranean that year.
Because Cockade didn't work well, the Allies decided that Ops (B) should be the main group in charge of all deception plans in Western Europe. Before this, many different groups had tried to do deception, with mixed results.
Operation Bodyguard
After Operation Cockade, Ops (B) was supposed to create the deception plans for Operation Overlord, which was the real invasion of Normandy. But because Ops (B) didn't have enough people, the London Controlling Section ended up doing most of the planning.
In January 1944, a new leader was needed for Ops (B). Noel Wild, who had worked with Dudley Clarke's 'A' Force, took over from Jervis-Read. Jervis-Read became Wild's second-in-command. Wild completely changed how the department worked. He split it into two parts: Operations and Intelligence. Jervis-Read led the Operations part, and Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Fleetwood-Hesketh led the Intelligence part. New members joined, including an MI5 officer and Hesketh's brother.
With more people and resources, Ops (B) could now plan the local details for the big deception plan covering the Normandy landings, called Operation Bodyguard. Wild started planning Operation Fortitude. This part of Bodyguard was meant to convince the Germans that the Allies would attack Norway and the Pas de Calais region in France, instead of Normandy. In January 1944, Ops (B) also joined the Twenty Committee. This group controlled all the double agents in Britain and Western Europe. From then on, Ops (B) worked with the agents' handlers to create the fake information sent to the Germans.
On February 26, General Eisenhower gave out the Fortitude Directive. This document explained who was responsible for carrying out the North and South parts of the Fortitude plan. The Scottish Command handled Fortitude North, and the 21st Army Group handled Fortitude South. Ops (B) was in charge of the special ways of sending out fake information for both plans.
Field Marshal Montgomery, the head of the 21st Army Group, brought in David Strangeways. Strangeways was another expert from 'A' Force. He was put in charge of a group called R Force, whose job was to make the Fortitude deception happen. Strangeways quickly disagreed with Ops (B)'s plans and rewrote a large part of Fortitude South. During this time, the Ops (B) Operations team mostly acted as messengers between the groups working on Fortitude North and South. This was to make sure both plans sent out consistent messages. However, the Intelligence part of Ops (B) was fully responsible for the information sent by double agents. This meant a lot of communication between Ops (B) and R Force.
In May, the Operations Section got four new members, three Americans and one Englishman.
After the Invasion
On July 20, after the Normandy invasion, control of Fortitude South was given back to Ops (B). Wild decided to split Ops (B) into two groups. One group, led by Jervis-Read, moved to France to manage plans there. Wild kept the rest of the team in London to handle operations and planning in the UK. In September, the main Allied headquarters moved to Versailles, France. Ops (B)'s American staff went home. Wild moved most of the team to Versailles, leaving Sam Hood in charge in London.
In June, Ops (B) started working on Fortitude South II. This plan created a new fake American army group (SUSAG) to replace the previous fake group (FUSAG) that had threatened Calais. Ops (B) wanted the Germans to believe that the Allies had moved parts of FUSAG to France and planned to defeat Germany in Normandy. But Strangeways again disagreed with the plan and rewrote it. In the end, SUSAG was created but never used. FUSAG continued to pretend to threaten Calais.
Impact of Ops (B)
From January to February 1944, and from July onwards, Noel Wild had a lot of power over deception and misinformation in Western Europe. However, people still debate how much Ops (B) helped make Operation Bodyguard successful. Wild himself was sometimes criticized, and Strangeways often disagreed with Wild, even rewriting his plans. Strangeways and others found problems with the Bodyguard plan as it was first outlined by Ops (B) and the London Controlling Section. He pushed hard for the plan to be rewritten to his ideas.
See also
- List of Ops (B) staff
