Issue 19 | June 2019
D-DAY DECEPTION: A WEB OF WINNING LIES Alan Spence explores the role of military deception in the run up to D-Day.
L: General Bernard Law Montgomery. R: Meyrick Edward Clifton James, in the guise of General Montgomery (coloured by Jecinci).
General Montgomery (“Monty”) was famously a staunch non-drinker and non-smoker, but he’d had quite a few swigs from a bottle of gin he’d managed to smuggle onto Churchill’s private plane at RAF Northolt on his way to Gibraltar to meet with the Governor Sir Ralph Eastwood. Not wanting him to make a bad impression on arrival, Monty’s staff insisted the pilot circle for an hour or so whilst they coaxed their man into better shape before landing. Later, at a reception hosted by the Governor, Monty was again less than discreet when some other guests heard him mention a forthcoming amphibious invasion of France from the Mediterranean – and then there was talk of him being spotted secretly drinking. Gibraltar behind him, Monty and his party flew on to Algiers for meetings with General Maitland Wilson, Supreme Commander Mediterranean, with whom he made several public appearances. But talk of illicit drinking followed him to Algiers and
his handlers decided to take no more chances, bundling him on to a plane to Cairo where he was hidden safely away until well after D-Day. Yes, you’ve got it (probably from the beginning, even if you’ve never heard the story before!) – it wasn’t the real Monty. But the jury remains out on whether the Germans thought that at the time. The would-be Monty was a prewar actor born in Australia named Meyrick Edward Clifton James and now of the Army Pay Corps - with an extraordinary physical likeness to Monty. He didn’t, though, share his drinking habits which potentially could have blown the plot. British Intelligence figured an apparent quick spin to the Mediterranean and back shortly before the real D-Day could be a valuable feint in an area where enemy spies were active. After all, why would he be down there if he was about to lead an invasion army across the Channel? And judging by Monty’s comments
made (deliberately) at the Governor’s reception, the invasion might be coming on France’s Mediterranean Coast. Did this ruse work? Unclear, but it got traction up the German command chain, sowing some confusion with some German officials thinking it was Monty himself, though regarding it as some sort of deception. The Monty “Double” operation, code-named Copperhead, was one of the more entertaining deception plans which came under Operation Bodyguard, the over-arching plan established in 1943 and authorised on Christmas Day that year to develop and perpetrate the ultimate Allied deception of the war to conceal the timing, location and thrust of the invasion now planned for Normandy. To achieve this, they set out to persuade the Germans that the invasion would come in the Pas de Calais area of northern France. This was, in any case, a logical place which German commanders and Hitler himself already believed would be the 13
