The National Archives
Education
World War II
WO 204/7977
These photographs come from an official report into the use of deception in the North African campaign.
There were many other examples of deception. Other examples included dummy tents, dummy water reservoirs and even dummy soldiers operated by wires!
North Africa was a key battleground in WW2. From 1940-42 British Empire forces fought against German and Italian forces to control the area. The decisive battle came in October 1942 at El Alamein in Egypt. British commander General Montgomery built up a large force of troops and equipment to attack the Germans and drive them out of Egypt. One of the main attacks by Montgomerys forces was to take place at the northern end of the battle area. As a result, his forces created large numbers of fake storage dumps, camps, tanks and other features to make the Germans think the British were building up their forces in the south.
The battle began on October 23rd 1942 and lasted 12 days. It resulted in a major victory for the British 8th Army. It was the first decisive defeat of German forces in WW2.
The main aim of the deception measures was to disguise the actual build up of forces taking place and also to make the Germans think that forces and supplies were being built up in the wrong area of the battle zone. From the air, it would be very difficult to tell that these dummy pieces of equipment were not the real thing.
Deception was found to be a very effective tactic in this battle, and it was used many times elsewhere. The Allies invested a huge amount of effort in deception measures in the run up to the D-Day invasion of France in June 1944.
Use this table to write your report.
